US-12628027-B2 - First node, second node and methods performed thereby in a communications network for handling transmission of one or more packets from a sending node to a receiving node

US12628027B2US 12628027 B2US12628027 B2US 12628027B2US-12628027-B2

Abstract

A method performed by a first node, for handling transmission of one or more packets from a sending node to a receiving node. The first node operates in a communications network. The communications network comprises at least one intermediate node between the sending node and the receiving node. The first node determines whether or not to duplicate the one or more packets between the first node and a second node comprised in the communications network. The first node then sends, based on a result of the determination, at least one of the one or more packets and the one or more duplicates, over a Backhaul Adaptation Protocol, BAP, layer, or one or more Backhaul Radio Link Channels between the first node and the second node.

Inventors

Filip BARAC
Gunnar Mildh
Oumer Teyeb
Ajmal Muhammad
Per-Erik Eriksson

Assignees

TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20210416

Claims (19)

1 . A method performed by a first node, the method being for handling transmission of one or more packets from a sending node to a receiving node, the first node operating in an Integrated Access and Backhaul, IAB, communications network, the IAB communications network comprising at least one intermediate node between the sending node and the receiving node, the method comprising: determining whether or not to duplicate the one or more packets exchanged between the first node and a second node comprised in the IAB communications network, duplicating, based on the determination, the one or more packets at a Backhaul Adaptation Protocol (BAP) layer, and sending at least one of the one or more packets and the one or more duplicates over the BAP layer, wherein the determining of whether or not to duplicate is based on the existence of a single or multiple paths between the first node and the second node.
2 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising: sending, to the second node, a first indication indicating to send the one or more packets and the one or more duplicates towards the receiving node via different links.
3 . A method performed by a second node, the method being for handling transmission of one or more packets from a sending node to a receiving node, the second node operating in an Integrated Access and Backhaul, IAB, network, the IAB network comprising at least one intermediate node between the sending node and the receiving node, the method comprising: receiving at least one of the one or more packets and one or more duplicates of the one or more packets over the Backhaul Adaptation Protocol (BAP) layer, wherein the one or more duplicates of the one or more packets are duplicated by the sending node at the BAP layer.
4 . The method according to claim 3 , further comprising: receiving, from the first node, a first indication to send the one or more packets and the one or more duplicates towards the receiving node via different links.
5 . A first node for handling transmission of one or more packets from a sending node to a receiving node, the first node being configured to operate in an Integrated Access and Backhaul, IAB, communications network, the IAB network being configured to comprise at least one intermediate node between the sending node and the receiving node, the first node being further configured to: determine whether or not to duplicate the one or more packets exchanged between the first node and a second node configured to be comprised in the IAB communications network, duplicate, based on the determination, the one or more packets at a Backhaul Adaptation Protocol (BAP) layer, and send at least one of the one or more packets and the one or more duplicates over the BAP layer, wherein the determining of whether or not to duplicate is based on the existence of a single or multiple paths between the first node and the second node.
6 . The first node according to claim 5 , wherein the first node is configured to be one of: (i) the sending node, (ii) a node configured to provide access to the IAB communications network to one of the sending node and the receiving node, (iii) a donor distributed unit, or (iv) the at least one intermediate node between the sending node and the receiving node.
7 . The first node according to claim 5 , being further configured to: determine a fourth identity of the second node, the determining of the fourth identity being configured to be based on one or more of: i. whether or not the first node has information on the second node, ii. a number of outgoing links of the second node, iii. a load of the second node, and/or iv. a quality of a respective link between the first node and the second node.
8 . The first node according to claim 5 , wherein the determining of whether or not to duplicate is further configured to comprise determining whether or not to remove one or more duplicates of the one or more packets prior to sending the one or more packets.
9 . The first node according to claim 5 , wherein the determining of whether or not to duplicate is configured to be based on one or more of: an attribute, explicit or derived, of the one or more packets, a first identity of the sending node, a second identity of the receiving node, a third identity of the second node, and/or an indication that the one or more packets are to be duplicated.
10 . The first node according to claim 9 , wherein the attribute is configured to be one of: a backhaul logical channel configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a first identifier of a path configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a second identifier of a BAP routing configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a Quality of Service, Qos, configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a delay of the one or more packets, or a traffic type configured to be associated with the one or more packets, and a Radio Link Control mode configured to be associated with the one or more packets.
11 . The first node according to claim 5 , wherein the determining of whether or not to duplicate is configured to be based on the existence of a single or multiple paths between the first node and the receiving node.
12 . The first node according to claim 5 , being further configured to: send, to the second node, a first indication configured to indicate to send the one or more packets and the one or more duplicates towards the receiving node via different links.
13 . A second node, for handling transmission of one or more packets from a sending node to a receiving node, the second node being configured to operate in an Integrated Access and Backhaul, IAB, network, the IAB network being configured to comprise at least one intermediate node configured to be between the sending node and the receiving node, the second node being further configured to: receive at least one of the one or more packets and one or more duplicates of the one or more packets over the Backhaul Adaptation Protocol (BAP) layer, wherein the one or more duplicates of the one or more packets are duplicated by the sending node at the BAP layer.
14 . The second node according to claim 13 , wherein the first node is configured to be one of: the sending node, a node configured to provide access to the IAB network to one of the sending node and the receiving node, a donor distributed unit, or the at least one intermediate node configured to be between the sending node and the receiving node.
15 . The second node according to claim 13 , wherein the receiving is configured to be based on one or more of: i. a number of outgoing links of the second node, ii. a load of the second node, and/or iii. a quality of a respective link between the first node and the second node.
16 . The second node according to claim 13 , wherein the receiving is configured to be based on one or more of: an attribute, explicit or derived, of the one or more packets, a first identity of the sending node, a second identity of the receiving node, a third identity of the second node, and/or an indication that the one or more packets are to be duplicated.
17 . The second node according to claim 16 , wherein the attribute is configured to be one of: a backhaul logical channel configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a first identifier of a path configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a second identifier of a BAP routing configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a Quality of Service, Qos, configured to be associated with the one or more packets, a delay of the one or more packets, a traffic type configured to be associated with the one or more packets, or a Radio Link Control mode configured to be associated with the one or more packets.
18 . The second node according to claim 13 , wherein the receiving is configured to be based on the existence of a single or multiple paths between the first node and the receiving node.
19 . The second node according to claim 13 , being further configured to: receive, from the first node, a first indication to send the one or more packets and the one or more duplicates towards the receiving node via different links.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S) This application is a 35 U.S.C. § 371 National Phase of PCT/SE2021/050348, filed Apr. 16, 2021, designating the United States, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 63/011,778, 63/011,789, and 63/011,801 filed Apr. 17, 2020, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference. TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates generally to a first node and methods performed thereby for handling transmission of one or more packets from a sending node to a receiving node. The present disclosure also relates generally to a second node and methods performed thereby for handling transmission of the one or more packets from the sending node to the receiving node. BACKGROUND Nodes within a communications network may be wireless devices such as e.g., User Equipments (UEs), stations (STAs), mobile terminals, wireless terminals, terminals, and/or Mobile Stations (MS). Wireless devices are enabled to communicate wirelessly in a cellular communications network or wireless communication network, sometimes also referred to as a cellular radio system, cellular system, or cellular network. The communication may be performed e.g., between two wireless devices, between a wireless device and a regular telephone, and/or between a wireless device and a server via a Radio Access Network (RAN), and possibly one or more core networks, comprised within the communications network. Wireless devices may further be referred to as mobile telephones, cellular telephones, laptops, or tablets with wireless capability, just to mention some further examples. The wireless devices in the present context may be, for example, portable, pocket-storable, hand-held, computer-comprised, or vehicle-mounted mobile devices, enabled to communicate voice and/or data, via the RAN, with another entity, such as another terminal or a server. Nodes may also be network nodes, such as radio network nodes, e.g., Transmission Points (TP). The communications network covers a geographical area which may be divided into cell areas, each cell area being served by a network node such as a Base Station (BS), e.g. a Radio Base Station (RBS), which sometimes may be referred to as e.g., gNB, evolved Node B (“eNB”), “eNodeB”, “NodeB”, “B node”, or BTS (Base Transceiver Station), depending on the technology and terminology used. The base stations may be of different classes such as e.g. Wide Area Base Stations, Medium Range Base Stations, Local Area Base Stations and Home Base Stations, based on transmission power and thereby also cell size. A cell is the geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the base station at a base station site. One base station, situated on the base station site, may serve one or several cells. Further, each base station may support one or several communication technologies. The communications network may also be a non-cellular system, comprising network nodes which may serve receiving nodes, such as wireless devices, with serving beams. In 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE), base stations, which may be referred to as eNodeBs or even eNBs, may be directly connected to one or more core networks. In the context of this disclosure, the expression Downlink (DL) may be used for the transmission path from the base station to the wireless device. The so-called 5th Generation (5G) system, from a radio perspective started to be standardized in 3GPP, and the so-called New Radio or Next Radio (NR) is the name for the radio interface. NR architecture is being discussed in 3GPP. In the current concept, gNB denotes NR BS, where one NR BS may correspond to one or more transmission/reception points. The expression Uplink (UL) may be used for the transmission path in the opposite direction i.e., from the wireless device to the base station. Carrier Aggregation and Dual Connectivity in LTE and NR General There may be different ways to deploy a 5G network with or without interworking with LTE, also referred to as Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), and evolved packet core (EPC), as depicted in FIG. 1. These different ways are depicted schematically in FIG. 1 as different Options, wherein Option 1 corresponds to standalone LTE connected to EPC, Option 2 corresponds to Standalone NR connected to SGCN, or NR-NR DC, Option 3 corresponds to LTE-NR DC connected to EPC (EN-DC), Option 4 corresponds to NR-LTE DC, connected to SGCN (NE-DC), Option 5 corresponds to LTE connected to SGCN (eLTE or LTE-5GC), and Option 7 corresponds to LTE-NR DC, connected to SGCN (NGEN-DC). In principle, NR and LTE may be deployed without any interworking, denoted by NR stand-alone (SA) operation, that is, an eNB may be connected to an EPC and a gNB in NR may be connected to a 5G core network (5GC), with no interconnection between the two, as depicted, respectively, in Option 1 and Option 2 in the figure. On the other hand, the first supported ve