US-20260129610-A1 - METHODS FOR COMMUNICATION, TERMINAL DEVICE, NETWORK DEVICE, AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIA

US20260129610A1US 20260129610 A1US20260129610 A1US 20260129610A1US-20260129610-A1

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a solution for location determining and reporting of a terminal device and a mobility measurement report based on a location of a terminal device. In a method for communication, a first terminal device incapable of using a satellite positioning system receives, from a second terminal device capable of using the satellite positioning system, a first message indicating a first time point of the satellite positioning system when the first message is transmitted. The first terminal device transmits, to the second terminal device, a responsive message to the first message after a predefined delay from receiving the first message. The first terminal device receives, from the second terminal device, a second message indicating a reference time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is received by the first terminal device. With the embodiments of the present disclosure, a terminal device incapable of using a satellite positioning system can determine its accurate location and report the location to a network device, so as to optimize the mobility management of the terminal device.

Inventors

Gang Wang

Assignees

NEC CORPORATION

Dates

Publication Date: 20260507
Application Date: 20251229
Priority Date: 20190929

Claims (19)

1 . A method performed by a first terminal device, the method comprising: determining whether a distance between the first terminal device and a first reference location exceeds a first threshold and a distance between the first terminal device and a second reference location is below a second threshold; and initiating a measurement reporting procedure in a case where the distance between the first terminal device and the first reference location exceeds the first threshold and the distance between the first terminal device and the second reference location is below the second threshold.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the measurement reporting procedure comprises: transmitting measurement results from the first terminal device to a network device.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first reference location is associated with a serving cell, and the second reference location is associated with a neighbor cell.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first terminal device is incapable of using a satellite positioning system, and the method further comprising: receiving, from a second terminal device capable of using the satellite positioning system, a first message indicating a first time point of the satellite positioning system when the first message is transmitted; transmitting, to the second terminal device, a responsive message to the first message after a predefined delay from receiving the first message, such that the second terminal device determines a radio transmission delay between the first terminal device and the second terminal device based on the first time point, the predefined delay and a second time point of the satellite positioning system when the responsive message is received by the second terminal device; and receiving, from the second terminal device, a second message indicating a reference time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is received by the first terminal device, the reference time point being determined based on the radio transmission delay and a third time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is transmitted.
5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising: broadcasting a request for locations of a plurality of reference terminal devices capable of using the satellite positioning system; determining, based on the reference time point, a requesting time point of the satellite positioning system when the request is broadcasted; receiving a set of responses to the request from a set of reference terminal devices of the plurality of reference terminal devices, each response including a location of a reference terminal device in the set of reference terminal devices and a transmitting time point of the satellite positioning system when the reference terminal device transmits the response; and determining a location of the first terminal device based on the set of responses.
6 . The method of claim 4 , wherein determining the location of the first terminal device comprises: for a reference terminal device in the set of reference terminal devices: determining a radio transmission delay between the first terminal device and the reference terminal device, based on the requesting time point, the transmitting time point associated with the reference terminal device, and a predefined delay between receiving the request and the transmitting time point; determining a distance between the first terminal device and the reference terminal device based on the radio transmission delay; and determining the location of the first terminal device based on the locations of the set of reference terminal devices and the distances between the terminal device and the set of reference terminal devices.
7 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising: in accordance with a determination that the set of responses includes more than three responses, selecting three of the set of responses received with radio qualities or radio transmission delays higher than the rest of the set of responses for determining the location of the first terminal device.
8 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the set of the reference terminal devices includes at least three reference terminal devices.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first terminal device is capable of using a satellite positioning system, and the method further comprising: transmitting, to a second terminal device, a first message indicating a first time point of a satellite positioning system when the first message is transmitted, the second terminal device being incapable of using the satellite positioning system; in accordance with a determination that a responsive message to the first message is received from the second terminal device, determining a second time point of the satellite positioning system when the responsive message is received; determining a radio transmission delay between the first terminal device and the second terminal device, based on the first time point, the second time point, and a predefined delay between receiving the first message and transmitting the responsive message; and transmitting, to the second terminal device, a second message indicating a reference time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is received by the second terminal device, the reference time point being determined based on the radio transmission delay and a third time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is transmitted.
10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first terminal device is capable of using a satellite positioning system, and the method further comprising: receiving, from a further terminal device incapable of using the satellite positioning system, a request for a location of the terminal device; and transmitting a response to the request to the further terminal device after a predefined delay from receiving the request, the response including the location of the terminal device and a transmitting time point of the satellite positioning system when the response is transmitted.
11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the response is transmitted in accordance with a determination that a receiving quality of the request exceeds a predefined threshold.
12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first terminal device is incapable of using a satellite positioning system, and the method further comprising: receiving, from a second terminal device capable of using the satellite positioning system, an indication of a location of the second terminal device; and transmitting, to a network device, location information indicating the location of the second terminal device as an estimated location of the first terminal device.
13 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising: broadcasting a request for locations of terminal devices capable of using the satellite positioning system.
14 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising: in accordance with a determination that a plurality of indications of locations of a plurality of terminal devices are received, selecting a terminal device associated with one of the plurality of indications received with a highest quality as the second terminal device.
15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first terminal device is capable of using a satellite positioning system, and the method further comprising: receiving, from a second terminal device a request for a location of the first terminal device, the second terminal device being incapable of using a satellite positioning system, the request being broadcasted by the second terminal device; and in accordance with the request, transmitting an indication of the location of the first terminal device to the second terminal device.
16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first terminal device is capable of using a satellite positioning system, and the method further comprising: receiving, at the first terminal device from a network device, control information instructing the first terminal device to broadcast an indication of a location of the terminal device; and in accordance with the control information, broadcasting the indication of the location of the first terminal device.
17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the control information comprises at least one of a power or a periodicity for broadcasting the indication.
18 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the first terminal device is capable of using a plurality of types of satellite positioning system, and wherein the control information comprises an indicated type of satellite positioning system for determining the location of the first terminal device.
19 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising: in accordance with a determination that further control information instructing the first terminal device to broadcast the indication of the location of the first terminal device using a higher power is received, broadcasting the indication using the higher power.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a Continuation Application of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/764,300 filed Mar. 28, 2022, which is a National Stage of International Application No. PCT/CN2019/109095 filed Sep. 29, 2019, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. FIELD Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of communication, and in particular, to a solution for location determining and reporting of a terminal device and a mobility measurement report based on a location of a terminal device. BACKGROUND The latest developments of the 3GPP standards are referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE) of Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network and Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), also commonly termed as ‘4G.’ In addition, the term ‘5G New Radio (NR)’ refers to an evolving communication technology that is expected to support a variety of applications and services. The 5G NR is part of a continuous mobile broadband evolution promulgated by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to meet new requirements associated with latency, reliability, security, scalability (for example, with Internet of Things), and other requirements. Some aspects of the 5G NR may be based on the 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards. 3GPP has the following agreement on user equipment (UE) location report in Radio Access Network (RAN) Working Group 2 (WG2) RAN2 #105bis. A non-terrestrial network (NTN) should support both, UEs supporting Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) based positioning methods and UE not supporting GNSS based positioning methods. Also, 3GPP has the following agreement on UE location report in RAN3 #103. Country identification is one more use case identified where UE positioning information would be useful to identify right policies and charging rules. In addition, RAN2 confirmed UE location reporting should be introduced in a non-terrestrial network to aid mobility management. However, by far there is no UE originated location reporting rules. RAN2 contributions disclosed some simple rules, but not discussed yet. SUMMARY In general, example embodiments of the present disclosure provide a solution for location determining and reporting of a terminal device and a mobility measurement report based on a location of a terminal device. In a first aspect, there is provided a method for communication. The method comprises: receiving, at a first terminal device incapable of using a satellite positioning system, from a second terminal device capable of using the satellite positioning system, a first message indicating a first time point of the satellite positioning system when the first message is transmitted. The method also comprises: transmitting, to the second terminal device, a responsive message to the first message after a predefined delay from receiving the first message, such that the second terminal device determines a radio transmission delay between the first terminal device and the second terminal device based on the first time point, the predefined delay and a second time point of the satellite positioning system when the responsive message is received by the second terminal device. The method further comprises: receiving, from the second terminal device, a second message indicating a reference time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is received by the first terminal device, the reference time point being determined based on the radio transmission delay and a third time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is transmitted. In a second aspect, there is provided a method for communication. The method comprises: transmitting, to a first terminal device and at a second terminal device, a first message indicating a first time point of a satellite positioning system when the first message is transmitted, the first terminal device being incapable of using the satellite positioning system, the second terminal device being capable of using the satellite positioning system. The method also comprises: in accordance with a determination that a responsive message to the first message is received from the first terminal device, determining a second time point of the satellite positioning system when the responsive message is received. The method also comprises: determining a radio transmission delay between the first terminal device and the second terminal device, based on the first time point, the second time point, and a predefined delay between receiving the first message and transmitting the responsive message. The method further comprises: transmitting, to the first terminal device, a second message indicating a reference time point of the satellite positioning system when the second message is received by the first terminal device, the reference time point being determined based on the radio transmission dela