CN113812105A

CN113812105A - A transmission method, device and storage medium for uplink control information

Info

Publication number: CN113812105A
Application number: CN201980096328.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 黄海宁; 余政; 杨帆
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-09-30
Filing date: 2019-09-30
Publication date: 2021-12-17
Anticipated expiration: 2039-09-30
Also published as: CN113812105B; WO2021062791A1

Abstract

A transmission method, a device and a storage medium of uplink control information are provided, wherein the method comprises the following steps: when the first time domain resource corresponding to the first time frequency resource of the first UCI with the high priority partially overlaps or completely overlaps with the second time domain resource corresponding to the second time frequency resource of the second UCI with the low priority, the terminal device may compress the second HARQ codebook in the second UCI, and send the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device on the third time frequency resource. By sending the compressed second HARQ codebook to the network device instead of discarding the second HARQ codebook, the problem that the PDSCH corresponding to the second HARQ codebook needs to be retransmitted due to directly discarding the second HARQ codebook can be avoided on the premise of ensuring the delay and reliability requirements of the first UCI.

Description

Transmission method, device and storage medium of uplink control information

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method, an apparatus, and a storage medium for transmitting uplink control information.

Background

To better meet the increasing business demands, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is a fifth generation mobile communication system (5)^rdgeneration, 5G) and future mobile communication systems define a variety of services, such as: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC), and mass machine type communications (mtc).

For different services, how to achieve high reliability of data transmission is a relatively critical technology of 5G. In order to achieve high reliability of data transmission, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback mechanism may be generally used to ensure reliability of data transmission. The HARQ feedback mechanism is that the receiving end feeds back an Acknowledgement (ACK) to the transmitting end after successfully receiving data sent by the transmitting end, and feeds back a Negative Acknowledgement (NACK) to the transmitting end after unsuccessfully receiving data sent by the transmitting end. Since the HARQ feedback mechanism requests retransmission when data transmission fails, the reliability of data transmission can be ensured. Usually, the ACK or NACK is carried in Uplink Control Information (UCI).

In the prior art, a receiving end of data (as a transmitting end of feedback information) transmits feedback information (such as ACK or NACK) to the transmitting end of data on a certain resource. When resources corresponding to feedback information of different services conflict, the feedback information of one service is lost. For example, when the feedback resource of UCI of URLLC collides with the feedback resource of UCI of eMBB, the UCI of eMBB is directly discarded, and thus, the downlink throughput of eMBB is affected.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a transmission method, a transmission device and a storage medium of uplink control information, which are used for avoiding the influence on downlink throughput of corresponding services caused by directly discarding a second HARQ codebook as much as possible.

In a first aspect, the present application provides a method for transmitting uplink control information, where the method includes compressing a second HARQ codebook in a second UCI when a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time-frequency resource of the first UCI partially overlaps or completely overlaps a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time-frequency resource of the second UCI, and sending the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to a network device on a third time-frequency resource.

The method may be performed by a first communication device, which may be a terminal equipment, or a module, e.g. a chip, in the terminal equipment. The method performed by the terminal device is described as an example.

Based on the scheme, when the first time domain resource is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with the second time domain resource, the terminal device compresses the second HARQ codebook, and then sends the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device. That is, the second HARQ codebook is not directly discarded, which is helpful for avoiding the problem that the network device needs to retransmit all the Physical Downlink Shared Channels (PDSCHs) corresponding to the second HARQ codebook due to directly discarding the second HARQ codebook, thereby affecting the downlink throughput of the corresponding service. Moreover, the scheme can also guarantee the time delay requirement of the first UCI.

In one possible implementation, the terminal device may compress the second HARQ codebook of S bits into L bits. Wherein L is related to the bit number of the first UCI and the size of the third time frequency resource, S and L are positive integers, and S is an integer larger than L.

The present application exemplarily presents six possible implementations of compressing the second HARQ codebook of S bits into L bits as follows.

In the first implementation, the terminal device compresses, from the first bit of the second HARQ codebook, HARQ information of every M bits in the first M × L-1 bits of the S bits into HARQ information of 1 bit, compresses HARQ information of the last S-M × L-1 bits of the S bits into HARQ information of 1 bit,

indicating rounding up.

Further, optionally, the terminal device may perform a logical and operation on the M-bit HARQ information to obtain 1-bit HARQ information. Further, the logical and operation is also performed on the HARQ information of the last S-M × L-1 bit of the S bits, and 1-bit HARQ information is obtained. In this way, when the network device receives that the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is ACK, it can be determined that the data corresponding to the M-bit HARQ information corresponding to the compressed 1-bit HARQ information does not need to be retransmitted.

In the second implementation manner, the terminal device may divide the first 2 of the S bits^NEach 2 of (L-1)^NCompressing the HARQ information of the bits into HARQ information of 1 bit, and performing S-2 processing on the S bits^NCompressing (L-1) bit HARQ information into 1 bit HARQ information,

indicating rounding up,/indicating a division number.

Further, optionally, the terminal device may be 2^NAnd carrying out logical AND operation on the HARQ information of the bits to obtain the HARQ information of 1 bit. Further, the last S-2 in the S bit can be processed^NAnd performing logical AND operation on the (L-1) -bit HARQ information to obtain 1-bit HARQ information. Thus, when the network device receives that the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is ACK, it will correspondingly be 2^NThe data corresponding to the HARQ information of the bit does not need to be retransmitted. Therefore, 2 is formed by logical AND^NThe effect of compressing the HARQ information of bits to 1 bit is better.

And in the third implementation mode, the terminal equipment encodes the second HARQ codebook with S bits into L bits. For example, Reed-Muller (RM) matrix coding may be employed.

In the fourth implementation manner, the terminal device compresses the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bits of the second HARQ codebook into HARQ information of 1 bit.

Further, optionally, the terminal device performs a logical and operation on the HARQ information with (S-L +1) bits to obtain HARQ information with 1 bit.

Through the fourth implementation manner, when the compressed 1-bit HARQ information received by the network device is ACK, data corresponding to the corresponding (S-L +1) -bit HARQ information does not need to be retransmitted. In addition, in a scenario where the first UCI and the second HARQ codebook are cascaded and a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) corresponding to the first UCI and a PDCCH corresponding to the second UCI have different undetected rates, by compressing HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit in the second HARQ codebook into HARQ information of 1 bit, it is helpful to avoid a problem that when the last PDCCH corresponding to the second HARQ codebook is lost, the length of the second HARQ codebook is different from the length expected to be received by the network device, thereby causing a reception error of the network device. This is because the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit in the second HARQ codebook is compressed into HARQ information of 1 bit, and only the PDCCH corresponding to the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit is missed, which causes the length of the second HARQ codebook to be different from the length expected to be received by the network device, but the probability of the missed detection of the PDCCH corresponding to the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit is very low.

In the fifth implementation manner, the terminal device intercepts HARQ information of L bits from HARQ information of S bits. Through the fifth implementation mode, the efficiency of compressing the second HARQ codebook by the terminal equipment is improved, and the compression mode is simple. The problem that the network equipment receives errors due to the fact that the length of the second HARQ codebook is different from the length expected to be received by the network equipment when the last PDCCH corresponding to the second HARQ codebook is lost is solved; and thus the reliability of the first UCI transmission is not affected.

Implementation six, depending on whether the second HARQ codebook is based on CBG or based on CBG and TB, the following two cases may be divided.

In case a, the second HARQ codebook is a Code Block Group (CBG) based HARQ codebook.

Based on this scenario a, the terminal device may modify (modify may also be understood as converting, or determining) the CBG-based second HARQ codebook into a Transport Block (TB) -based second HARQ codebook.

Case B, the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based and TB-based HARQ codebook.

Based on this situation B, the terminal device may modify the CBG-based and TB-based second HARQ codebooks into a TB-based second HARQ codebook.

Through the sixth implementation mode, the second HARQ codebook based on the CBG is modified into the second HARQ codebook based on the TB, so that the bit number of the second HARQ codebook can be effectively reduced. When the second HARQ codebook is transmitted together with the first UCI, the smaller the number of bits of the second HARQ codebook, the smaller the influence on the first UCI.

In this application, five ways of determining the time frequency resource (i.e., the third time frequency resource) where the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI are transmitted are exemplarily given.

In a first manner, the third time-frequency resource is determined based on the index of the end symbol of the first time-domain resource and the index of the end symbol of the second time-domain resource.

Based on the first mode, the following two situations can be divided.

In case 1, the index of the end symbol of the first time domain resource is smaller than the index of the end symbol of the second time domain resource.

In this case 1, the third time-frequency resource is the first time-frequency resource.

In case 2, the index of the end symbol of the first time domain resource is greater than or equal to the index of the end symbol of the second time domain resource.

In this case 2, the third time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource including more resource elements in the first time-frequency resource and the second time-frequency resource.

In the second mode, the third time frequency resource is the first time frequency resource.

Based on the first and second manners, in a possible implementation manner, the terminal device concatenates the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI. The second HARQ codebook cascade (also called multiplexing) precedes the first UCI or the second HARQ codebook cascade follows the first UCI.

In a possible implementation manner, the terminal device may further determine, according to the bit number of the compressed second HARQ codebook, a fourth time-frequency resource carrying the compressed second HARQ codebook.

In a third manner, the third time-frequency resource may be determined based on whether the time-domain resource corresponding to the determined fourth time-frequency resource overlaps with the first time-domain resource of the first time-frequency resource, which may be as follows.

In case a, when the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with the first time domain resource of the first time frequency resource.

Based on the situation a, in a possible implementation manner, the terminal device concatenates the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI, and determines the third time-frequency resource according to the total bit number of the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI. Therefore, the time delay of the first UCI can be ensured, and the probability of transmitting the second HARQ codebook can be increased. Based on the situation a, in another possible implementation manner, the terminal device may send the compressed second HARQ codebook to the network device on a fifth time-frequency resource, and send the first UCI to the network device on the first time-frequency resource, where the fifth time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource that is not overlapped with the first time-frequency resource in the fourth time-frequency resource.

In case b, the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is not overlapped with the time domain resource of the first time frequency resource.

Based on the situation b, the terminal device sends a first UCI to the network device on a first time-frequency resource; and the terminal equipment sends the compressed second HARQ codebook to the network equipment on the fourth time-frequency resource.

And in the fourth mode, a new time-frequency resource is determined directly according to the compressed second HARQ codebook and the total bit number after the first UCI is cascaded, and the new time-frequency resource can be determined as a third time-frequency resource.

In a fifth mode, the third time frequency resource is determined based on a situation that the first time domain resource of the first time frequency resource is partially overlapped with the second time domain resource of the second time frequency resource.

Based on the fifth mode, the terminal device sends the compressed second HARQ codebook to the network device on a sixth time-frequency resource, and sends the first UCI to the network device on the first time-frequency resource, where the sixth time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource that is not overlapped with the first time-frequency resource in the second time-frequency resource.

Based on the fifth mode, the terminal device may determine a ratio of the time domain resource where the second time domain resource overlaps with the first time domain resource to the second time domain resource, and if the ratio is less than or equal to the first preset value, may determine a time frequency resource that does not overlap with the first time frequency resource in the second time frequency resource as a sixth time frequency resource.

In another possible implementation manner, the number of bits of the second HARQ codebook is greater than the second preset value.

In a second aspect, the present application provides a method for transmitting uplink control information, where the method includes receiving an uplink channel from a terminal device on a third time-frequency resource, where the uplink channel carries first uplink control information UCI and a second UCI, and when a first time-domain resource corresponding to the first time-frequency resource of the first UCI partially overlaps or completely overlaps with a second time-domain resource corresponding to the second time-frequency resource of the second UCI, decompressing a compressed second HARQ codebook of HARQ (hybrid automatic repeat request) in the second UCI.

The method may be performed by a second communication device, which may be a network device, or a module, such as a chip, in a network device. The following description will be given taking as an example that the second communication apparatus is a network device.

Based on the scheme, the network device receives the first UCI and the second UCI from the terminal device on the third time-frequency resource, and when the first time-domain resource corresponding to the first time-frequency resource of the first UCI is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with the second time-domain resource corresponding to the second time-frequency resource of the second UCI, the network device may decompress the second HARQ codebook compressed in the second UCI to obtain the second HARQ codebook in the second UCI. In this way, the network device may determine whether to retransmit the PDSCH corresponding to the second HARQ codebook according to the second HARQ codebook. That is, the network device may not need to retransmit all PDSCHs corresponding to the second HARQ codebook, and only needs to retransmit the corresponding PDSCH whose HARQ information is NACK.

In one possible implementation, the L bits of the compressed second HARQ codebook may be decompressed into S bits, where S and L are positive integers, and S is an integer greater than L, where L is related to the number of bits of the first UCI and the size of the third time-frequency resource.

Further, optionally, the HARQ information of each of the first L-1 bits of the L bits may be decompressed into M-bit HARQ information, and the last bit of the L bits may be decompressed into S-M × L-1 bit HARQ information, starting from the first bit of the compressed second HARQ codebook, wherein,

indicating rounding up.

In one possible implementation manner, the HARQ information of each bit of the first L-1 bits in the L bits is decompressed into M-bit HARQ information, which may specifically be: one bit with a value of 1 is decompressed into M bits with a value of 1, and one bit with a value of 0 is decompressed into M bits with a value of 0. Further, decompressing the last bit of the L bits into S-M × (L-1) bits of HARQ information may specifically be: decompressing the last bit with value of 1 into S-M (L-1) bits with value of 1, and decompressing the last bit with value of 0 into S-M (L-1) bits with value of 0.

In one possible implementation, the L-bit compressed second HARQ codebook may be decoded into S bits.

In one possible implementation, if the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook, it may be determined that the CBG-based second HARQ codebook is modified to a TB-based second HARQ codebook. If the second HARQ codebook is based on CBG and TB HARQ codebooks; determining that the CBG-based and TB-based second HARQ codebooks are modified to a TB-based second HARQ codebook.

In a possible implementation manner, when an index of an end symbol of a first time domain resource is smaller than an index of an end symbol of a second time domain resource, the third time frequency resource is the first time frequency resource.

In a third aspect, the present application provides a communication apparatus having a function of implementing the terminal device in the first aspect or the network device in the second aspect. The function can be realized by hardware, and can also be realized by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more units or modules corresponding to the above functions.

With reference to the third aspect, in a possible implementation manner, the communication apparatus may be a terminal device, or a component, such as a chip or a chip system or a circuit, that is available for the terminal device, and then the communication apparatus may include: a transceiver and a processor. The processor may be configured to enable the communication apparatus to perform the respective functions of the terminal device shown above, and the transceiver is configured to enable communication between the communication apparatus and a network device and other terminal devices and the like.

When a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time-frequency resource of a first UCI is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time-frequency resource of a second UCI, a processor is used for compressing a second HARQ codebook in the second UCI; the transceiver is configured to send the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device on the third time-frequency resource.

In a possible implementation manner, the processor is specifically configured to compress the second HARQ codebook with S bits into L bits, where S and L are positive integers, and S is an integer greater than L, and L is related to the number of bits of the first UCI and the size of the third time-frequency resource.

In one possible implementation, the processor is specifically configured to slave the second processorCompressing HARQ information of every M bits into HARQ information of 1 bit, starting with the first bit of the HARQ codebook, wherein,

indicating rounding up.

In a possible implementation manner, the processor is specifically configured to perform a logical and operation on the M-bit HARQ information to obtain 1-bit HARQ information.

In one possible implementation, the processor is specifically configured to encode the S-bit second HARQ codebook into L bits.

When the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook, the processor is specifically configured to modify the CBG-based second HARQ codebook into a TB-based second HARQ codebook.

When the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook and a TB-based HARQ codebook, the processor is specifically configured to modify the CBG-based HARQ codebook and the TB-based HARQ codebook into a TB-based HARQ codebook.

In a possible implementation manner, when the index of the end symbol of the first time domain resource is smaller than the index of the end symbol of the second time domain resource, the third time frequency resource is the first time frequency resource.

In one possible implementation manner, the processor is further configured to concatenate the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI.

In a possible implementation manner, the processor is further configured to determine, according to the number of bits of the compressed second HARQ codebook, a fourth time-frequency resource carrying the compressed second HARQ codebook.

When the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with the first time domain resource of the first time frequency resource, the processor is further configured to cascade the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI; and determining a third time-frequency resource according to the compressed second HARQ codebook and the total bit number of the first UCI.

With reference to the third aspect, in another possible implementation manner, the communication apparatus may be a network device, or a component, such as a chip or a chip system or a circuit, that is available for a network device, and then the communication apparatus may include: a transceiver and a processor. The processor may be configured to enable the communication apparatus to perform the respective functions of the network devices shown above, and the transceiver is configured to enable communication between the communication apparatus and other network devices and terminal devices, and the like.

The transceiver is configured to receive an uplink channel from the terminal device on the third time-frequency resource, where the uplink channel carries the first uplink control information UCI and the second UCI. When a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time frequency resource of the first UCI is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time frequency resource of the second UCI, the processor is configured to decompress a compressed second hybrid automatic repeat request HARQ codebook in the second UCI.

In a possible implementation manner, the processor is specifically configured to decompress the L-bit compressed second HARQ codebook into S bits, where S and L are positive integers, and S is an integer greater than L, where L is related to the number of bits of the first UCI and the size of the third time-frequency resource.

Further optionally, the processor is specifically configured to, starting from a first bit of the compressed second HARQ codebook, decompress HARQ information of each of first L-1 bits of the L bits into M-bit HARQ information, and decompress a last bit of the L bits into S-M × L-1 bit HARQ information, wherein,

indicating rounding up.

In one possible implementation, the processor is specifically configured to: one bit with a value of 1 is decompressed into M bits with a value of 1, and one bit with a value of 0 is decompressed into M bits with a value of 0. Further, the HARQ information that the processor is specifically configured to decompress the last bit of the L bits into S-M × L-1 bits may specifically be: decompressing the last bit with value of 1 into S-M (L-1) bits with value of 1, and decompressing the last bit with value of 0 into S-M (L-1) bits with value of 0.

In one possible implementation, the processor is specifically configured to decode the L-bit compressed second HARQ codebook into S-bits.

In a possible implementation manner, if the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook, the processor is specifically configured to determine that the CBG-based second HARQ codebook is modified to a TB-based second HARQ codebook.

In another possible implementation manner, if the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook and a TB-based HARQ codebook, the processor is specifically configured to determine that the CBG-based HARQ codebook and the TB-based HARQ codebook are modified into a TB-based HARQ codebook.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver may be a stand-alone receiver, a stand-alone transmitter, a transceiver with integrated transceiver functionality, or an interface circuit. Optionally, the communication device may also include a memory, which may be coupled to the processor, that retains program instructions and data necessary for the communication device.

In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a communication device for implementing any one of the above first aspect or the first aspect, or for implementing any one of the above second aspect or the second aspect, including corresponding functional modules, respectively for implementing the steps in the above methods. The functions may be implemented by hardware, or by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the above-described functions.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, the communication apparatus may be a terminal device, and the communication apparatus may include a processing unit and a transceiver unit, where when a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time-frequency resource of a first UCI partially overlaps or completely overlaps a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time-frequency resource of a second UCI, the processing unit is configured to compress a second HARQ codebook in the second UCI; the transceiver unit is configured to send the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device on the third time-frequency resource.

In a possible implementation manner, the processing unit is specifically configured to compress the second HARQ codebook with S bits into L bits, where S and L are positive integers, and S is an integer greater than L, and L is related to the number of bits of the first UCI and the size of the third time-frequency resource.

In a possible implementation, the processing unit is specifically configured to compress HARQ information of every M bits into HARQ information of 1 bit, starting from the first bit of the second HARQ codebook, wherein,

indicating rounding up.

In a possible implementation manner, the processing unit is specifically configured to perform a logical and operation on the M-bit HARQ information to obtain 1-bit HARQ information.

In a possible implementation, the processing unit is specifically configured to encode the S-bit second HARQ codebook into L bits.

If the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook, the processing unit is specifically configured to modify the CBG-based second HARQ codebook into a TB-based second HARQ codebook.

If the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook and a TB-based HARQ codebook, the processing unit is specifically configured to modify the CBG-based HARQ codebook and the TB-based HARQ codebook into a TB-based HARQ codebook.

And when the index of the ending symbol of the first time domain resource is smaller than the index of the ending symbol of the second time domain resource, the third time frequency resource is the first time frequency resource.

In a possible implementation manner, the processing unit is further configured to concatenate the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI.

In a possible implementation manner, the processing unit is further configured to determine, according to the number of bits of the compressed second HARQ codebook, a fourth time-frequency resource carrying the compressed second HARQ codebook.

When the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with the first time domain resource of the first time frequency resource, the processing unit is further configured to cascade the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI, and determine a third time frequency resource according to the total bit number of the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in another possible implementation, the communication apparatus may further be a network device, and the communication apparatus may include a transceiver unit and a processing unit, where the transceiver unit is configured to receive an uplink channel from a terminal device on a third time-frequency resource, and the uplink channel carries first uplink control information UCI and second UCI, and when a first time-domain resource corresponding to a first time-frequency resource of the first UCI partially overlaps or completely overlaps a second time-domain resource corresponding to a second time-frequency resource of the second UCI, the processing unit is configured to decompress a second HARQ codebook compressed in the second UCI. In a possible implementation manner, the processing unit is specifically configured to decompress the compressed second HARQ codebook with L bits into S bits, where S and L are positive integers, and S is an integer greater than L, and L is related to the bit number of the first UCI and the size of the third time-frequency resource.

Further, optionally, the processing unit is specifically configured to, starting from the first bit of the compressed second HARQ codebook, decompress HARQ information of each of the first L-1 bits of the L bits into M-bit HARQ information, and decompress the last bit of the L bits into S-M × L-1 bit HARQ information, where,

indicating rounding up.

In a possible implementation manner, the processing unit is specifically configured to: one bit with a value of 1 is decompressed into M bits with a value of 1, and one bit with a value of 0 is decompressed into M bits with a value of 0. Further, the HARQ information that the processing unit is specifically configured to decompress the last bit of the L bits into S-M × L-1 bits may specifically be: decompressing the last bit with value of 1 into S-M (L-1) bits with value of 1, and decompressing the last bit with value of 0 into S-M (L-1) bits with value of 0.

In a possible implementation, the processing unit is specifically configured to decode the L-bit compressed second HARQ codebook into S bits.

In a possible implementation manner, if the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook, the processing unit is specifically configured to determine that the CBG-based second HARQ codebook is modified to a TB-based second HARQ codebook.

In another possible implementation manner, if the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook and a TB-based HARQ codebook, the processing unit is specifically configured to determine that the CBG-based HARQ codebook and the TB-based HARQ codebook are modified into a TB-based HARQ codebook.

In a fifth aspect, the present application provides a communication system comprising a terminal device and a network device. The terminal device may be configured to perform any one of the methods in the first aspect or the first aspect, and the network device may be configured to perform any one of the methods in the second aspect or the second aspect.

In a sixth aspect, the present application provides a computer storage medium having stored therein a computer program or instructions which, when executed by a communication apparatus, cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of the first aspect or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect, or cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of the second aspect or any possible implementation manner of the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a computer program product comprising a computer program or instructions for implementing the method of the first aspect or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect, or for implementing the method of the second aspect or any possible implementation manner of the second aspect, when the computer program or instructions are executed by a communication device.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system architecture provided in the present application;

fig. 2a is a schematic structural diagram of a semi-static codebook provided in the present application;

FIG. 2b is a schematic diagram of another semi-static codebook structure provided in the present application;

fig. 2c is a schematic diagram illustrating a relationship between UCI transmission slots according to the present application;

fig. 2d is a schematic diagram of another indicating UCI transmission slot relationship provided in the present application;

fig. 2e is a schematic structural diagram of a dynamic codebook provided in the present application;

FIG. 2f is a schematic diagram of the relationship of CB, CBG and TB provided by the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic flowchart of a method for transmitting uplink control information according to the present application;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a time domain resource structure provided in the present application;

FIG. 5a is a schematic view of a compression process provided herein;

FIG. 5b is a schematic view of another compression process provided herein;

FIG. 5c is a schematic view of yet another compression process provided herein;

FIG. 5d is a schematic view of yet another compression process provided herein;

fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device provided in the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device provided in the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device provided in the present application;

fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device provided in the present application.

Detailed Description

In order to facilitate understanding of the technical solution of the present application, a communication system architecture to which the embodiments of the present application are applicable is described below. It should be noted that the applicable communication system architecture described in the present application is for more clearly illustrating the technical solution of the present application, and does not constitute a limitation to the technical solution provided in the present application, and as the network architecture evolves and new services appear, the technical solution provided in the present application is also applicable to similar technical problems.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an applicable communication system architecture provided by the present application. The communication system may include a network device and a terminal device. Fig. 1 illustrates an example including one network device 101 and two terminal devices 102, where the terminal devices 102 may communicate with the network device 101 through uplink and downlink, and the terminal devices 102 may communicate with each other through sidelink. Here, the sidelink is defined for direct communication between devices, that is, communication between devices does not require forwarding through a base station. The communication system may further include a core network device and/or other network devices, such as a wireless relay device and a wireless backhaul device. The number of core network devices, radio access network devices, and terminal devices included in the communication system is not limited in the present application. It should be noted that the communication system may be a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, an NR system in a 5G mobile communication system, or a communication system in which multiple communication technologies are merged, for example, a communication system in which an LTE technology and an NR technology are merged, or may be another communication system that may appear in the future, and the application is not limited thereto. The number of core network devices, and terminal devices included in the communication system is not limited in the present application.

A terminal device may also be referred to as a terminal, User Equipment (UE), a mobile station, a mobile terminal, etc. The terminal device can be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a computer with a wireless transceiving function, a virtual reality terminal device, an augmented reality terminal device, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in unmanned driving, a wireless terminal in remote operation, a wireless terminal in a smart grid, a wireless terminal in transportation safety, a wireless terminal in a smart city, a wireless terminal in a smart home and the like. The specific technology and the specific equipment form adopted by the terminal equipment are not limited in the application.

The network device is an access device that the terminal device accesses to the communication system in a wireless manner, and may be a base station (base station), an evolved NodeB (eNodeB), a Transmission Reception Point (TRP), a next generation base station (gNB) in a 5G mobile communication system, a base station in a future mobile communication system, or an access node in a WiFi system, and the like; or may be a module or a unit that performs part of the functions of the base station, for example, a Centralized Unit (CU) or a Distributed Unit (DU). The specific technology and the specific device form adopted by the radio access network device are not limited in the present application. In this application, a radio access network device is referred to as a network device for short, and if no special description is provided, the network device refers to a radio access network device.

The terminal equipment and the network equipment can be deployed on land, including indoor or outdoor, handheld or vehicle-mounted. The method can be deployed on the water surface, or can be deployed on airplanes, balloons and satellites in the air, and application scenes of the network equipment and the terminal equipment are not limited by the application.

The network device and the terminal device can communicate through the authorized spectrum, can communicate through the unlicensed spectrum, and can communicate through both the authorized spectrum and the unlicensed spectrum. The network device and the terminal device may communicate with each other through a frequency spectrum of 6 gigahertz (GHz) or less, through a frequency spectrum of 6GHz or more, or through both a frequency spectrum of 6GHz or less and a frequency spectrum of 6GHz or more. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the spectrum resources used between the network device and the terminal device.

Hereinafter, some terms in the embodiments of the present application are explained to facilitate understanding by those skilled in the art.

1) HARQ technique

In a wireless communication system, a transmitting and receiving party generally adopts an HARQ technique to ensure reliability of data transmission. The HARQ technology combines Forward Error Correction (FEC) coding with automatic repeat request (ARQ). The method specifically comprises the following steps: after the TB is coded, information bits and a part of redundant bits are sent during first transmission, if a receiving end can correctly decode, ACK is fed back to a sending end, the sending end confirms that the receiving end successfully receives the corresponding information bits, and the TB is considered to be successfully transmitted. And if the receiving end cannot decode correctly, feeding back NACK to the transmitting end. And after receiving the NACK, the sending end further transmits a part of information bits and/or redundant bits to the receiving end, which is called retransmission data, after receiving the retransmission data, the receiving end combines the retransmission data with the previously received data and then decodes the data, and if the retransmission redundant bits are added, the receiving end feeds back the NACK to wait for the sending end to retransmit again.

In a possible implementation manner, after receiving data from a transmitting end, a receiving end generates an HARQ codebook based on whether the data is correctly received. In the protocol of release 15(release 15, R15) of NR, two types of HARQ codebooks can be configured at the upper layer, one is a semi-static HARQ codebook, and the other is a dynamic HARQ codebook. The generation processes of the semi-static HARQ codebook and the dynamic HARQ codebook are described in detail as follows.

The generation process of the semi-static HARQ codebook comprises the following steps: first, a PDSCH receiving candidate location set, that is, a location set where the terminal device may receive the PDSCH, is determined, and according to the set, corresponding HARQ information is transmitted on a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH). For an active downlink bandwidth part (BWP) and an active uplink BWP, the terminal device may determine the PDSCH receiving candidate location set based on the PDSCH-HARQ timing { K1} set, the row index set corresponding to the PDSCH time domain resource allocation table, and the subcarrier spacing (SCS) and frame structure ratio of the uplink BWP and the downlink BWP. The terminal device may specifically determine a serving cell, and reserve 1 bit for each PDSCH receiving candidate location according to the PDSCH receiving candidate location set. And traversing all the serving cells under Carrier aggregation (Carrier aggregation) to generate a corresponding semi-static HARQ codebook. As shown in fig. 2a, the terminal device generates a semi-static HARQ codebook based on a set of PUCCH and K1 for carrier aggregation of 2 Component Carriers (CC), where K1 is {1, 2, 3}, and K1 is in slot units, there are 6 locations where PDSCH reception may occur, and the corresponding HARQ permutation order and number are also determined, that is, the semi-static codebook has a size of 6, and is ordered as HARQ1, HARQ2, HARQ3, HARQ4, HARQ5, and HARQ 6.

As shown in fig. 2b, after determining a location where PDSCH reception may occur, if the terminal device receives 3 PDSCHs and all need to feed back on the same PUCCH in slot 4 according to corresponding K1, and the decoding results of PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 are successful, failed, and successful, respectively, the semi-static HARQ codebook is 100001, where 1 represents ACK and 0 represents NACK.

It should be noted that in NR R15, the network device may configure a set of PDSCH and HARQ timing information (timing), i.e., { PDSCH-to-HARQ timing }, using the PDSCH-to-HARQ timing field in DCI to indicate one value K1 in the set. Here, in NR R15, at most one PUCCH carrying HARQ can be transmitted in one slot, that is, in R15, PDSCH-to-HARQ timing is slot-granular, as shown in fig. 2c, if the terminal device receives PDSCH in slot n and K1 is 2, the terminal device transmits the second UCI in slot n +2 (i.e., the slot shaded in fig. 2 c). In NR release 16(release 16, R16), it is supported that one slot can transmit multiple PUCCHs carrying HARQ, that is, in NR R16, PDSCH-to-HARQ timing can be sub-slot granular, see fig. 2d, and K1 is 2, then the terminal device transmits the second UCI in sub-slot n +2 (i.e. the sub-slot shaded in fig. 2 d).

And (3) a dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook generation process: firstly, determining a PDCCH monitoring position set, fixing a PDCCH monitoring position according to the ascending sequence of the PDCCH monitoring positions, traversing all service cells under carrier aggregation, then traversing all PDCCH monitoring positions, and generating corresponding HARQ according to the PDCCH in the sequence. HARQ of a Semi Persistent Scheduling (SPS) PDSCH is placed at the tail of HARQ information generated from a PDCCH. As shown in fig. 2e, the PDCCH1 indicates K0-0 and K1-3; the PDCCH2 indicates that K0 is 0, K1 is 2, PDCCH3 indicates that K0 is 0, and K1 is 1, where K0 is equal to the time interval between the time slot in which the PDCCH is located and the time slot in which the PDSCH is located, and the time interval is in units of time slots. Then the HARQ corresponding to the PDSCH scheduled by PDCCH1, PDCCH2 and PDCCH3 all need to be fed back on the same PUCCH in slot 4. Assuming that the decoding results of the PDSCHs scheduled by PDCCH1, PDCCH2 and PDCCH3 are successful, failed and successful, respectively, the dynamic HARQ codebook is 101.

2)TB

A TB is typically divided into Code Blocks (CBs), or it is understood that a TB is composed of a plurality of CBs. To improve spectrum utilization, the CBs may be grouped into a group, referred to as a CBG. As shown in fig. 2f, a schematic diagram of the relationship between CB, CBG and TB is exemplarily shown. N CBGs form a CBG, N CBGs form a TB, wherein N and N are positive integers. Note that, in NR, one TB can configure 8 CBGs at most. At the receiving end, HARQ information, such as ACK or NACK, may be generated for whether each CBG was correctly received. If there are N CBGs, N bits of HARQ information may be generated, where each bit of HARQ information may indicate whether the corresponding CBG is correctly received, e.g., the CBG is correctly received, and an ACK is generated; the CBG is not received correctly, generating a NACK. After the sending end receives the N-bit HARQ information, if the HARQ information bit corresponding to a certain CBG is NACK, the CBG only needs to be retransmitted, and the CBG which is correctly received does not need to be retransmitted. Further, a Code Block Group Transmission Information (CBGTI) field is included in Downlink Control Information (DCI) of the NR, and is used to indicate which CBGs are retransmitted.

3)UCI

The UCI may include at least one of HARQ information, Channel State Information (CSI), and a Scheduling Request (SR). Specifically, the UCI may include HARQ information, SR, CSI and HARQ information, HARQ information and SR, SR and CSI, CSI and SR and HARQ information. The terminal device may send the information to the network device through a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH).

In the 5G communication system, higher performance than that of 4G is required. A new air interface access technology is defined in an NR R15 protocol to support user experience rate of 0.1-1 Gbps, connection density of one million per square kilometer, end-to-end time delay of millisecond level, flow density of dozens of Tbps per square kilometer, mobility of more than 500Km per hour and peak rate of dozens of Gbps. The user experience rate, the connection number density and the time delay are three basic performance indexes of 5G. The three major application scenarios and requirements of 5G include: eMBB, mMTC and URLLC. Among them, URLLC can be applied to unmanned driving or industrial control, etc., and requires low delay and high reliability. The specific requirement of low delay is end-to-end 0.5ms delay, air interface information interaction returns to and fro 1ms delay, and the specific requirement of high reliability is that the block error rate (BLER) reaches 10^-5That is, the correct reception rate of the data packet reaches 99.999%. In order to realize high-reliability data transmission, a feasible method is that a receiving end makes corresponding feedback aiming at data sent by a sending end, so that high reliability of a communication link is ensured. With reference to fig. 1, the network device 101 may send data to the terminal device 102, where the network device 101 is equivalent to a sending end and the terminal device 102 is equivalent to a receiving end; after receiving the data, terminal apparatus 102 transmits HARQ information for the received data to network apparatus 101, where network apparatus 101 corresponds to a receiving side and terminal apparatus 102 corresponds to a transmitting side. When the terminal apparatus 102 makes feedback for the data transmitted by the network apparatus 101, it is determined that the feedback is madeIs fed back on the time-frequency resource. At this time, terminal device 102 may need to simultaneously transmit multiple HARQ information to network device 101, where the services of the multiple HARQ information may be different, and in order to ensure the service requirement of ultra-high reliability and low latency, the HARQ information of the service with lower latency and reliability requirements is usually discarded. For example, when the time domain resource corresponding to the time frequency resource for transmitting the HARQ information of the URLLC service partially overlaps or completely overlaps with the time domain resource corresponding to the time frequency resource for transmitting the HARQ information of the eMBB, in order to ensure that the data of the URLLC service can be transmitted with ultra-low delay and high reliability, the HARQ information of the eMBB is generally discarded directly. However, since the HARQ information (also referred to as HARQ-ACK codebook) of the eMBB is generally large, always dropping the HARQ information of the eMBB may affect the downlink throughput of the eMBB.

It is understood that PDCCH, PDSCH, PUCCH and PUSCH are only examples of downlink control channels, downlink data channels, uplink control channels and uplink data channels, which may have different names in different communication systems, and the specific names of the channels are not limited in this application.

In view of this, the present application provides a method for transmitting uplink control information to reduce or avoid as much as possible the influence on the downlink throughput of the service caused by directly discarding the uplink control information.

The method for transmitting uplink control information provided by the present application may be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 1. In addition, the method may be performed by two communication means, for example a first communication means and a second communication means, wherein the first communication means may be a terminal device or a module, for example a chip, applicable to the terminal device. The second communication means may be a network device or a module, e.g. a chip, applicable to a network device. The method provided by the embodiment of the present application is described below by taking an example in which the first communication device is a terminal device and the second communication device is a network device.

Referring to fig. 3, a method flow diagram of a method for transmitting uplink control information according to the present application is shown. The method comprises the following steps:

step 301, when a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time frequency resource of a first UCI and a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time frequency resource of a second UCI are partially overlapped or completely overlapped, the terminal device compresses a second HARQ codebook in the second UCI.

The first time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource occupied by a PUCCH bearing the first UCI, and the second time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource occupied by a PUCCH bearing the second UCI. The time-frequency resources correspond to one time-domain resource and one frequency-domain resource. For example, one time-frequency Resource Element (RE) corresponds to one OFDM symbol in the time domain and one subcarrier in the frequency domain. The first time-frequency resource corresponds to a first frequency domain resource and a first time domain resource, and the second time-frequency resource corresponds to a second frequency domain resource and a second time domain resource. The first time domain resource corresponding to the first time frequency resource refers to a time domain resource constituting the first time frequency resource, and may also be understood as a time frequency resource occupied by a PUCCH carrying the first UCI. Similarly, the second time domain resource corresponding to the second time frequency resource refers to the time domain resource constituting the second time frequency resource, and may also be understood as the time frequency resource occupied by the PUCCH carrying the second UCI. For example, the length of a subframe occupied by the PUCCH carrying the first UCI is 1ms, and the subframe is the first time domain resource. For another example, the PUCCH carrying the first UCI occupies the last two symbols in the slot including 14 symbols, and then the last two symbols in the 14 symbols are the first time domain resources.

In this application, a time domain resource (e.g., a first time domain resource or a second time domain resource) may be one or more time domain units, which may be radio frames, subframes, slots, subslots, mini-slots, or time domain symbols. The time domain symbol may be an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbol, or may be a symbol of another waveform. The symbols in this application refer to time domain symbols unless otherwise specified.

In one possible configuration, one slot is configured with 7 sub-slots, and one sub-slot is configured with 2 symbols, i.e. one slot includes 14 symbols, as can be seen in fig. 4. If the first time domain resource is symbol 3, symbol 4, symbol 5 and symbol 6, and the second time domain resource is symbol 5, symbol 6, symbol 7 and symbol 8, the first time domain resource and the second time domain resource are partially overlapped, and the time domain resource of the overlapped part is symbol 5 and symbol 6.

In this application, the first time-frequency resource and the second time-frequency resource may be sent to the terminal device by the network device through DCI. For example, the network device may indicate, to the terminal device, a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time-frequency resource in which a PUCCH carrying the first UCI is located, and a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time-frequency resource in which a PUCCH carrying the second UCI is located. For example, it may be based on PDSCH-to-HARQ timing in NR R15, or PDSCH-to-HARQ timing in NR R16.

Step 302, the terminal device sends the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device on the third time-frequency resource. Correspondingly, the network device receives an uplink channel from the terminal device on the third time-frequency resource, wherein the uplink channel can carry the first UCI and the second UCI.

Here, the terminal device may send the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device after concatenating the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI; or the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI may be sent to the network device, respectively. The uplink channel may be an uplink control channel or an uplink data channel.

Step 303, the network device decompresses the compressed second HARQ codebook in the second UCI.

This step 303 is performed when a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time frequency resource of a first UCI is partially overlapped or completely overlapped with a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time frequency resource of a second UCI. The network device may decompress the compressed second HARQ codebook according to an implementation manner of the terminal device compressing the second HARQ codebook, so as to determine whether the HARQ information of several bits corresponding to each bit of HARQ information in the compressed second HARQ codebook and the PDSCH corresponding to each bit of HARQ information after decompression need to be retransmitted. It can also be understood that the network device may determine, according to each bit HARQ information in the compressed second HARQ codebook, whether the PDSCH corresponding to the bit HARQ information needs to be retransmitted.

As can be seen from steps 301 to 303, when the first time domain resource partially overlaps or completely overlaps with the second time domain resource, the terminal device compresses the second HARQ codebook, and then sends the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device. Namely, the second HARQ codebook is not directly discarded, which is helpful for avoiding the problem that the network device needs to retransmit all PDSCHs corresponding to the second HARQ codebook due to directly discarding the second HARQ codebook, thereby affecting the downlink throughput of the corresponding service. Moreover, based on the scheme, the ultrahigh time delay requirement of the first UCI can be ensured.

In this application, the terminal device may compress the second HARQ codebook with S bits into L bits, where S and L are positive integers, and S is an integer greater than L, and L is related to the bit number of the first UCI and the size of the third time-frequency resource.

Illustratively, L may be determined as follows: and determining the minimum time-frequency resource needed by the first UCI according to the bit number of the first UCI and the maximum code rate for transmitting the first UCI, and determining the size of the residual time-frequency resource according to the difference value between the size of the first time-frequency resource configured for the network equipment and the determined minimum time-frequency resource, wherein the residual time-frequency resource can be used for bearing the compressed second HARQ codebook. Further optionally, it may be determined that the second HARQ codebook needs to be compressed into L bits according to the size of the remaining time-frequency resources and the code rate of the second HARQ codebook after transmission compression. The code rate is equal to the number of bits before channel coding divided by the number of bits before constellation mapping, the number of bits before channel coding is the number of bits of the UCI, and the number of bits before constellation mapping is equal to the number of REs included in the time-frequency resource multiplied by the number of bits that can be carried by one modulation symbol. The number of bits that can be carried by the modulation symbols under different modulation modes is different. For example, the modulation scheme is Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), and the number of bits that can be carried by one modulation symbol under 64QAM and 256QAM is 2 bits, 3 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, and 8 bits, respectively. That is, the code rate is equal to the number of bits before encoding/(the number of REs) × the number of bits that can be carried by one modulation symbol), where "/" denotes a division number.

For example, both the first UCI and the second UCI only carry HARQ codebooks, assuming that the first UCI carries 10-bit HARQ information and the second UCI carries 20-bit HARQ information, the terminal device may calculate, according to the first UCI and a maximum code rate for transmitting the first UCI, that the number of Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) that the first UCI needs to use is 10, and assuming that the number of PRBs configured for the terminal device by the network device is 12, the terminal device may determine that there are remaining 2 PRBs. These 2 remaining PRBs may be used to carry the compressed second HARQ codebook. The terminal device may calculate that the second HARQ codebook needs to be compressed into L bits according to the remaining 2 PRBs and the code rate for transmitting the second HARQ codebook.

It should be noted that the network device may configure the PRB for the terminal device in a display manner, or may also configure the PRB for the terminal device in a display and implicit manner. In addition, the code rate for transmitting the compressed second HARQ codebook may be the code rate of the second HARQ codebook itself, or a preset code rate, or may be the code rate for transmitting the first UCI, which is not limited in this application.

In the present application, six possible implementations of compressing the S-bit second HARQ codebook into L bits are exemplarily given as follows. Wherein, the HARQ information includes NACK and ACK, the ACK may be represented by 1, and the NACK may be represented by 0. Of course, NACK may also be represented by 1, and ACK is represented by 0, which is not limited in this application.

When ACK is represented by 1 AND NACK is represented by 0, the terminal device may perform a logical AND operation on the HARQ information of a plurality of bits to obtain HARQ information of 1 bit. The logical and operation of the HARQ information of a plurality of bits is as follows: if one of the plurality of bits of HARQ information is 0, the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is 0; if all of the plurality of bits of HARQ information are 1, the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is 1. Of course, if ACK may be represented by 0 and NACK may be represented by 1, the terminal device may perform logical OR (local OR) operation on the HARQ information of a plurality of bits to obtain HARQ information of 1 bit. The logical or operation of the HARQ information of a plurality of bits is: if one of the plurality of bits of HARQ information is 1, the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is 1; if all of the plurality of bits of HARQ information are 0, the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is 0.

In the following example, for convenience of description of the scheme, ACK is represented by 1 and NACK is represented by 0.

Implementation mode one

The terminal device may compress, starting from the first bit of the second HARQ codebook, HARQ information of every M bits in the first M × L-1 bits of the S bits into HARQ information of 1 bit, and compress HARQ information of the last S-M × L-1 bits of the S bits into HARQ information of 1 bit. Wherein,

indicating rounding up. Further, optionally, the terminal device may perform a logical and operation on the M-bit HARQ information to obtain 1-bit HARQ information. Further, the logical and operation is also performed on the HARQ information of the last S-M × L-1 bit of the S bits, and 1-bit HARQ information is obtained. In an alternative implementation manner, the terminal device may perform HARQ bundling operation, i.e., logical AND operation on the M-bit HARQ information.

Fig. 5a is a schematic diagram of a compression process provided in the present application. Taking the first UCI as 110 and the HARQ information of the second HARQ codebook as 101100 as an example, then

Starting from the first bit (i.e. 1), every 2 bits of HARQ information can be compressed into 1 bit of HARQ information, i.e. 10, 11, 00 are performed separatelyAnd (5) performing a logical and operation, wherein the logical and operation result of 10 is 0, the logical and operation result of 11 is 1, and the logical and operation result of 00 is 0, and the compressed second HARQ codebook is 010. In this way, when the network device receives that the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is ACK, it can be determined that the data corresponding to the M-bit HARQ information corresponding to the compressed 1-bit HARQ information does not need to be retransmitted. Further, since the closer TBs are, the more similar the channel environment is, the higher the probability that the decoding results are the same, the higher the probability that the decoding results of HARQ information compressed into 1 bit per M bits by the logical and method are the same.

In another possible implementation manner, the terminal device may compress HARQ information of every M bits into HARQ information of 1 bit starting from the first bit of the second HARQ codebook, and when the HARQ information is insufficient for M bits, may make up the HARQ information into M bits with ACKs. For example, when M is 3, HARQ bundling is performed for every 3 bits of HARQ information, and 2 bits of HARQ information remain, 1 bit of ACK may be added to the remaining 2 bits of HARQ information, and the HARQ information may be compressed into 1 bit of HARQ information.

Implementation mode two

The terminal equipment can convert the first 2 in the S bit^NEach 2 of (L-1)^NCompressing the HARQ information of the bits into HARQ information of 1 bit, and performing S-2 processing on the S bits^NAnd compressing the HARQ information of L-1 bits into the HARQ information of 1 bit. Wherein,

indicating rounding up. In one possible implementation, the terminal device may connect 2^NAnd carrying out logical AND operation on the HARQ information of the bits to obtain the HARQ information of 1 bit. Further, the last S-2 in the S bit can be processed^NAnd performing logical AND operation on the (L-1) -bit HARQ information to obtain 1-bit HARQ information.

Fig. 5b is a schematic diagram of another compression process provided for the present application. Taking the first UCI as 110 and the HARQ information of the second HARQ codebook as 101100 as an example, then

The HARQ information of every 2 bits is compressed into 1-bit HARQ information, that is, logical and operations are performed on 10, 11, and 00, respectively, the logical and operation result of 10 is 0, the logical and operation result of 11 is 1, and the logical and operation result of 00 is 0. Thus, when the network device receives that the compressed 1-bit HARQ information is ACK, it will correspondingly be 2^NThe data corresponding to the HARQ information of the bit does not need to be retransmitted. Also, since the closer TBs are, the more similar the channel environment is, the higher the probability that the decoding results are the same is, 2^NThe probability that the decoding results of the HARQ information of the bits are the same is high, and 2 is^NThe better the compression of the HARQ information of bits into HARQ information of 1 bit. Further, due to 2^NThe probability that the decoding results of the HARQ information of the bits are the same is higher, i.e. 2^NThe probability that the HARQ information of the bits may all be NACK, or may all be ACK is high, that is, 2^NThe HARQ information of bits has NACK and ACK with a smaller probability, which can help to reduce the number of bits 2^NThere is one NACK in the bits to cause the compressed HARQ to be NACK, and all corresponding PDSCHs are retransmitted, resulting in spectrum waste and reduced downlink throughput.

In another possible implementation, the terminal device may start from the first bit of the second HARQ codebook every 2^NCompressing the HARQ information of the bits into the HARQ information of 1 bit, and when the HARQ information is insufficient for 2^NWhen bits are in place, the available ACK is made to be 2^NA bit. For example, if N is 1, HARQ bundling is performed for every 2-bit HARQ information, and 1-bit HARQ information remains, 1-bit ACK may be added to the remaining 1-bit HARQ information, and the HARQ information may be compressed into 1-bit HARQ information.

Implementation mode three

The terminal device may encode the second HARQ codebook of S bits as L bits. For example, Reed-Muller (RM) matrix coding may be employed. It can be understood that the second HARQ codebook with S bits is input, and is output after RM matrix coding.

Illustratively, the encoding method of the length (L, S) Reed-Muller code is to generate a matrix M_L×SAnd the input vector x_S×1Multiplying by matrix, taking module of each element pair 2 to obtain code vector y_L×1. Wherein a matrix M is generated_L×SIt may be predetermined in the protocol, taking the modulus of 2 is also called modulo-2 operation, modulo-2 operation is a binary algorithm. The modulo-2 operation includes four binary operations, modulo-2 addition, modulo-2 subtraction, modulo-2 multiplication, and modulo-2 division. For example, modulo-2 addition is a binary addition operation without a carry, i.e., an addition between 0 and 1. 0+ 0-0, 0+ 1-1 + 0-1, and 1+ 1-0.

Implementation mode four

The terminal device may compress the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bits of the second HARQ codebook into 1-bit HARQ information. Further, optionally, the terminal device performs a logical and operation on the HARQ information with (S-L +1) bits to obtain HARQ information with 1 bit.

Fig. 5c is a schematic diagram of another compression process provided by the present application. Taking the first UCI as 110 and the HARQ information of the second HARQ codebook as 101100 as an example, S-L +1 is 6-3+1 is 4, and the HARQ information of the last 4 bits of the second HARQ codebook may be compressed into HARQ information of 1 bit, that is, 1100 may be logically and-operated to obtain an operation result of 0 and the compressed second HARQ codebook is 100.

Through the fourth implementation manner, in a scenario that the first UCI and the second HARQ codebook are cascaded and the PDCCH corresponding to the first UCI and the PDCCH corresponding to the second UCI have different undetected rates, by compressing the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit in the second HARQ codebook into HARQ information of 1 bit, it is helpful to avoid the problem that the length of the second HARQ codebook is different from the length expected to be received by the network device and thus the network device receives an error when the last PDCCH corresponding to the second HARQ codebook is lost. This is because the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit in the second HARQ codebook is compressed into HARQ information of 1 bit, and only the PDCCH corresponding to the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit is missed, which causes the length of the second HARQ codebook to be different from the length expected to be received by the network device, but the probability of the missed detection of the PDCCH corresponding to the HARQ information of the last (S-L +1) bit is very low.

Implementation mode five

The terminal device intercepts HARQ information of L bits from HARQ information of S bits. It can also be understood that L bits of HARQ information are truncated from S bits of HARQ information, and the remaining (S-L) bits of HARQ information are directly discarded. Through the fifth implementation mode, the efficiency of compressing the second HARQ codebook by the terminal equipment is improved, and the compression mode is simple. In addition, in a scenario that the first UCI and the second HARQ codebook are cascaded and the PDCCH corresponding to the first UCI and the PDCCH corresponding to the second UCI have different undetected rates, by intercepting L bits of HARQ information from the second HARQ codebook with S bits, it is helpful to avoid the problem that the length of the second HARQ codebook is different from the length expected to be received by the network device and thus the network device receives an error when the last PDCCH corresponding to the second HARQ codebook is lost.

In a possible implementation manner, the terminal device may intercept HARQ information of first L bits in HARQ information of S bits, or may also intercept HARQ information of last L bits in HARQ information of S bits, or may also intercept HARQ information of middle L bits in HARQ information of S bits, or may also intercept HARQ information of L bits from HARQ information of S bits according to a certain rule. The application does not restrict from which to truncate the L bits.

Fig. 5d is a schematic diagram of another compression process provided in the present application. Taking the first UCI as 110 and the HARQ information of the second HARQ codebook as 101100 as an example, L is 3, 3 bits of HARQ information are truncated from the first bit of S bits of HARQ information, and the remaining 3 bits of HARQ information are discarded, that is, the second HARQ codebook from which L bits are truncated is 101.

Implementation mode six

In this sixth implementation, the following two cases may be distinguished according to whether the second HARQ codebook is based on CBG or based on CBG and TB. The second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based second HARQ codebook, and it can also be understood that the feedback granularity of the second HARQ codebook sent by the terminal device to the network device is CBG level (CBG-level).

Case a, the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook.

Based on this situation a, the terminal device may modify the CBG-based second HARQ codebook to a TB-based second HARQ codebook. It should be understood that the modification is that the TB-based second HARQ codebook is the compressed second HARQ codebook. In one possible implementation, the CBG-based HARQ information corresponding to each TB in the second CBG-based HARQ codebook may be logically anded.

For example, the second HARQ codebook is based on CBG, the second HARQ codebook is 111111110000111110101010 and has 32 bits, and in combination with fig. 1, a TB can configure up to 8 CBGs, the second HARQ codebook 111111110000111110101010 based on CBG is modified into the second HARQ codebook 100 based on TB, and the second HARQ codebook based on TB has 3 bits. Particularly, when the bit number of the second HARQ codebook is large, if the second HARQ codebook is directly discarded, multiple PDSCHs all need to be retransmitted, thereby affecting the downlink throughput of the service to which the second UCI belongs. With this sixth implementation, this problem can be helped to be avoided.

Case B, the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based and TB-based HARQ codebook. That is, the second HARQ codebook includes a CBG-based second HARQ codebook and a TB-based second HARQ codebook, or it can be understood that the second HARQ codebook includes a CBG-based HARQ sub-codebook and a TB-based HARQ sub-codebook.

Based on this situation B, the terminal device may modify the CBG-based and TB-based second HARQ codebooks into a TB-based second HARQ codebook. In one possible implementation, the CBG-based second HARQ codebook in the second HARQ codebook may be modified to a TB-based second HARQ codebook. It should be understood that the second HARQ codebook modified into the TB and the second HARQ codebook based on the TB included in the second HARQ codebook are the compressed second HARQ codebook. Illustratively, the second HARQ codebook is based on CBG and based on TB, the CBG-based second HARQ codebook is 111111110000111110101010, corresponding to 24 bits, the TB-based HARQ codebook is 1|0, corresponding to 2 bits, that is, the second HARQ codebook is 10111111110000111110101010. With reference to fig. 1, a TB may configure 8 maximum CBGs, modify the HARQ codebook 111111110000111110101010 based on the CBGs to be 100, modify the HARQ codebook based on the TB to correspond to 3 bits, and modify the compressed second HARQ codebook to be 10010 after the HARQ codebook based on the TB and the HARQ codebook based on the TB included in the second HARQ codebook are concatenated. In another possible implementation manner, the CBG-based second HARQ codebook in the second HARQ codebook may be directly discarded, and the TB-based second HARQ codebook included in the second HARQ codebook may be reserved. It should be understood that the TB-based second HARQ codebook included in the second HARQ codebook is the compressed second HARQ codebook. Exemplarily, the second HARQ codebook is based on CBG and TB, the CBG-based HARQ codebook is 111111110000111110101010, the TB-based HARQ codebook is 10, the CBG-based HARQ codebook 111111110000111110101010 is directly discarded, and the compressed second HARQ codebook is the TB-based HARQ codebook 10 included in the second HARQ codebook.

Through the sixth implementation mode, the second HARQ codebook based on the CBG is modified into the second HARQ codebook based on the TB, so that the bit number of the second HARQ codebook can be effectively reduced. The smaller the number of bits of the second HARQ codebook, the smaller the impact on the link budget, the smaller the impact on the first UCI when the second HARQ codebook is transmitted together with the first UCI, and the smaller the probability of collision with the first UCI when the second HARQ codebook reselects transmission resources.

It should be noted that the above six implementation manners of compressing the second HARQ codebook are only examples, and the application does not limit how to compress the second HARQ codebook, and the implementation manner of compressing the S-bit second HARQ codebook into L bits may be any. In addition, which implementation manner is selected to compress the second HARQ codebook may be selected by the terminal device, for example, the terminal device may select randomly, or the terminal device may also select according to some factors, for example, the terminal device needs to rapidly implement compression of the second HARQ codebook, and then the terminal device may select the fifth implementation manner. Alternatively, the selection of which implementation described above to compress the second HARQ codebook may be specified by a protocol or may be an instruction based on a network device.

It should also be noted that, in the present application, the second HARQ codebook may be a semi-static HARQ codebook, or may be a dynamic HARQ codebook, and the semi-static HARQ codebook and the dynamic HARQ codebook may specifically refer to the above description, and are not described herein again.

In step 302, the terminal device needs to determine the third time-frequency resource for transmitting the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI. As follows, five ways of determining the time-frequency resource (i.e., the third time-frequency resource) for transmitting the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI are exemplarily given as follows.

In this embodiment, referring to fig. 4, if the first time domain resource is symbol 3, symbol 4, symbol 5, and symbol 6, and the second time domain resource is symbol 5, symbol 6, symbol 7, and symbol 8, the index of the end symbol of the first time domain resource is 6, and the index of the end symbol of the second time domain resource is 8.

Based on the first mode, the following two situations can be divided.

In this case 1, the third time-frequency resource is the first time-frequency resource. That is, the terminal device may transmit the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device on the first time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the network device may receive the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI from the terminal device on the first time-frequency resource. Therefore, the first UCI can be ensured to be sent to the network equipment in time.

In this case 2, the third time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource including more resource elements in the first time-frequency resource and the second time-frequency resource. That is to say, the terminal device sends the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device on one time-frequency resource with more resource elements included in the first time-frequency resource and the second time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the network device may receive the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI from the terminal device on one time-frequency resource including more resource elements in the first time-frequency resource and the second time-frequency resource. Through the case 2, on one hand, it can be ensured that the first UCI can be sent to the network device in time; on the other hand, the compressed second HARQ codebook with a larger number of bits can be carried by transmitting one of the first time-frequency resource and the second time-frequency resource with a larger number of resource elements.

With reference to fig. 4, for example, if the second time domain resource occupies symbol 4, symbol 5 and symbol 6, and if the first time domain resource occupies symbol 5 and symbol 6, the index of the ending symbol of the second time domain resource is the same as the index of the ending symbol of the first time domain resource, and the second time frequency resource includes more resource elements, so that the third time domain resource may be the second time frequency resource.

In a possible implementation manner, if the service to which the first UCI belongs is the URLLC service, and the service to which the second UCI belongs is the eMBB service, since the HARQ codebook of the eMBB service is generally larger, the larger probability is that the second time-frequency resource includes a larger number of resources.

It should be noted that, for the above situation 2, in a possible implementation manner, if the index of the end symbol of the first time domain resource is greater than or equal to the index of the end symbol of the second time domain resource and the first UCI satisfies a condition that the first UCI can be concatenated with the second UCI, the third time frequency resource is one time frequency resource including more resource elements in the first time frequency resource and the second time frequency resource. Otherwise, the terminal device discards the second UCI or discards the first UCI (assuming that the UCI already in transmission cannot be cancelled). The cascade condition of the first UCI and the second UCI is as follows: the time interval from the last symbol of the PDSCH received corresponding to the HARQ information in the first UCI to the first symbol of the second UCI may be the time when the PDSCH generates the corresponding HARQ. If the first UCI does not satisfy the condition of concatenation with the second UCI, that is, the PDSCH corresponding to the HARQ information in the first UCI does not satisfy the timeline restriction that can be concatenated with the second UCI, for example, the second UCI has already started transmission, but the PDSCH corresponding to the first UCI has not yet started scheduling, the terminal device cannot concatenate the first UCI and the second UCI, and therefore, only the second UCI or the first UCI may be discarded (assuming that the UCI that has already been transmitted cannot be cancelled).

In order to ensure that the first UCI meets the delay requirement when being transmitted to the network device, the first time-frequency resource may be always determined as the third time-frequency resource. That is, the terminal device may transmit the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device using the first time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the network device may receive the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI from the terminal device on the first time-frequency resource.

In this application, the terminal device may cascade the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI. For example, the second HARQ codebook is concatenated (also referred to as multiplexed) before the first UCI. Exemplarily, in conjunction with fig. 5a described above, the compressed second HARQ codebook is 010, and after concatenation with the first UCI, 010110. For another example, after the second HARQ codebook is concatenated to the first UCI, the second HARQ codebook after compression shown in fig. 5a is 010 and the first UCI (110) is used as an example, and the concatenation is 110010. The same procedure as that described with reference to fig. 5b to 5d can be referred to the description of fig. 5a, and is not repeated here. Further, optionally, the terminal device may send the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device through the third time-frequency resource determined in the first manner (including the first manner 1 and the second manner 2) or the second manner. With reference to fig. 5a, the terminal device may send the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI (i.e. 010110) to the network device through the third time-frequency resource.

In a possible implementation manner, the terminal device may determine, according to the bit number of the compressed second HARQ codebook, a fourth time-frequency resource carrying the compressed second HARQ codebook. For example, the terminal device may reselect a new time-frequency resource from a PUCCH resource set corresponding to the bit number of the compressed second HARQ codebook, and determine the reselected new time-frequency resource as a fourth time-frequency resource. It can be appreciated that different numbers of bits of the HARQ codebook are associated to different sets of PUCCH resources.

In a possible implementation manner, the network device may separately and independently configure a plurality of first PUCCH resource sets of a service corresponding to the first UCI and a plurality of second PUCCH resource sets of a service corresponding to the second UCI. The PUCCH resource set after the compressed second HARQ codebook and the concatenation of the first UCI may be a plurality of first PUCCH resource sets. Further, in the plurality of first PUCCH resource sets, the indexes indicated by the PUCCH resources are the same, and the indexes of the end symbols of the respective corresponding PUCCH resources in the plurality of first PUCCH resources are the same. For example, the number of HARQ bits is 1 to 10 for PUCCH resource set 1, the number of HARQ bits is 11 to 20 for PUCCH resource set 2, and the index of the end symbol of the PUCCH resource in PUCCH resource set 1 corresponding to index 1 is the same as the index of the end symbol of the PUCCH resource in PUCCH resource set 2 corresponding thereto. Therefore, when the first UCI and the compressed second HARQ are concatenated, new resources are reselected from the first PUCCH resource set, and the time delay of the first UCI cannot be influenced.

In a third manner, the third time-frequency resource may be determined based on whether the time-domain resource corresponding to the determined fourth time-frequency resource overlaps with the first time-domain resource of the first time-frequency resource. The following two cases can be divided.

In case a, the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource partially overlaps or completely overlaps with the first time domain resource of the first time frequency resource.

Based on the situation a, in a first possible implementation manner, the terminal device may cascade the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI, and determine the third time-frequency resource according to the total bit number of the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI. Illustratively, based on the association of the bit numbers of the different HARQ codebooks to the different sets of PUCCH resources, the terminal device may reselect a new time-frequency resource from the set of PUCCH resources corresponding to the total bit number, and determine the reselected new time-frequency resource as a third time-frequency resource. And (c) reselecting a new time-frequency resource for the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI as a third time-frequency resource through the situation a in the third mode. Therefore, the time delay requirement of the first UCI can be ensured, and the probability of transmitting the second HARQ codebook can be increased. After the second HARQ codebook is concatenated with the first UCI, joint coding may be performed using a code rate for transmitting the first UCI, and for the manner of concatenating the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI, reference may be made to the above description, which is not described herein again.

It should be noted that, in a possible implementation manner, a relationship between an index of an end symbol of a time domain resource of a new time-frequency resource reselected for the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI and an index of an end symbol of a first time-frequency resource of the first time-frequency resource may be determined first. If the index of the end symbol of the new time-frequency resource is larger than the index of the end symbol of the first time-domain resource, discarding the second HARQ codebook; and if the index of the end symbol of the new time-frequency resource is less than or equal to the index of the end symbol of the first time-frequency resource, determining the new time-frequency resource as a third time-frequency resource.

Based on the situation a, in a second possible implementation manner, the terminal device may directly discard the second HARQ codebook and send the first UCI to the network device on the first time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the network device may receive the first UCI from the terminal device on the first time-frequency resource.

Based on the situation a, in a third possible implementation manner, the terminal device may determine a time-frequency resource that is not overlapped with the first time-frequency resource in the fourth time-frequency resource, and the non-overlapped time-frequency resource may be referred to as a fifth time-frequency resource. The terminal device may send the compressed second HARQ codebook to the network device on the fifth time-frequency resource, and send the first UCI to the network device on the first time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the network device may receive the compressed second HARQ codebook from the terminal device on the fifth time-frequency resource, and receive the first UCI from the terminal device on the first time-frequency resource. Further optionally, after determining the fifth time-frequency resource, the terminal device may perform recompression on the compressed second HARQ codebook based on the first implementation manner, the second implementation manner, the third implementation manner, the fourth implementation manner, the fifth implementation manner, or the sixth implementation manner, and the terminal device may send the recompressed second HARQ codebook to the network device on the fifth time-frequency resource.

It should be noted that, in this third possible implementation manner, the third time-frequency resource includes a fifth time-frequency resource and the first time-frequency resource. In addition, in another possible implementation manner, the terminal device may determine a time domain resource in which a time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource overlaps with the first time domain resource, and determine, as the fifth time frequency resource, a time frequency resource that does not overlap with the first time frequency resource in the fourth time frequency resource if a ratio of the overlapping time domain resource to the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is less than or equal to a third preset value. Alternatively, it may also be understood that, if the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is larger than the time domain resource whose time domain resource does not overlap with the first time domain resource, the compressed second HARQ codebook may be sent through the fifth time frequency resource. If the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is smaller than the time domain resource which is not overlapped with the first time domain resource, that is, the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is larger than the time domain resource which is overlapped with the first time domain resource, the compressed second HARQ codebook can be directly discarded because the degree of influence on the compressed second HARQ codebook is larger, for example, the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is completely overlapped with the first time domain resource, and the compressed second HARQ codebook is directly discarded.

In case b, the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource is not overlapped with the first time domain resource of the first time frequency resource.

Based on the situation b, the terminal device may send the first UCI to the network device on the first time-frequency resource, and send the compressed second HARQ codebook to the network device on the fourth time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the network device may receive the compressed second HARQ codebook from the terminal device on the fourth time-frequency resource, and receive the first UCI from the terminal device on the first time-frequency resource. In this case b, the third time-frequency resource includes the first time-frequency resource and the fourth time-frequency resource.

It should be noted that, if the second HARQ codebook is compressed based on the sixth implementation manner, the number of bits of the second HARQ codebook based on the TB is much smaller than that of the second HARQ codebook based on the CBG, so that the determined fourth time-frequency resource is also smaller. In this way, the probability that the time domain resource corresponding to the fourth time frequency resource overlaps with the first time domain resource of the first time frequency resource is smaller.

And in the fourth mode, a new time-frequency resource is determined directly according to the compressed second HARQ codebook and the total bit number after the first UCI is cascaded, and the new time-frequency resource is determined as a third time-frequency resource.

In a possible implementation manner, a new time-frequency resource is determined directly according to the compressed second HARQ codebook and the total bit number after the concatenation of the first UCI, and if the index of the end symbol of the new time-domain resource is greater than the index of the end symbol of the first time-domain resource, the compressed second HARQ codebook is discarded; and if the index of the ending symbol of the new time domain resource is less than or equal to the index of the ending symbol of the first time domain resource, determining the new time frequency resource as a third time frequency resource.

For a fourth implementation, reference may be specifically made to the description of the first possible implementation in case a of the third implementation, and details are not described here again.

Based on the fifth mode, the terminal device may send the compressed second HARQ codebook to the network device on a sixth time-frequency resource, and send the first UCI to the network device on the first time-frequency resource, where the sixth time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource that is not overlapped with the first time-frequency resource in the second time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the network device may receive the compressed second HARQ codebook from the terminal device on the sixth time-frequency resource, and receive the first UCI from the terminal device on the first time-frequency resource. That is, when the first time domain resource is partially overlapped with the second time domain resource, the time frequency resource overlapped with the first time frequency resource in the second time frequency resource may be discarded, and the compressed second HARQ codebook may be transmitted on the remaining time frequency resource after discarding. In this fifth mode, the third time frequency resource includes a sixth time frequency resource and the first time frequency resource.

It should be noted that the terminal device may determine a ratio of the time domain resource where the second time domain resource overlaps with the first time domain resource to the second time domain resource, and if the ratio is less than or equal to a first preset value, may determine a time frequency resource that does not overlap with the first time frequency resource in the second time frequency resource as a sixth time frequency resource. If the overlap between the first time domain resource and the second time domain resource is larger, the second HARQ codebook is influenced to a larger extent, the second HARQ codebook may be directly discarded, and the process of compressing the second HARQ codebook is not performed any more.

It should be noted that the first preset value and the third preset value may be empirical values, statistical values of historical data, or typical values, or values configured by any one of Radio Resource Control (RRC), Medium Access Control (MAC), main system information block (MIB), System Information Block (SIB), DCI, and other signaling of the network device. The first preset value and the third preset value may be the same or different. If the first preset value and the third preset value are empirical values or typical values, they may be fixed after being set, for example, they may both be set to 0.5. Alternatively, the first preset value and the third preset value may be values specified by a protocol.

The above five manners are only examples, and the present application does not limit which manner the terminal device sends the compressed second HARQ and the compressed first UCI to the network device. The selection of which method to transmit may be specified by a protocol or may be indicated by a network device. In addition, when the first UCI and the compressed second HARQ are transmitted, the code rate of the first UCI is generally the maximum code rate of transmission.

In implementation 1, the compressed second HARQ codebook received by the network device is obtained based on the first implementation.

In this implementation 1, the network device may start the L ratio from the first bit of the compressed second HARQ codebookThe HARQ information of each of the first L-1 bits of the bits is decompressed into M-bit HARQ information, the last bit of the L bits is decompressed into S-M (L-1) -bit HARQ information, wherein,

indicating rounding up.

Further, optionally, the network device may decompress one bit with a value of 1 into M bits with a value of 1, and decompress one bit with a value of 0 into M bits with a value of 0. Further, the last bit with value 1 is decompressed into S-M (L-1) bits with value 1, and the last bit with value 0 is decompressed into S-M (L-1) bits with value 0.

With reference to fig. 5a, M is 2, the compressed second HARQ codebook is 010, and after decompression, it is determined that each 1-bit HARQ information corresponds to 2-bit HARQ information of the second HARQ codebook, further, 0 indicates NACK, and 1 indicates ACK, so that it can be determined that PDSCHs corresponding to the first bit, the second bit, the fifth bit, and the sixth bit in the second HARQ codebook respectively need to be retransmitted, and PDSCHs corresponding to the third bit and the fourth bit respectively do not need to be retransmitted. In one possible implementation, the network device decompresses to obtain the second HARQ codebook of 001100.

In implementation 2, the compressed second HARQ codebook received by the network device is obtained based on the second implementation.

In this implementation 2, the network device may decompress HARQ information for each of the first L-1 bits of the L bits to 2 starting from the first bit of the compressed second HARQ codebook^NThe HARQ information of the bits is decompressed to S-2 from the last bit in the L bits^N(L-1) bits of HARQ information, wherein,

indicating rounding up.

Further, optionally, the network device may decompress one bit with a value of 1 to 2^NEach bit having a value of 1, one bit having a value of 0 is decompressed to 2^NA bit with a value of 0. Further, the last bit with value 1 is decompressed to S-2^N(L-1) bits with value of 1, and decompressing the last bit with value of 0 to S-2^N(L-1) bits taking the value 0.

With reference to fig. 5b, N is 1, the compressed second HARQ codebook is 010, and after decompression, it is determined that each 1-bit HARQ information corresponds to 2 of the second HARQ codebook^NThe HARQ information of 2 bits, 0 indicates NACK, and 1 indicates ACK, which may determine that the PDSCH corresponding to the first bit, the second bit, the fifth bit, and the sixth bit in the second HARQ codebook needs to be retransmitted, and the PDSCH corresponding to the third bit and the fourth bit does not need to be retransmitted. In one possible implementation, the network device decompresses to obtain the second HARQ codebook of 001100.

In implementation 3, the compressed second HARQ codebook received by the network device is obtained based on the third implementation.

In this implementation 3, the network device may decode the L-bit compressed second HARQ codebook into S-bits.

Implementation 4, the compressed second HARQ codebook received by the network device is obtained based on the fourth implementation.

In this implementation 4, the network device may decompress HARQ information of each of the first L-1 bits of the L bits into 1-bit HARQ information, and decompress the last bit of the L bits into (S-L +1) -bit HARQ information, starting from the first bit of the compressed second HARQ codebook.

Further, optionally, the network device may decompress the last bit with a value of 1 into (S-L +1) bits with a value of 1, and decompress the last bit with a value of 0 into (S-L +1) bits with a value of 0.

Implementation 5, the compressed second HARQ codebook received by the network device is obtained based on the fifth implementation.

In this implementation 5, the network device may directly determine HARQ information for each of the L bits.

Implementation 6, the compressed second HARQ codebook received by the network device is obtained based on the sixth implementation.

Based on this implementation 6, in one possible implementation, the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based HARQ codebook. The network device may determine that the CBG-based second HARQ codebook is modified to a TB-based second HARQ codebook. Further, optionally, the network device may decompress one bit that is modified to be 1 in the second HARQ codebook based on the TB into 8 bits that are 1, and decompress one bit that is 0 into 8 bits that are 0.

In another possible implementation, the second HARQ codebook is a CBG-based and TB-based HARQ codebook. The network device may determine that the CBG-based and TB-based second HARQ codebooks are modified to be TB-based second HARQ codebooks. Further, optionally, the network device may decompress one bit that is modified to be 1 in the second HARQ codebook based on the TB into 8 bits that are 1, and decompress one bit that is 0 into 8 bits that are 0.

It should be noted that, in a possible implementation manner, if the compression manner is selected by the terminal device, the terminal device may indicate, to the network device, the compression manner of the second HARQ codebook, which may be indicated in a display manner or may also be indicated in an implicit manner, which is not limited in this application.

In a possible implementation manner, the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI may be sent through the third time-frequency resource determined in the first implementation manner and the second implementation manner by using the compression manner of the first implementation manner, the second implementation manner, the third implementation manner, the fourth implementation manner, and the fifth implementation manner for the second HARQ codebook; the sixth mode of compressing the second HARQ codebook may be implemented by sending the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI through the third time-frequency resource determined in the third, fourth and fifth modes.

In another possible implementation manner, the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI may be sent through the third time-frequency resource determined in the first implementation manner, the second implementation manner, the third implementation manner, the fourth implementation manner, and the fifth implementation manner.

In yet another possible implementation manner, the second HARQ codebook may be compressed through the sixth implementation manner, and then compressed again through any one of the first implementation manner, the second implementation manner, the third implementation manner, the fourth implementation manner, or the fifth implementation manner, and the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI are sent through the third time-frequency resource determined in the first implementation manner, the second implementation manner, and the fifth implementation manner.

It should be noted that, the present application does not limit the combination of the implementation manner of compressing the second HARQ codebook and the determination manner of sending the compressed second HARQ codebook and the third time-frequency resource of the first UCI, and as described above, the above-mentioned two examples are only three possible examples.

In the foregoing embodiment, in a possible implementation manner, the number of bits of the second HARQ codebook is greater than the second preset value. That is, when the number of bits of the second HARQ codebook is small, the influence on the downlink throughput is small, and the second HARQ codebook may be discarded directly. It should be noted that the second preset value may be an empirical value, a statistical value of historical data, or a typical value, or a value configured by the network device using any one of RRC, MAC, MIB, SIB, DCI, and other signaling.

In this application, the first UCI may be a UCI corresponding to a URLLC service, and the second UCI may be a UCI corresponding to an eMBB.

It is to be understood that, in order to implement the functions in the above embodiments, the network device and the terminal device include hardware structures and/or software modules for performing the respective functions. Those of skill in the art will readily appreciate that the various illustrative elements and method steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as hardware or combinations of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is performed as hardware or computer software driven hardware depends on the particular application scenario and design constraints imposed on the solution.

Fig. 6 and 7 are schematic structural diagrams of possible communication devices provided by the present application. These communication devices can be used to implement the functions of the terminal device or the network device in the above method embodiments, so that the beneficial effects of the above method embodiments can also be achieved. In this application, the communication device may be a terminal device 102 shown in fig. 1, a network device 101 shown in fig. 1, or a module (e.g., a chip) applied to the terminal device or the network device.

As shown in fig. 6, the communication apparatus 600 includes a processing unit 601 and a transceiver unit 602. The communication apparatus 600 is used to implement the functions of the terminal device or the network device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 3, fig. 5a, fig. 5b, fig. 5c or fig. 5 d.

When the communication apparatus 600 is used to implement the functions of the terminal device of the method embodiment shown in fig. 3: when a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time-frequency resource of a first UCI partially overlaps or completely overlaps a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time-frequency resource of a second UCI, the processing unit 601 is configured to compress a second HARQ codebook in the second UCI. The transceiving unit 602 is configured to send the compressed second HARQ codebook and the first UCI to the network device on the third time-frequency resource.

When the communication apparatus 600 is used to implement the functions of the network device of the method embodiment shown in fig. 3: the transceiving unit 602 is configured to receive an uplink channel from the terminal device on the third time-frequency resource, where the uplink channel carries the first uplink control information UCI and the second UCI; when a first time domain resource corresponding to a first time-frequency resource of a first UCI partially overlaps or completely overlaps a second time domain resource corresponding to a second time-frequency resource of a second UCI, the processing unit 601 is configured to decompress a compressed second HARQ codebook in the second UCI.

More detailed descriptions about the processing unit 601 and the transceiver 602 can be directly obtained by referring to the related descriptions in the embodiment of the method shown in fig. 3, and are not described herein again.

It should be understood that the processing unit 601 in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented by a processor or a processor-related circuit component, and the transceiver unit 602 may be implemented by a transceiver or a transceiver-related circuit component.

Based on the above and the same concept, the present application further provides a communication apparatus 700, as shown in fig. 7. The communication device 700 may include a processor 701 and a transceiver 702. Optionally, the communication device 700 may also include a memory 703. The memory 703 stores instructions or programs, and the processor 701 is configured to execute the instructions or programs stored in the memory 703, or store input data required by the processor 701 to execute the instructions, or store data generated after the processor 701 executes the instructions. When the instructions or programs stored in the memory 703 are executed, the processor 701 is configured to perform the operations performed by the processing unit 601 in the above embodiments, and the transceiver 702 is configured to perform the operations performed by the transceiver 602 in the above embodiments.

It should be understood that the communication apparatus 700 in the embodiment according to the present application may correspond to the terminal device or the network device in the embodiment shown in fig. 3, and the operations and/or functions of the respective modules in the communication apparatus 700 may respectively implement the corresponding flows in the embodiment shown in fig. 3, which are not described in detail herein for brevity, and reference may be made to the description in the embodiment of the method shown in fig. 3.

When the communication device is a chip applied to a terminal device, the terminal device chip implements the functions of the terminal device in the above method embodiment. The terminal device chip receives information from other modules (such as a radio frequency module or an antenna) in the terminal device, wherein the information is sent to the terminal device by the network device; or, the terminal device chip sends information to other modules (such as a radio frequency module or an antenna) in the terminal device, where the information is sent by the terminal device to the network device.

When the communication device is a chip applied to a network device, the network device chip implements the functions of the network device in the above method embodiments. The network device chip receives information from other modules (such as a radio frequency module or an antenna) in the network device, wherein the information is sent to the network device by the terminal device; alternatively, the network device chip sends information to other modules (such as a radio frequency module or an antenna) in the network device, and the information is sent by the network device to the terminal device.

When the communication device is a terminal device, fig. 8 shows a simplified structure diagram of the terminal device. For easy understanding and illustration, in fig. 8, the terminal device is exemplified by a mobile phone. As shown in fig. 8, the terminal device 800 includes a processor, a memory, a radio frequency circuit, an antenna, and an input-output means. The processor is mainly configured to process the communication protocol and the communication data, control the entire terminal device, execute a software program, and process data of the software program, for example, to support the terminal device 800 to execute the method executed by the terminal device in any of the above embodiments. The memory is used primarily for storing software programs and data. The radio frequency circuit is mainly used for converting baseband signals and radio frequency signals and processing the radio frequency signals. The antenna is mainly used for receiving and transmitting radio frequency signals in the form of electromagnetic waves. Input and output devices, such as touch screens, display screens, keyboards, etc., are used primarily for receiving data input by a user and for outputting data to the user. It should be noted that some kinds of terminal devices may not have input/output devices.

When the terminal device is started, the processor can read the software program in the memory, interpret and execute the instruction of the software program, and process the data of the software program. When data needs to be transmitted, the processor performs baseband processing on the data to be transmitted and outputs baseband signals to the radio frequency circuit, and the radio frequency circuit performs radio frequency processing on the baseband signals and transmits the radio frequency signals to the outside in the form of electromagnetic waves through the antenna. When data is transmitted to the terminal device 800, the radio frequency circuit receives a radio frequency signal through the antenna, converts the radio frequency signal into a baseband signal, and outputs the baseband signal to the processor, and the processor converts the baseband signal into data and processes the data.

As an alternative implementation manner, the processor may include a baseband processor and a central processing unit, the baseband processor is mainly used for processing the communication protocol and the communication data, and the central processing unit is mainly used for controlling the whole terminal device 800, executing the software program, and processing the data of the software program. The processor in fig. 8 integrates functions of the baseband processor and the central processing unit, and it should be noted that the baseband processor and the central processing unit may also be independent processors, and are interconnected through technologies such as a bus. In addition, the terminal device may include a plurality of baseband processors to adapt to different network systems, the terminal device 800 may include a plurality of central processors to enhance its processing capability, and various components of the terminal device 800 may be connected by various buses. The baseband processor may also be expressed as a baseband processing circuit or a baseband processing chip. The central processing unit may also be expressed as a central processing circuit or a central processing chip. The function of processing the communication protocol and the communication data may be built in the processor, or may be stored in the storage unit in the form of a software program, and the processor executes the software program to realize the baseband processing function.

In the present application, the antenna and the control circuit having the transmitting and receiving functions may be regarded as a transmitting and receiving unit of the terminal device, and the processor having the processing function may be regarded as a processing unit of the terminal device. As shown in fig. 8, the terminal device includes a processing unit 801 and a transceiving unit 802. The transceiver unit may also be referred to as a transceiver, transceiving means, etc., and the processing unit may also be referred to as a processor, processing board, processing unit, processing means, etc. Alternatively, a device for implementing a receiving function in the transceiving unit may be regarded as a receiving unit, and a device for implementing a sending function in the transceiving unit may be regarded as a sending unit, that is, the transceiving unit includes a receiving unit and a sending unit, the receiving unit may also be referred to as a receiver, a receiving circuit, and the like, and the sending unit may be referred to as a transmitter, a sending circuit, and the like.

Downlink signals (including data and/or control information) transmitted by the network equipment are received on the downlink through the antenna, uplink signals (including data and/or control information) are transmitted to the network equipment or other terminal equipment through the antenna on the uplink, and traffic data and signaling messages are processed in the processor according to the radio access technology (e.g., the access technology of LTE, NR, and other evolved systems) adopted by the radio access network. The processor is further configured to control and manage the actions of the terminal device, and is configured to perform the processing performed by the terminal device in the foregoing embodiment. The processor is also configured to enable the terminal device to perform the method of fig. 3 that relates to the terminal device.

It should be noted that fig. 8 only shows one memory, one processor and one antenna. In an actual terminal device, the terminal device may contain any number of antennas, memories, processors, etc. The memory may also be referred to as a storage medium or a storage device, and the present application is not limited thereto. In addition, the memory may be provided separately from the processor, or may be integrated with the processor, which is not limited in this embodiment.

It should be understood that the transceiver unit 802 is configured to perform the transmitting operation and the receiving operation on the terminal device side in the method embodiment shown in fig. 3, and the processing unit 801 is configured to perform other operations besides the transceiving operation on the terminal device side in the method embodiment shown in fig. 3. For example, the transceiving unit 802 is configured to perform transceiving steps on the terminal device side in the embodiment shown in fig. 3, for example, step 302. A processing unit 801, configured to perform other operations besides the transceiving operation, such as step 301, on the terminal device side in the embodiment shown in fig. 3.

When the communication device is a chip, the chip may include a transceiver unit and a processing unit. The transceiver unit can be an input/output circuit and an interface circuit; the processing unit may be a processor or a microprocessor or an integrated circuit integrated on the chip.

When the communication device is a network device, fig. 9 exemplarily shows a schematic structural diagram of a network device provided by the present application. As shown in fig. 9, the network device 900 may include one or more Remote Radio Units (RRUs) 902 and one or more baseband units (BBUs) 901. RRU902, which may be referred to as a transceiver unit, transceiver, transceiving circuitry, or transceiver, etc., may include at least one antenna 9021 and a radio frequency unit 9022. The RRU902 is mainly used for transceiving radio frequency signals and converting the radio frequency signals to baseband signals. The BBU901 portion may be referred to as a processing unit, a processor, and the like, and is mainly used for performing baseband processing, such as channel coding, multiplexing, modulation, spreading, and the like, and also for controlling a network device, and the like. RRU902 and BBU901 may be physically located together; or may be physically separated, i.e., distributed network devices.

As an optional implementation manner, the BBU901 may be formed by one or more boards, and the boards may support a radio access network of a single access system together, or may support radio access networks of different access systems respectively. The BBU901 further includes a memory 9012 and a processor 9011. The memory 9012 is used to store necessary instructions and data. The processor 9011 is configured to control the network device to perform necessary actions, for example, to control the network device to execute the method performed by the network device in any of the embodiments described above. Memory 9012 and processor 9011 may serve one or more boards. That is, the memory and processor may be provided separately on each board. Or multiple boards may share the same memory and processor. In addition, each single board is provided with necessary circuits.

Uplink signals (including data and the like) transmitted by the terminal device are received through the antenna 9021 on the uplink, downlink signals (including data and/or control information) are transmitted to the terminal device through the antenna 9021 on the downlink, and service data and signaling messages are processed in the processor 9011, and the processing is performed by the units according to a radio access technology (e.g., access technologies of LTE, NR, and other evolved systems) adopted by a radio access network. The processor 9011 is further configured to control and manage an action of the network device, and is configured to execute the processing performed by the network device in the foregoing embodiment. Processor 9011 is also configured to support the network device to perform the method performed by the network device in fig. 3.

It should be noted that fig. 9 only shows a simplified design of the network device. In practical applications, the network device may include any number of antennas, memories, processors, radio frequency units, RRUs, BBUs, etc., and all network devices that can implement the present application are within the protection scope of the present application.

It should be understood that the transceiver 902 is configured to perform the sending operation and the receiving operation on the network device side in the method embodiment shown in fig. 3, and the processing unit 901 is configured to perform other operations besides the transceiving operation on the network device side in the method embodiment shown in fig. 3. For example, the transceiving unit 902 is configured to perform transceiving steps on the network device side in the embodiment shown in fig. 3, for example, step 302. A processing unit 901, configured to perform other operations besides the transceiving operation, for example, step 303, on the network device side in the embodiment shown in fig. 3.

It should be understood that the processor referred to in the embodiments of the present application may also be other general purpose processors, Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, etc. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

The memory referred to in this application may be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or may include both volatile and nonvolatile memory. The non-volatile memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), a Programmable ROM (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), an electrically Erasable EPROM (EEPROM), or a flash memory. Volatile memory can be Random Access Memory (RAM), which acts as external cache memory. By way of example, but not limitation, many forms of RAM are available, such as Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM, enhanced SDRAM, SLDRAM, Synchronous Link DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct rambus RAM (DR RAM).

It should be noted that when the processor is a general-purpose processor, a DSP, an ASIC, an FPGA or other programmable logic device, a discrete gate or transistor logic device, or a discrete hardware component, the memory (storage unit) may be integrated into the processor.

Based on the foregoing and similar concepts, the present application provides a communication system. The communication system may include one or more of the aforementioned terminal devices, and one or more network devices. The terminal device can execute any method on the terminal device side, and the network device can execute any method on the network device side. The possible implementation manners of the network device and the terminal device can be referred to the above description, and are not described herein again.

In the above embodiments, all or part of the implementation may be realized by software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereof, and when the implementation is realized by a software program, all or part of the implementation may be realized in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more instructions. The procedures or functions according to the embodiments of the present application are all or partially generated when the computer program instructions are loaded and executed on a computer. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a network of computers, or other programmable device. The instructions may be stored in or transmitted from one computer storage medium to another, for example, instructions may be transmitted from one website site, computer, server, or data center to another website site, computer, server, or data center via wired (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) means. A computer storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device, such as a server, a data center, etc., that incorporates one or more available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., a flexible Disk, a hard Disk, a magnetic tape, a magneto-optical Disk (MO), etc.), an optical medium (e.g., a CD, a DVD, a BD, an HVD, etc.), or a semiconductor medium (e.g., a ROM, an EPROM, an EEPROM, a nonvolatile memory (NAND FLASH), a Solid State Disk (SSD)), etc.

In the embodiments of the present application, unless otherwise specified or conflicting with respect to logic, the terms and/or descriptions in different embodiments have consistency and may be mutually cited, and technical features in different embodiments may be combined to form a new embodiment according to their inherent logic relationship.

In the present application, "at least one" means one or more, "a plurality" means two or more. "and/or" describes the association relationship of the associated objects, meaning that there may be three relationships, e.g., a and/or B, which may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone, wherein A and B can be singular or plural. In the description of the text of the present application, the character "/" generally indicates that the former and latter associated objects are in an "or" relationship; in the formula of the present application, the character "/" indicates that the preceding and following related objects are in a relationship of "division".

It is to be understood that the various numerical references referred to in the embodiments of the present application are merely for descriptive convenience and are not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments of the present application. The sequence numbers of the above-mentioned processes do not mean the execution sequence, and the execution sequence of the processes should be determined by their functions and inherent logic.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, embodiments of the present application may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, embodiments of the present application may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, embodiments of the present application may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

Embodiments of the present application are described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the application. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by instructions. These instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made in the embodiments of the present application without departing from the spirit and scope of the application. Thus, if such modifications and variations of the embodiments of the present application fall within the scope of the claims of the present application and their equivalents, the present application is also intended to encompass such modifications and variations.

Claims

PCT domestic application, the claims have been published.