WO2022143395A1

WO2022143395A1 - Redundant path creating method, apparatus, and system

Info

Publication number: WO2022143395A1
Application number: PCT/CN2021/140803
Authority: WO
Inventors: 周汉; 胡伟华; 李汉成
Original assignee: 华为技术有限公司
Priority date: 2020-12-28
Filing date: 2021-12-23
Publication date: 2022-07-07
Also published as: CN114697999A

Abstract

Embodiments of the present application provide a redundant path creating method, apparatus, and system, being used for ensuring the reliability of communication while saving terminal cost and reducing network deployment. The redundant path creating method comprises: a terminal device 10 receives a message 30 from a user plane function 20, and the terminal device 10 serves a terminal device 11; the terminal device 10 receives a message 30 from a terminal device 12; the terminal device 10 performs deduplication on the message 30 from the user plane function 20 and the message 30 from the terminal device 12; and the terminal device 10 transmits the deduplicated messages 30 to the terminal device 11.

Description

A method, device and system for creating redundant paths

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the priority of the Chinese patent application with the application number 202011578654.4 and the application title "A method, device and system for creating redundant paths", which was filed with the China Patent Office on December 28, 2020, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference in this application.

technical field

The present application relates to the field of wireless communication technologies, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and system for creating a redundant path.

Background technique

In the related art, terminal devices are mostly connected to the wireless network in a linear topology. In the linear topology, the first node on the production line is connected to the wireless network, and other terminal devices on the production line are connected to the wireless network through the first node. If the network quality between the first node and the wireless network is unstable, the links between other terminal devices on the production line and the wireless network will fail.

Terminal devices can also use star topology or tree topology to access the wireless network. In star topology or tree topology, each terminal device on the production line can be directly connected to the wireless network. If the forwarding rules are not changed, the industrial application server Master only sends one packet, and then forwards the packet in each terminal device according to the forwarding rules of the line topology. The network quality between the networks is unstable, and the links between other end devices and the wireless network also fail. If the forwarding rule is changed, the network device needs to unpack the packet sent by the master and then forward it to each terminal device, which will waste the processing resources of the network device, and the network device does not necessarily have the function of packet unpacking. Higher requirements are placed on wireless networks, and network deployment is more difficult.

Therefore, when the terminal device accesses the wireless network, the reliability of communication cannot be guaranteed, and the processing resources of the network device are wasted, and the difficulty of network deployment is increased.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present application provide a method, device, and system for creating a redundant path, so as to ensure the reliability of communication while saving terminal costs and reducing network deployment difficulty.

In a first aspect, a method for creating a redundant path is provided, including: a terminal device 10 receives a packet 30 from a user plane function 20, the terminal device 10 serves the terminal device 11; the terminal device 10 receives a message from the terminal device 12 The terminal device 10 deduplicates the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12; the terminal device 10 deduplicates the packet 30 from the terminal device 12 The repeated message 30 is sent to the terminal device 11 .

In an industrial network topology, all terminal devices can access the wireless network through terminal devices with network access capabilities, and terminal devices with network access capabilities can transparently forward packets to achieve mutual backup and load sharing of wireless connections. Under the existing communication system architecture, combined with the actual networking model of the industrial Ethernet protocol, the reliability of communication is guaranteed while saving terminal costs and reducing the difficulty of network deployment.

In a possible design, the terminal device 10 may also receive a response 31 from the terminal device 11, where the response 31 corresponds to the deduplicated packet 30; the terminal device 10 sends the The terminal device 12 sends a response 32 corresponding to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In this design, a terminal device with network access capability can also forward a response (ie, an uplink message) to improve communication reliability.

In a possible design, if a fault occurs between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20, the terminal device 10 may also receive the packet 35 from the terminal device 12, and convert the packet 35 to the terminal device 11 .

In this design, when the data transmission link fails, the detection and location of the fault can be realized, and different redundant transmission strategies can be implemented according to the different fault points, so as to further ensure the reliability of communication.

In a possible design, the terminal device 10 may also receive first information from the session management function 21, where the first information indicates that the packet from the user plane function 20 and the The packet is sent to the terminal device 11 after deduplication.

In this design, the session management function 21 can instruct the terminal device 10 to deduplicate multiple identical packets received, so as to ensure the reliability of communication even when the industrial topology network does not support redundant transmission.

In a possible design, the terminal device 10 may also receive second information from the session management function 21 , where the second information indicates to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .

In this design, when the industrial topology network does not support redundant transmission, the session management function 21 can instruct the terminal device 10 to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 12 to ensure communication when the industrial topology network does not support redundant transmission reliability.

In a second aspect, a method for creating a redundant path is provided. The method includes: the session management function 21 obtains the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10; the session management function 21 obtains the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12; the The session management function 21 determines that there is a correspondence between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12; the session management function 21 sends a forwarding rule to the user plane function 20, and the forwarding rule indicates that the terminal device 10 is sent to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10. The message is sent and the message is sent to the terminal device 14 through the terminal device 12 .

The session management function can create reliable redundant transmission paths for multiple terminal devices with corresponding relationships. Multiple terminal devices with corresponding relationships have a reliability backup relationship. Multiple terminal devices with a reliability backup relationship can be integrated into An industrial terminal device, or it can be deployed on multiple industrial terminals, so as to ensure reliable transmission when the terminal device is connected to the wireless network.

In a possible design, the forwarding rule also instructs to duplicate the message.

In this design, when the industrial topology network does not support redundant transmission, the session management function can instruct the user plane function to copy the message to ensure the reliability of communication.

In a possible design, the session management function 21 may also send first information to the terminal device 10, where the first information indicates that the packets from the user plane function 20 and the packets from the terminal device The packet of 12 is deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11 .

In a possible design, the session management function 21 may also send second information to the terminal device 10 , where the second information indicates to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .

Optionally, the session management function 21 may also send third information to the terminal device 12 , where the third information indicates to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 10 .

In a possible design, when the session management function 21 acquires the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10 , the session management function 21 may receive information from the terminal device 11 of the terminal device 10 .

In this design, the terminal device 10 can report the information of the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10 to the session management function 21 , so that the session management function 21 can obtain the information of the industrial terminal served by the terminal device 10 .

In a possible design, when the session management function 21 acquires the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12 , the session management function 21 receives information from the terminal device 14 of the terminal device 12 .

In this design, the terminal device 12 can report the information of the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12 to the session management function 21 , so that the session management function 21 can obtain the information of the industrial terminal served by the terminal device 12 .

In a possible design, when the session management function 21 determines that there is a correspondence between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12, the session management function 21 acquires the subscription data of the terminal device 10, and the terminal device 10 and/or the session management function 21 acquires the subscription data of the terminal device 12, and the subscription data of the terminal device 12 indicates that the subscription data of the terminal device 12 corresponds to the terminal device 10 There is a corresponding relationship between them.

In this design, the session management function 21 can obtain the subscription data of the terminal device 10 and/or the subscription data of the terminal device 12, and according to the indication of the subscription data, determine that there is a reliable backup relationship between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12, thereby A reliable redundant transmission path is created for the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 .

In a third aspect, a redundant path transmission method is provided, the method comprising: a terminal device 11 receiving a message 30 from a terminal device 10; the terminal device 11 receiving the message 30 from a terminal device 12; the The terminal device 11 sends a response 33 to the terminal device 10, the response 33 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; the terminal device 11 sends a response 34 to the terminal device 12, the response 34 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In the industrial network topology, the terminal device 11 can access the wireless network through the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 with network access capability, which saves terminal cost and reduces network deployment while ensuring the reliability of communication.

In a possible design, the terminal device 11 receives the packet 30 from the terminal device 10, and after receiving the packet 30 from the terminal device 12, the method further includes:

The terminal device 11 deduplicates the packet 30 from the terminal device 10 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12;

The terminal device 11 sends a response 38 to the terminal device 10, where the response 38 corresponds to the packet 30 after deduplication.

In a possible design, the method further includes:

The terminal device 11 copies the response 38 and sends the response 39 obtained by copying the response 38 to the terminal device 12 .

The data in the response 39 and the data in the response 38 may be partially identical, or may be all identical.

In a possible design, if a failure occurs between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20 or if the terminal device 10 fails, the terminal device 11 may also receive packets from the terminal device 12 35.

In a fourth aspect, a redundant path transmission method is provided. The method includes: the terminal device 11 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 10 ; the terminal device 11 receives the message from the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10 message 30; the terminal device 11 sends a response 36 to the terminal device 10, the response 36 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; The terminal device 12 sends a response 37 corresponding to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In the industrial network topology, the terminal device 11 can access the wireless network through the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 with network access capability, which saves the terminal cost and reduces the difficulty of network deployment while ensuring the reliability of communication.

In a fifth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, and the communication apparatus may be a terminal device 10, including a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is configured to receive the message 30 from the user plane function 20, and the communication device serves the terminal device 11; receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

the processing unit, configured to de-duplicate the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send the deduplicated packet 30 to the terminal device 11 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive a response 31 from the terminal device 11, where the response 31 corresponds to the deduplicated packet 30; 12 sends a response 32 corresponding to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive the message 35 from the terminal device 12 if a failure occurs between the communication device and the user plane function 20, and send the message 35 to the terminal device 11 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive first information from the session management function 21 , where the first information indicates to send the packet from the user plane function 20 to the terminal device 12 The packet is deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive second information from the session management function 21 , where the second information indicates establishing a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .

In a sixth aspect, a communication device is provided, and the communication device may be a session management function 21, including a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is used to obtain the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10; obtain the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12;

The processing unit is used to determine that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send a forwarding rule to the user plane function 20, where the forwarding rule indicates to send a message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10 and to the terminal device 14 through the terminal device 12 Send message.

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to send first information to the terminal device 10, where the first information indicates that the packet from the user plane function 20 and the packet from the terminal device are to be sent to the terminal device 10. The packet of 12 is deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to send second information to the terminal device 10 , where the second information indicates to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive information from the terminal device 11 of the terminal device 10 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive information from the terminal device 14 of the terminal device 12 .

In a possible design, the processing unit is specifically configured to acquire the subscription data of the terminal device 10, and the subscription data of the terminal device 10 indicates that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 12; and/or The subscription data of the terminal device 12 is acquired, and the subscription data of the terminal device 12 indicates that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 .

In a seventh aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, and the communication apparatus may be a terminal device 11, including a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is configured to receive the message 30 from the terminal device 10; receive the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

the processing unit, configured to determine the message 30;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send a response 33 to the terminal device 10, where the response 33 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; and send a response 34 to the terminal device 12, the response 34 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In a possible design, the processing unit is further configured to deduplicate the packet 30 from the terminal device 10 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send a response 38 to the terminal device 10, where the response 38 corresponds to the packet 30 after deduplication.

In a possible design, the processing unit is further configured to replicate the response 38;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send the response 39 obtained by duplicating the response 38 to the terminal device 12 .

In a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive a report from the terminal device 12 if a fault occurs between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20 or if the terminal device 10 fails Text 35.

In an eighth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, and the communication apparatus may be a terminal device 11, including a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is configured to receive the message 30 from the terminal device 10; receive the message 30 from the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10;

the processing unit, configured to determine the message 30;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send a response 36 to the terminal device 10, where the response 36 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; and send a response 37 to the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10 , the response 37 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In a ninth aspect, a communication device is provided, the device having the function of implementing any possible design method in the first aspect or the second aspect or the third aspect or the fourth aspect. This function can be implemented by hardware or by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the above functions.

In a tenth aspect, a communication device is provided, comprising: a transceiver, a processor and a memory; the transceiver is used to send and receive data or information, the memory is used to store computer-executed instructions, and when the device is running, the processor executes the The computer-executed instructions stored in the memory cause the apparatus to perform a method as implemented in any possible design of the first aspect or the second aspect or the third aspect or the fourth aspect above.

In an eleventh aspect, there is provided a communication apparatus comprising: comprising means or means for performing various steps in any possible designs of the above first aspect or second aspect or third aspect or fourth aspect.

A twelfth aspect provides a communication device, comprising a processor and an interface circuit, the processor is configured to communicate with other devices through the interface circuit, and executes the above first aspect or the second aspect or the third aspect or the fourth aspect Any possible design provides a method. The processor includes one or more.

A thirteenth aspect provides a communication device, comprising a processor for invoking a program stored in a coupled memory to execute any possible design of the first aspect or the second aspect or the third aspect or the fourth aspect. method. The memory may be located within the device or external to the device. And the processor includes one or more.

A fourteenth aspect provides a computer-readable storage medium, where instructions are stored in the computer-readable storage medium, which, when executed on a computer, cause a processor to execute the first aspect or the second aspect or the third aspect or any possible design method in the fourth aspect.

A fifteenth aspect provides a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any possible design of the first or second or third or fourth aspects above.

A sixteenth aspect provides a system-on-a-chip, comprising: a processor configured to execute any possible design method in the first aspect or the second aspect or the third aspect or the fourth aspect.

A seventeenth aspect provides a system-on-chip, the system-on-chip includes a transceiver for implementing the functions in any possible design method of the first aspect or the second aspect or the third aspect or the fourth aspect, for example, for example, receiving or Send the data and/or information involved in the above method. In a possible design, the chip system further includes a memory for storing program instructions and/or data. The chip system may be composed of chips, or may include chips and other discrete devices.

In an eighteenth aspect, a communication system is provided, the communication system comprising a session management function 21 performing any possible design method in the second aspect, and the user receiving the forwarding rule from the session management function 21 Face function 20.

Optionally, the communication system may further include a terminal device 10 and a terminal device 12 that perform any possible design method in the first aspect, and a terminal device 11 that performs any possible design method in the third aspect or the fourth aspect.

For the technical effects that can be achieved by any one of the fifth aspect to the eighteenth aspect and any one of the possible implementations thereof, please refer to the description of the technical effects that can be brought about by any of the above-mentioned aspects, which will not be repeated here.

Description of drawings

1 and 11 are schematic diagrams of a network architecture;

Fig. 2 is a kind of Ethernet frame format;

3 is a schematic diagram of a layer 2 switching;

4, 15 and 16 are schematic diagrams of forwarding logic of a user plane function;

Fig. 5 is a kind of Ethernet message frame structure;

Fig. 6, Fig. 7 are a kind of message forwarding schematic diagram;

8 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture;

Figure 9, Figure 10, Figure 13, Figure 17, Figure 18, Figure 19 are schematic diagrams of an industrial network topology;

12 and 14 are schematic diagrams of a redundant path creation process;

20 and 21 are schematic diagrams of a communication device.

Detailed ways

The present application will be described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

This application will present various aspects, embodiments, or features around a system that may include a plurality of devices, components, modules, and the like. It is to be understood and appreciated that the various systems may include additional devices, components, modules, etc., and/or may not include all of the devices, components, modules, etc. discussed in connection with the figures. In addition, combinations of these schemes can also be used.

In addition, in the embodiments of the present application, the word "exemplary" is used to mean serving as an example, illustration or illustration. Any embodiment or design described in this application as "exemplary" should not be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. Rather, the use of the word example is intended to present a concept in a concrete way.

The network architecture and service scenarios described in the embodiments of the present application are for the purpose of illustrating the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application more clearly, and do not constitute a limitation on the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present application. The evolution of the architecture and the emergence of new business scenarios, the technical solutions provided in the embodiments of the present application are also applicable to similar technical problems.

Some terms in the embodiments of the present application are explained below to facilitate understanding by those skilled in the art.

1) Terminal equipment, including but not limited to user equipment (user equipment, UE) and industrial terminals in the embodiments of this application. In order to realize the access of the industrial terminal to the wireless network, a wireless module may be installed in the industrial terminal, and the industrial terminal may communicate with the network device through the wireless module. The UE may be installed in the industrial terminal as a wireless module. Unless otherwise specified in the embodiments of the present application, the concepts of UE and wireless module may be used interchangeably.

In a wireless network, a UE is a device with a wireless transceiver function, which can communicate with one or more access network devices (or also referred to as access devices) in a radio access network (RAN) with one or more A core network (core network, CN) device (or also referred to as a core device) communicates.

For example, user equipment may also be referred to as an access terminal, terminal, subscriber unit, subscriber station, mobile station, mobile station, remote station, remote terminal, mobile device, user terminal, user agent, or user device, and the like. User equipment can be deployed on land, including indoor or outdoor, handheld or vehicle; it can also be deployed on water (such as ships, etc.); it can also be deployed in the air (such as aircraft, balloons and satellites, etc.). The user equipment may be a cellular phone (cellular phone), a cordless phone, a session initiation protocol (SIP) phone, a smart phone (smart phone), a mobile phone (mobile phone), a wireless local loop (WLL) station, personal digital assistant (PDA), etc. Alternatively, the user equipment may also be a handheld device with a wireless communication function, a computing device or other device connected to a wireless modem, an in-vehicle device, a wearable device, a drone device, or a terminal in the Internet of Things, the Internet of Vehicles, the fifth generation Mobile communication (5th-generation, 5G) network and any form of terminal in future network, relay user equipment or terminal in future evolved PLMN, etc. The relay user equipment may be, for example, a 5G home gateway (residential gateway, RG). For example, the user equipment may be a virtual reality (VR) terminal, an augmented reality (AR) terminal, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in self driving, telemedicine Wireless terminals in remote medical, wireless terminals in smart grid, wireless terminals in transportation safety, wireless terminals in smart city, wireless terminals in smart home wireless terminals, etc. This embodiment of the present application does not limit the type or type of the terminal device.

2) Network equipment, which refers to equipment that can provide wireless access functions for terminals. Wherein, the network equipment can support at least one wireless communication technology, such as long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE), new radio (new radio, NR), wideband code division multiple access (wideband code division multiple access, WCDMA) and the like.

For example, network equipment may include access network equipment. Exemplarily, the network equipment includes, but is not limited to: a next-generation base station or a next-generation node B (generation nodeB, gNB), an evolved node B (evolved node B, eNB), a radio network controller (radio network controller, RNC), node B (node B, NB), base station controller (BSC), base transceiver station (base transceiver station, BTS), home base station (for example, home evolved node B, or home node B, HNB ), baseband unit (BBU), transmitting and receiving point (TRP), transmitting point (TP), mobile switching center, small station, micro station, etc. The network device may also be a wireless controller, a centralized unit (CU), and/or a distributed unit (DU) in a cloud radio access network (CRAN) scenario, or the network device may It is a relay station, an access point, a vehicle-mounted device, a terminal, a wearable device, and a network device in future mobile communications or a network device in a future evolved public land mobile network (PLMN).

For another example, the network device may include a core network (CN) device, and the core network device includes, for example, an AMF and the like.

As another example, the network device may include user plane functions (eg, UPF), control plane functions (eg, SMF), and the like.

3) Industrial Ethernet, also known as industrial network, a network that uses a special industrial protocol encapsulated in the Ethernet protocol. The industrial Ethernet protocols adopted by the industrial Ethernet network include but are not limited to the following protocols: Modbus TCP/IP, EtherCat, EtherNet/IP and Profinet. Due to its inherent reliability, high performance and interoperability, Industrial Ethernet has penetrated the factory floor and has become the primary means of communication for automation and control systems.

The industrial Ethernet network mainly includes the following parts: a master (Master) device, a network device and a (slave) slave device. Generally, the Master device can send a message to the Slave device through the network device, and the Slave device can reply to the Master device through the network device. The Master device is an industrial application server, which may also be called a controller (Controller). The network equipment may include user plane functions and control plane functions. The Slave device is an industrial terminal, and a wireless module is installed in the industrial terminal. The Slave device may also be referred to as a device (device), or D for short.

Slave devices in an industrial Ethernet network may or may not support redundant transmission. When the slave device in the industrial Ethernet network supports redundant transmission, the master device in the industrial Ethernet network may support redundant transmission, or may not support redundant transmission. When the slave device in the industrial Ethernet network does not support redundant transmission, the master device in the industrial Ethernet network may support redundant transmission, or may not support redundant transmission. Whether the slave device supports redundant transmission can be regarded as whether the slave device supports the industrial reliability protocol. Whether the Master device supports redundant transmission can be regarded as whether the Master device supports the industrial reliability protocol.

It can be understood that, the redundant path creation method provided in the embodiment of the present application is mainly applied to an industrial Ethernet network, and may also be applied to other networks, which is not limited.

In this application, "and/or" describes the association relationship between associated objects, and means that there can be three kinds of relationships, for example, A and/or B, which can mean that A exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. a situation. The character "/" generally indicates that the associated objects are an "or" relationship.

The plural referred to in this application refers to two or more.

In addition, it should be understood that in the description of this application, words such as "first" and "second" are only used for the purpose of distinguishing the description, and should not be understood as indicating or implying relative importance, nor should it be understood as indicating or implied order.

The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems. For example, the technical solutions provided in the embodiments of the present application may be applied to an LTE system, an LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, an LTE time division duplex (TDD), a universal mobile telecommunication system (universal mobile telecommunication system, UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) communication system, 5G communication system or NR, and other future communication systems such as 6G, etc.

The 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) standard group formulated the next generation mobile communication network architecture (Next Generation System) at the end of 2016, called 5G network architecture. The 5G network architecture supports wireless technologies (such as LTE, 5G RAN, etc.) defined by the 3GPP standard group, and access methods such as fixed networks access the core network side.

To facilitate understanding of the embodiments of the present application, the 5G network architecture shown in FIG. 1 is used as an example to describe the application scenarios used in the present application. Figure 1 shows the 5G network architecture based on the service-oriented architecture in the non-roaming scenario defined in the 3GPP standardization process. The network architecture may include: a terminal device part, a network device part, and a data network (DN) part. Specifically, it relates to a process in which a terminal device accesses a core network (or an operator network) through an access device, creates a packet data unit session (PDU session), and then performs protocol data communication.

The network equipment part includes network exposure function (NEF) 131, network storage function (network function repository function, NRF) 132, policy control function (policy control function, PCF) 133, unified data management function (unified data management, UDM) 134, Authentication Server Function (AUSF) 136, AMF 137, Session Management Function (SMF) 138, User Plane Function (UPF) 139, Access Network (AN, AN) ) 140, a network slice selection function (NSSF) 141 and the like. Among the above network devices, the part other than the access network 140 part may be referred to as the core network part.

The core network part includes user plane functions and control plane functions. The user plane function is mainly responsible for packet forwarding, quality of service (QoS) control, and accounting information statistics. The control plane function is mainly responsible for business process interaction, delivering data packet forwarding policies and QoS control policies to the user plane functions.

The data network DN 120, which may also be referred to as a packet data network (PDN), may typically be deployed outside the operator's network, such as a third-party network. Exemplarily, the operator network may access multiple data network DNs 120, and multiple services may be deployed on the data network DNs 120, so as to provide the terminal device 110 with services such as data and/or voice. The above-mentioned third party may be a service provider other than the operator's network and the terminal device 110 , and may provide other data and/or voice services for the terminal device 110 . Wherein, the specific expression form of the above third party can be specifically determined according to the actual application scenario, and is not limited here.

The application function (application function, AF) 135 may or may not be affiliated to the operator network. However, under normal circumstances, the AF belongs to a third party rather than the operator's network, but has an agreement relationship with the operator's network. AF is used to provide functional network elements of various business services. It can support functions that affect data routing through applications, access network open functions NEF, and interact with policy frameworks for policy control.

Exemplarily, the following briefly introduces network functions in the operator's network.

The AN 140, also called a wireless (Radio) AN, is a sub-network of the operator's network, and is an implementation system between a service node (or network function) and the terminal device 110 in the operator's network. To access the operator's network, the terminal device 110 first passes through the AN 140, and then connects with the service node in the operator's network through the AN 140. The AN 140 in the embodiment of the present application may refer to the access network itself, or may refer to the access network equipment, which is not distinguished here. The access network device is a device that provides a wireless communication function for the terminal device 110, and may also be referred to as an access device, a (R)AN device, or a network device. The access network equipment includes but is not limited to: gNB in 5G system, eNB, RNC, NB in LTE system, base station controller BSC, BTS, HNB, BBU, TRP, TP, small base station equipment (pico), mobile switching center, or network equipment in future networks, etc. It is understandable that the present application does not limit the specific type of the access network device. In systems using different wireless access technologies, the names of devices with access network device functions may be different.

Optionally, in some deployments of the access device, the access device may include CUs, DUs, and the like.

Network Open Function NEF (also known as Network Open Function Entity) 131 is a control plane function provided by the operator, providing the framework, authentication and interface related to network capability openness, and between network functions and other network functions in the 5G system Send message. Network Open Function NEF 131 An external two-way interface to open the network's capabilities to third parties in a secure manner. When other network functions (such as the application function AF135, etc.) need to communicate with a third-party network, the NEF network function 131 can act as a relay for communicating with a third-party network entity. The NEF network function 131 can also serve as a translator of the identification information of the subscriber, as well as the translation of the identification information of the third party's network function. For example, when the NEF network function 131 sends the subscriber permanent identifier (SUPI) of the subscriber from the PLMN to the third party, the SUPI can be translated into its corresponding generic public subscription identifier (GPSI) for external public use. ). Conversely, the NEF network function 131 forwards the external information to the PLMN network, preventing other network functions inside the PLMN from directly contacting the outside.

The network storage function NRF 132 is a control plane function provided by the operator and can be used to maintain real-time information of all network function services in the network.

The policy control function PCF 133 is a control plane function provided by the operator for generating and managing user, session, and QoS flow processing policies. It supports a unified policy framework to govern network behavior, provide policy rules to other control functions, and contract information related to policy decisions.

The unified data management UDM 134 is a control plane function provided by the operator, and is responsible for storing information such as security context (security context) and subscription data of subscribers in the PLMN. The above-mentioned subscribers of the operator network may specifically be users who use services provided by the operator network, such as users using China Telecom's terminal equipment core cards, or users using China Mobile's terminal equipment core cards. Exemplarily, the above-mentioned security context may be data (cookie) or token (token) stored on a local terminal device (for example, a mobile phone). The contract data of the above-mentioned contract user may be the supporting services of the terminal device chip card, such as the data package of the mobile phone chip card, and the like.

The authentication server function AUSF 136 is a control plane function provided by the operator, and is usually used for first-level authentication, that is, network authentication between the terminal device 110 (subscriber) and the operator's network.

Access and Mobility Management Function AMF 137 is a control plane network function provided by the operator's network, and is responsible for the access control and mobility management of the terminal device 110 accessing the operator's network, including, for example, mobility state management, assigning user temporary identities , authentication and authorization of users and other functions.

The session management function SMF 138 is a control plane network function provided by the operator network, and is responsible for managing the protocol data unit (protocol data unit, PDU) session of the terminal device 110. The PDU session is a channel for transmitting PDUs, and the terminal device needs to transmit data to and from the DN 120 through the PDU session. PDU sessions may be established, maintained, deleted, etc. by the SMF 138. SMF 138 includes session management (such as session establishment, modification and release, including tunnel maintenance between UPF 139 and AN 140, etc.), UPF 139 selection and control, service and session continuity (service and session continuity, SSC) mode selection , roaming and other session-related functions.

The user plane function UPF 139 is a gateway provided by the operator and is the gateway for the operator network to communicate with the DN 120. UPF 139 includes user plane-related functions such as packet routing and transmission, packet detection, service usage reporting, QoS processing, legal interception, upstream packet detection, and downstream packet storage.

The network slice selection function NSSF 141 is a control plane network function provided by the operator network, and is used for determining the network slice instance, selecting the AMF network function 137 and so on.

In Figure 1, Nnef, Nausf, Nnrf, Npcf, Nudm, Naf, Namf, Nsmf, Nnssf, N1, N2, N3, N4, and N6 are interface serial numbers. Exemplarily, for the meaning of the above-mentioned interface serial number, reference may be made to the meaning defined in the 3GPP standard protocol, and this application does not limit the meaning of the above-mentioned interface serial number. For example, N1 is an interface between the terminal device 110 and the control plane function of the core network, and is used to transmit non-access stratum (non access stratum, NAS) signaling. N2 is the communication interface between the access network equipment and the core network control plane function. N3 is the communication interface between the access network equipment and the core network user plane function, and is used to transmit user data. N4 is a communication interface between the control plane function SMF and the user plane function UPF, and is used for policy configuration and the like for the UPF. It should be noted that, in FIG. 1, only the terminal device 110 is used as an example for the UE, and the interface names between various network functions in FIG. 1 are only an example. In the specific implementation, the interface names of the system architecture Other names may also be used, which are not limited in this application.

For the convenience of description, the session management function SMF 138 is abbreviated as SMF in the embodiment of the present application, and the unified data management UDM 134 is abbreviated as UDM, that is, the AMF described later in the embodiment of the present application can be replaced by the mobility management network function. , UDM can be replaced by unified data management. It can be understood that other network functions not shown are also applicable to this alternative method.

The network architecture shown in Figure 1 (eg, 5G network architecture) adopts a service-based architecture and common interfaces, and traditional network element functions are divided into several self-contained and self-managed based on network function virtualization (NFV) technology. , Reusable network function service module, by flexibly defining the service module set, customized network function reconstruction can be realized, and the external business process can be formed through a unified service invocation interface. The schematic diagram of the network architecture shown in FIG. 1 can be understood as a schematic diagram of a service-based 5G network architecture in a non-roaming scenario. In this architecture, according to the needs of specific scenarios, different network functions can be combined in an orderly manner on demand, which can realize the customization of network capabilities and services, so as to deploy dedicated networks for different services and realize 5G network slicing. Network slicing technology can enable operators to respond more flexibly and quickly to customer needs and support flexible allocation of network resources.

Ethernet sessions (such as Ethernet PDU sessions) are supported in the 5G network, and the data packets of the Ethernet sessions are called Ethernet frames/Ether frames. Figure 2 is a possible Ethernet frame format, the destination address (DA) is the destination MAC address, the source address (SA) is the source MAC address, the type (Type) is the ether type, and the data (Data) is In the data segment, the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is the check bit. When the ether type is 0x8100, it means that virtual local area network (VLAN) information is inserted, including the priority (Priority) field, the control format indicator (CFI) word and the VLAN identification (ID) field, where The Priority field contains a 3-bit class of service value. There may be no VLAN Tag field in the Ethernet frame, or there may be one or more VLAN Tag fields, as in Figure 2, the Ethernet frame includes a VLAN Tag field, and the VLAN Tag field includes the inserted VLAN information.

Layer 2 switching in the Ethernet network belongs to the link layer switching, based on media access control (media access control, MAC) address forwarding, the switching device obtains the forwarding port by querying the MAC address learning table. For the MAC address that is not recorded in the MAC address learning table , the switching device can forward it by broadcasting. Figure 3 shows the principle of Layer 2 switching. The switch saves a MAC address learning table to record the correspondence between user MAC addresses and ports. If forwarding is based on VLAN and MAC address, the MAC address learning table will also include the corresponding VLAN information. . The MAC address learning table includes MAC addresses such as MACA, MACB, MACC, and MACD. The port corresponding to the MACA address is port 1, the port corresponding to the MACB address is port 1, the port corresponding to the MACC address is port 2, and the port corresponding to the MACD address. for port 2. When the switch receives a packet whose destination address is MACD from port 1, it queries the MAC learning table to obtain the port information corresponding to the MACD as port 2, and then sends the packet out from port 2. The MACD entry in the MAC address learning table may be learned when port 2 receives a packet whose source MAC address is MACD, or may be obtained through configuration information.

The forwarding logic of user plane functions (such as UPF, gateway GW) is defined in the CU separation of 4G network and 5G network. As shown in Figure 4, the user plane function receives the packet, determines the packet forwarding control protocol (PFCP) session, matches the packet detection rule (PDR) according to the priority in the determined PFCP session, and determines The forwarding action rules (FAR) specified in the matched FDR are processed, and the received packet is processed according to the policy in the FAR. When determining the PFCP session, the user plane function may determine the PFCP session after matching information such as a network instance (network instance), an address of a terminal device, etc. according to the indication in the PDR. When processing the received packet according to the policy in the FAR, if the packet is a downlink packet, the user plane function follows the instructions in the FAR, such as forwarding behavior rules FARs, QoS enforcement rules (QoS enforcement rules) rules, QERs), use reporting rules (usage reporting rules, URRs) to add headers and send them to terminal devices.

Ethernet control automation technology (EtherCAT) is an Ethernet-based bus system that allows Ethernet to be used in automation applications. EtherCAT is used in industrial Ethernet networks. EtherCAT packets can be encapsulated based on Ethernet (for example, the Ethernet type is 0x88A4), or encapsulated in IP packets (for example, encapsulated in user datagram protocol (UDP) packets, UDP purpose The port number is 0x88A4).

For industrial applications with a small amount of single communication, if each data sent to a single device is encapsulated using an Ethernet packet, the encapsulation efficiency will be very low. For example, a drive periodically sends 4 bytes of actual value and status information, and correspondingly receives 4 bytes of command value and control word information at the same time, even when the bus load is 100% (ie infinitely small drive response time) , the available data rate can only reach 4/84=4.8% (the minimum encapsulation and synchronization fields of the Ethernet message total 84 bytes). On the other hand, EtherCAT improves transmission efficiency by combining multiple EtherCAT sub-packets into one Ethernet packet.

Taking EtherCAT encapsulated in an Ethernet packet as an example, as shown in Figure 5, the Ethernet packet includes an Ethernet header (Ethernet header), an Ethernet packet data part (Ethernet data), and a frame check sequence (FCS) ), the Ethernet header occupies 14 bytes, and the FCS occupies 4 bytes. Ethernet data includes the data length (Length), reserved bits (Res.), type (Type) and multiple EtherCAT sub-packets of EtherCAT sub-packets. The multiple EtherCAT sub-grams include a first EtherCAT datagram (1 ^st EtherCAT Datagram), a second EtherCAT datagram (2 ^nd EtherCAT Datagram), ... an nth EtherCAT datagram (n ^th EtherCAT Datagram). Each EtherCAT sub-gram includes a sub-gram header (Datagram Header), an EtherCAT data part (Data), and a working counter (WKC). The sub-message header includes addressing and read/write mode (Cmd), frame code (Idx), address information (Address), EtherCAT sub-message data area length (Len), reserved bit (R), frame cycle flag (C) , subsequent message flag (M) and status bit (IRQ) and other information.

The industrial Ethernet network of the EtherCAT protocol includes a master device and multiple slave devices, etc. The network interface of each device includes the sending function and the receiving function, and various physical topologies can be realized through the wired connection between the devices. Packet forwarding is always forwarded on a linear path: after the packet is sent by the master device, it is forwarded between slave terminals and finally returned to the master terminal. As shown in Figure 6, the EtherCAT network includes a Master device and 6 Slave devices. The Master device sends an EtherCAT packet. Slave device 1 determines whether to process the sub-packet according to the address segment in the EtherCAT sub-packet. The EtherCAT packet is forwarded to Slave device 2 after no processing or processing is completed. Slave device 2, Slave device 3, Slave device 4, Slave device 5 and Slave device 6 respectively perform similar operations. Afterwards, the EtherCAT message is forwarded to the Master device, and the processing of the sub-message includes reading the data segment therein and inserting data into the sub-message. It can be seen that although the physical topology is tree-shaped, data packets need to be forwarded between slave devices and loopback forwarded within the slave to form a linear forwarding path.

In addition to the EtherCAT protocol, the Profinet protocol is also a widely used industrial Ethernet protocol. Profinet packets are encapsulated by ordinary Ethernet packets, and the packets sent to each device are sent independently. The Profinet protocol supports various topologies. As shown in Figure 7, when there is a linear topology between the controller (Controller) and the industrial terminal (Device), the isochronous real-time (IRT) time between the Controller and the industrial terminal The windows are aligned, and the IRT message sent by the Controller to each industrial terminal is sent to each industrial terminal within the IRT time window. Considering the difference in distance and hop count in the line topology, the delay between each industrial terminal and the Controller is different. The Controller will first send the packets of the remote terminal (such as Device3) in the cycle, and then send the near-end terminal. (eg Device1). After receiving the message, Device3 replies to the Controller, Device2 replies to the Controller after receiving the message, and Device1 replies to Device3 after receiving the message.

The existing 5G network supports the Ethernet session, the Ethernet communication between the terminal device and the data network DN, and supports the user plane function UPF on the DN side interface and the Ethernet session binding of the terminal device. As shown in Figure 8, an interface (which can be a physical interface or a logical interface) on the DN side of the switch (switch) on the DN side passes the Ethernet session between the UPF and the terminal device in the 5G network core network (5G core, 5GC). Binding, and then the packets of the terminal device on the Ethernet session can be directly forwarded through the bound N6 interface. The Ethernet session may be a PDU session.

In the related art, for the line topology supporting the Ethernet protocol, most terminal devices access the wireless network in the line topology. A possible linear topology is shown in Figure 9. A wireless module is installed on the first slave device (ie, Slave terminal 1) on the production line, so that each slave device on the production line interacts with the Master device through 5GC, and the production Industrial terminals on the line are adapted to wireless connections. In the online topology, if the network quality between the first node in the production line (that is, the first Slave device) and the wireless network is unstable, other industrial terminals (such as Slave Terminal 2 and Slave Terminal 3) in the entire production line will not be connected to the wireless network. The link between them will fail, and normal communication with the Master device will not be possible. It can be seen that the reliability of communication cannot be guaranteed.

The terminal equipment can also use the star topology or tree topology that supports the Ethernet protocol to access the wireless network. A possible tree topology can be shown in Figure 10. Wireless modules are installed on each slave device on the production line. Each slave device interacts with the master device through 5GC to adapt the industrial terminals on the production line. to a wireless connection. If wireless modules are installed at each node of the production line, the cost of industrial terminals will increase sharply. In addition, for industrial protocols such as EtherCAT, in which packets are sent together, this method will lead to detours in the data path, resulting in uncontrollable delays and failure to guarantee the reliability of communication. And in star topology or tree topology, if the forwarding rules are not changed, the master only sends one packet, and then forwards the packet in each terminal device according to the forwarding rules of the line topology. The network quality between the terminal device and the wireless network described in the message is unstable, and the links between other terminal devices and the wireless network will also fail, and the reliability of communication cannot be guaranteed. If the forwarding rule is changed, the network device needs to unpack the packet sent by the master and then forward it to each terminal device, which will waste the processing resources of the network device, and the network device does not necessarily have the function of packet unpacking. Higher requirements are placed on wireless networks, and network deployment is more difficult. And if the reliability guarantee mechanism of ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) defined by 3GPP is adopted, the wireless network needs to support dual-site overlapping coverage, and the wireless module of the terminal device also needs to support dual-link communication. This puts forward high requirements for wireless networking in the factory floor, and also increases the cost of wireless modules. Therefore, in the actual networking of the Industrial Ethernet protocol, it will increase the difficulty of network deployment and the cost of terminals.

To sum up, when terminal equipment, especially an industrial terminal, is connected to a wireless network, the reliability of communication cannot be guaranteed, and processing resources of network equipment may be wasted, network deployment becomes more difficult, and terminal costs also increase.

Based on this, an embodiment of the present application provides a method for creating a redundant path. In this method, the terminal device 10 can receive the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12. The device 10 may deduplicate the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12 , and then send the deduplicated packet 30 to the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10 . The redundant path creation method provided by the embodiment of the present application is equivalent to selecting two or more terminal devices in the terminal devices of the industrial network topology. All the terminal devices in the industrial network topology can communicate with each other through traditional fixed network transmission. Wireless connections can be shared between them, so that all terminal devices can access the wireless network through terminal devices with network access capabilities. The wireless connection point located between the network equipment and the industrial terminal can transparently forward the packets communicated by other nodes through the mobile network, so as to realize the mutual backup and load sharing of the wireless connection. Therefore, under the existing communication system architecture, combined with the actual networking model of the industrial Ethernet protocol, the reliability of communication can be guaranteed while saving terminal costs and reducing the difficulty of network deployment.

The terminal equipment involved in the embodiments of the present application may be industrial terminals, wireless modules, or may also be independent wireless access terminal equipment, such as customer premise equipment (customer premise equipment, CPE).

The embodiments of the present application are applicable to industrial terminals and/or industrial applications of an industrial Ethernet protocol (such as an EtherCAT protocol or a Profinet protocol, etc.) to realize interconnection and intercommunication through an access network. It can be understood that, the embodiments of the present application may also be applicable to other communication protocols other than industrial Ethernet protocols and/or other applications that are not industrial applications. The embodiments of the present application mainly take an industrial terminal in an industrial Ethernet network as an example for description.

The redundant path creation method provided in the embodiment of the present application can be applied to the communication system as shown in FIG. 1 . Alternatively, the redundant path creation method provided by the embodiment of the present application may be applied to the communication system shown in FIG. 11 , and the communication system shown in FIG. 11 further includes a time-sensitive network application function (TSNAF) , the function of the UE can be implemented by a device-side TSN translator (DS-TT), and the function of the UPF can be implemented by a network-side TSN translator (NW-TT). Among them, DS-TT can be deployed in one with UE, and NW-TT can be deployed in one with UPF. The Slave device can access the wireless network through DS-TT, and the Master device can connect to the NW-TT user plane (User plane/U-plane).

It can be understood that the embodiments of the present application can also be used for interworking between 5G networks and other networks, or for independent 5G network systems, such as for network interworking with similar requirements to industrial message forwarding, and it does not limit whether there are external 5G networks. Other networks are not limited in the embodiments of this application. In the embodiment of this application, the communication between the Master device and the Slave device is mainly used as an example, but the specific names of the network functions in the network are not limited, and it is not limited whether the network functions are deployed in the DN (for example, the Master device and the Slave device can be located in UE side).

The session management function in the embodiment of the present application may create a reliable redundant transmission path for multiple terminal devices with a reliability backup relationship, and the multiple terminal devices with a reliability backup relationship may be respectively deployed on multiple industrial terminals. Alternatively, the multiple terminal devices are integrated into one industrial terminal, so as to ensure reliable transmission when the terminal device is accessed through a wireless network. The process of the session management function creating redundant paths for multiple terminal devices with a reliable backup relationship is shown in Figure 12, and the specific process includes:

S1201 : The session management function 21 acquires the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10 .

In this S1201, the terminal device 10 may send the information of the terminal device 11 to the session management function 21 to inform the session management function 21 that the terminal device 10 serves the terminal device 11, wherein the terminal device The terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10 may also be a terminal device 11 subordinate to the terminal device 10 . The terminal device 10 may be a UE, and the terminal device 11 may be a Slave terminal. The session management function 21 receives information from the terminal device 11 of the terminal device 10 , so as to obtain the information of the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10 . For example, the information of the terminal device 11 may be the MAC address of the terminal device 11 .

Optionally, the terminal device 10 may report the information of the terminal device 11 to the session management function 21 during the registration process, for example, during the attach process or the PDU session creation process.

S1202: The session management function 21 acquires the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12.

In this S1202, the terminal device 12 may send the information of the terminal device 14 to the session management function 21 to inform the session management function 21 that the terminal device 12 serves the terminal device 14, wherein the terminal device The terminal device 14 served by 12 may also be a terminal device 14 subordinate to the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 12 may be a UE, and the terminal device 14 may be a Slave terminal. The session management function 21 receives information from the terminal device 14 of the terminal device 12 , so as to obtain the information of the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12 . For example, the information of the terminal device 14 may be the MAC address of the terminal device 14 .

The terminal device 11 and the terminal device 14 may be the same terminal device, or may be different terminal devices. If the terminal device 11 and the terminal device 14 are different terminal devices, other industrial terminals may also be deployed between the terminal device 11 and the terminal device 14 .

Optionally, the terminal device 12 may report the information of the terminal device 14 to the session management function 21 during the registration process, for example, during the attach process or the PDU session creation process.

S1203: The session management function 21 determines that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12.

The corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 may be that the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 have a reliability pairing relationship, that is, the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 have a reliability pairing relationship. Backup relationship, that is, the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 trust each other. When one UE in the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 fails, or the transmission path where one of the UEs is located fails, the other UE can detect and respond in time to ensure reliable transmission. The detection and response to faults will be described in subsequent embodiments. It can be understood that, for the convenience of description, in this embodiment of the present application, only the terminal devices having a corresponding relationship including the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 are used as examples for description, and the same applies to the scenario where more than two terminal devices have a corresponding relationship. .

The session management function 21 can obtain the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 accessing the wireless network, and can obtain the terminal device corresponding to the terminal device 10 and the terminal device corresponding to the terminal device 12 . In a possible way, the session management function 21 can obtain the subscription data of the UE, and the subscription data has the reliability pairing relationship of the UE subscribed, such as Reliability Group (UE1, UE2 and UE3). This subscription method describes The three terminal devices UE1, UE2 and UE3 have a reliable pairing relationship with each other. Another example is Reliability Group (UE1, UE2), Reliability Group (UE2, UE3) The contracting method indicates that there is reliability between UE1 and UE2 Pairing relationship, UE2 and UE3 have a reliable pairing relationship. In another possible way, in the UE registration process (such as the attach process or the PDU session creation process), the session management function 21 may obtain the subscription data of the UE, and the session management function 21 may determine the UE according to the subscription data. For example, the session management function 21 acquires the subscription data of the UE from the subscription database, and acquires the reliability pairing relationship between the UEs from the subscription data. Optionally, the session management function 21 may store the subscription data of the UE itself, or alternatively, the session management function 21 may acquire the subscription data of the UE from other devices (eg, UDM). Specifically, the session management function 21 acquires the subscription data of the terminal device 10, and according to the subscription data of the terminal device 10, determines that the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 have a corresponding relationship, and the session management function 21 further The subscription data of the terminal device 12 may be acquired, and according to the subscription data of the terminal device 12, it is determined that the terminal device 12 and the terminal device 10 have a corresponding relationship.

The reliability pairing relationship of the UE in the subscription data may be statically subscribed through the UE's subscription data, or dynamically created by modifying the subscription data. If the reliability pairing relationship of the UE is dynamically created, the third-party network element (such as AF) can modify the UE's subscription data through the network open function NEF or PCF, that is, the third-party network element can be in the UE's subscription data. , adding the information of the UEs that are in a mutual reliability pairing relationship (such as UE identifiers, etc.), and indicating that the UEs and the added UEs are in a mutual reliability pairing relationship.

Optionally, the subscription data of the UE may also include the master-slave relationship between the UEs with a reliable pairing relationship, for example, the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 have a corresponding relationship, the terminal device 10 is the master UE, and the terminal device 10 is the master UE. Device 12 is a standby UE. Another example is that the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 have a master-slave relationship with each other. When the terminal device 10 serves as the master UE to serve one or more slave devices, the terminal device 12 is the slave UE of the terminal device 10, and the terminal device 12 is the master UE. When serving one or more other slave devices, the terminal device 10 is the standby UE of the terminal device 12 .

After the session management function 21 determines that the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 have a corresponding relationship, the session management function 21 may also send the information of the terminal device 10 and/or the information of the terminal device 11 to the terminal device 12, and the terminal device The information of 12 and/or the information of terminal 14 is sent to terminal 10 .

The execution sequence of S1201, S1202 and S1203 is not limited here.

S1204: The session management function 21 sends a forwarding rule to the user plane function 20, where the forwarding rule instructs to send a message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10 and to send the message to the terminal device 14 through the terminal device 12 Send message. The user plane function 20 receives the forwarding rules.

The forwarding rule may instruct the user plane function 20 to send a packet (ie, a downlink packet or a downlink data packet) from the Master device to the industrial terminal. For example, the forwarding rule may instruct the user plane function 20 to send a packet to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10 and to send a packet to the terminal device 14 through the terminal device 12 . The forwarding rule may further instruct the user plane function 20 to send a packet to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 12 , and to send a packet to the terminal device 14 through the terminal device 10 .

Optionally, the forwarding rule may further instruct the user plane function 20 to report the response from the industrial terminal (ie, an uplink packet, an uplink data packet, or an uplink response packet) to the Master device. For example, the forwarding rule may instruct the user plane function 20 to receive the response from the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10 , then report the response to the Master device, and receive the response from the terminal device through the terminal device 12 . 14, and then report the response to the Master device. The forwarding rule may also instruct the user plane function 20 to receive the response from the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 12, then report the response to the Master device, and receive the response from the terminal device through the terminal device 10. 14, and then report the response to the Master device.

In a possible manner, the session management function 21 may further formulate different forwarding rules for the user plane function 20 according to whether the slave device supports redundant transmission. If the slave device supports redundant paths, the slave device can deduplicate packets. If the slave device does not support redundant transmission, the slave device may not have the capability of duplicating or deduplicating packets.

When the Slave device supports redundant transmission, the Master device may or may not support redundant transmission. When the Slave device does not support redundant transmission, the Master device may or may not support redundant transmission. If the Master device supports redundant transmission, the Master can copy or deduplicate packets. If the Master device does not support redundant transmission, the Master may not have the ability to copy or deduplicate packets.

For example, the slave device supports redundant transmission and the master device supports redundant transmission. In the process of downlink message transmission, the Master can copy the message and send the message and the copied message to the user plane function 20, and the forwarding rule can instruct the user plane function 20 to pass the terminal device 10 Send the message to the terminal device 11 and send the copied message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 12 . Optionally, the terminal device 11 may process two packets. Or because the Slave device can deduplicate packets, the terminal device 11 deduplicates two packets, and then processes the packets obtained by deduplication. In the process of uplink message transmission, the slave device can copy the response, send the response to the user plane function 20 through the terminal device 10, and send the copied response to the user plane function 20 through the terminal device 12. The forwarding rule may instruct the user plane function 20 to report the received response to the Master device. Optionally, the Master device may process two responses. Or because the Master device can deduplicate responses, the Master device can deduplicate two responses, and then process the responses obtained by deduplication.

Another example is that the slave device supports redundant transmission and the master device does not support redundant transmission. In the process of downlink message transmission, the master device does not have the capability of copying the message, and sends the message to the user plane function 20. The forwarding rule can instruct the user plane function 20 to copy the message, and the terminal sends the message to the user plane function 20. The device 10 sends the message to the terminal device 11 and sends the copied message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 12 . Optionally, the terminal device 11 may process two packets. Or because the Slave device can deduplicate packets, the terminal device 11 deduplicates two packets, and then processes the packets obtained by deduplication. In the process of uplink message transmission, the slave device may copy the response, and send the response to the user plane function 20 through the terminal device 10 . Since the master device does not have the ability to deduplicate packets, the forwarding rule may instruct the user plane function 20 to deduplicate a response, and report the response obtained by deduplication to the master device. The Master device processes the received response from deduplication.

Another example is that the slave device does not support redundant transmission and the master device supports redundant transmission. In the process of downlink message transmission, the Master can copy the message and send the message and the copied message to the user plane function 20, and the forwarding rule can instruct the user plane function 20 to pass the terminal device 10 Send the message to the terminal device 11 and send the copied message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 12 . Optionally, the terminal device 11 may process two packets. Or because the Slave device does not have the ability to deduplicate packets, the terminal device 10 serving the terminal device 11 can deduplicate the two packets, and the terminal device 11 processes the packets obtained by deduplication. . In the process of uplink message transmission, the Slave device does not have the capability of duplicating the response. Optionally, the terminal device 11 may send the response to the user plane function 20 through the terminal device 10 or the terminal device 12, and the forwarding rule may instruct the user plane function 20 to copy the response, and copy the response and the copy. The obtained response is reported to the Master device. Alternatively, the terminal device 10 serving the terminal device 11 may copy the response, send the response and the copied response to the user plane function 20, and the forwarding rule may instruct to report the response and the copied response to the master device. The optional Master device can process two responses. Alternatively, since the Master device can deduplicate responses, the Master device can deduplicate two responses, and then process the responses obtained by deduplication.

Another example is that the slave device does not support redundant transmission and the master device does not support redundant transmission. In the process of downlink message transmission, the master device does not have the capability of copying the message, and sends the message to the user plane function 20. The forwarding rule can instruct the user plane function 20 to copy the message, and the terminal sends the message to the user plane function 20. The device 10 sends the message to the terminal device 11 and sends the copied message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 12 . Optionally, the terminal device 11 may process two packets. Or because the Slave device does not have the ability to deduplicate packets, the terminal device 10 serving the terminal device 11 can deduplicate the two packets, and the terminal device 11 processes the packets obtained by deduplication. . In the process of uplink message transmission, the Slave device does not have the capability of duplicating the response. Optionally, the terminal device 10 serving the terminal device 11 may copy the response, and send the response and the copied response to the user plane function 20, and the forwarding rule may instruct the user plane function 20 to deduplicate the response and deduplicate the response. The obtained response is reported to the Master device. The Master device processes the received response from deduplication.

S1205: The session management function 21 establishes and sends an uplink and downlink packet forwarding rule for the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 10, and establishes and sends an uplink and downlink packet forwarding rule for the terminal device 12. The terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 respectively receive uplink and downlink packet forwarding rules.

The process of S1205 can be regarded as the session management function 21 creating a reliable redundant transmission path for UEs having a reliable pairing relationship. That is to say, the session management function 21 internally establishes a routing map of data packets for UEs with a reliable pairing relationship. In this S1205, the session management function 21 may formulate a differentiated forwarding rule for the UE according to whether the slave device served by the UE supports redundant transmission. For the active and standby UEs, the context packet forwarding rules established by the network device for the active UE and the uplink and downlink packet forwarding rules established for the standby UE may be the same or different.

In one embodiment, slave devices (eg, terminal device 11 and/or terminal device 14) support redundant transmission. In this scenario, the slave device can replicate and deduplicate context packets. The Master device may or may not support redundant transmission.

For example, the terminal device 10 is the master UE, the terminal device 12 is the standby UE, and the master device sends a message to the terminal device 11 . The downlink packet forwarding rule established by the session management function 21 for the terminal device 10 may be: if the terminal device 10 receives a packet sent to the terminal device 11, the terminal device 10 sends the packet to the terminal device 11. The downlink packet forwarding rule established for the terminal device 12 may be: if the terminal device 12 receives a packet sent to the terminal device 11 , the terminal device 14 sends the packet to the terminal device 11 . That is, the Master device may send a downlink message to the Slave device served by the master UE through the master UE and the standby UE. Here, it can be considered that the downlink packet sending rules established by the master UE and the backup UE are the same.

Since the master UE and the backup UE send the same downlink message to the slave device served by the master UE, the slave device can deduplicate the received downlink message.

For example, the terminal device 10 is the master UE, the terminal device 12 is the standby UE, and the terminal device 11 sends a response (ie, an uplink message) to the master device. The uplink packet forwarding rule established for the terminal device 10 may be: if the terminal device 10 receives a response sent by the terminal device 11, the terminal device 10 sends the response to the Master device. The uplink packet forwarding rule established for the terminal device 12 may be: if the terminal device 12 receives a response sent by the terminal device 11, the terminal device 12 sends the response to the Master device. That is, the Master device can receive the uplink message from the Slave device served by the master UE through the master UE and the standby UE. Here, it can be considered that the forwarding rules of downlink data packets established by the master UE and the backup UE are the same.

The slave device can copy the uplink packets, and then send the same uplink packets to the master UE and the standby UE.

In another embodiment, the slave devices (eg, terminal device 11 and/or terminal device 14) do not support redundant transmission. In this scenario, the UPF and/or the UE may perform duplication and deduplication of the context message. The Master device may or may not support redundant transmission.

For example, the terminal device 10 is the master UE, the terminal device 12 is the standby UE, and the master device sends a message to the terminal device 11 . The downlink packet forwarding rule established by the Master device for the terminal device 12 may be: if the terminal device 12 receives a packet sent to the terminal device 11, the terminal device 12 sends the packet to the terminal device 10. . The downlink packet forwarding rule established for the terminal device 10 may be: the terminal device 10 deduplicates the packet sent by the user plane function 20 and the packet sent by the terminal device 12, and then sends the deduplicated packet to the Terminal equipment 11 . That is, the Master device may send a downlink message to the Slave device served by the master UE through the master UE and the standby UE. Here, the downlink packet forwarding rules established for the master UE and the backup UE are different.

For example, the terminal device 10 is the master UE, the terminal device 12 is the standby UE, and the terminal device 11 sends a response (ie, an uplink message) to the master device. The uplink packet forwarding rule established for the terminal device 10 may be: if the terminal device 10 receives a response sent by the terminal device 11, the terminal device 10 sends the response to the user plane function 20, optionally, the terminal The device 10 replicates the response, and sends the replicated response to the terminal device 12 . The uplink packet forwarding rule established for the terminal device 12 may be: if the terminal device 12 receives a response sent by the terminal device 11 , the terminal device 12 sends the response to the user plane function 20 . That is, the Master device may receive, through the master UE and the optional standby UE, the data packets of the slave devices served by the master UE. Here, the uplink packet forwarding rules established for the active UE and the standby UE are different.

Optionally, the session management function 21 may send first information to the terminal device 10, where the first information instructs the terminal device 10 to combine the packets from the user plane function 20 with the packets from the terminal device 10. 12 is deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11, that is, the terminal device 10 deduplicates the packet from the user plane function 20 and the packet from the terminal device 12 and sends them to the terminal device 11 according to the first information. . The session management function 21 may instruct the terminal device 10 to deduplicate the packet from the user plane function 20 and the packet from the terminal device 12 through one cell or multiple cells and send it to the terminal device 11 . In the case of indicating by a plurality of information elements, the plurality of information elements may be referred to as the first information.

The network device may establish a direct link (such as a side link SideLink) between UEs having a reliable pairing relationship. The network device may determine whether to establish a direct link between the UEs according to the network topology between the UEs having the reliable pairing relationship. Taking the UEs with the reliability pairing relationship as the master and backup UEs as an example, if there is an available network topology connection between the master and backup UEs, the network device may not establish a direct link between the master and backup UEs. There is no available network topology connection between the two, and the network device can establish a direct link between the active and standby UEs. The session management function 21 may determine that there is an available network topology connection between the active and standby UEs when determining that the slave device supports redundant transmission, and determine that there is no network topology connection between the active and standby UEs when determining that the slave device does not support redundant transmission Available network topology connections. When the slave device supports redundant transmission, the communication port of the slave device can support bidirectional transmission, for example, it supports master UE->Slave device->standby UE, and supports standby UE->Slave device->master UE. Slave devices are connected between them, which can be regarded as an available network topology connection between the active and standby UEs. Conversely, when the Slave device does not support redundant transmission, the communication port of the Slave device does not support bidirectional transmission. For example, only the main UE->Slave device->Slave UE is supported, or only the standby UE->Slave device->The main UE is supported. At this time, If a slave device is connected between the active and standby UEs, it can be considered that there is no available network topology connection between the active and standby UEs. Optionally, the session management function 21 sends second information to the terminal device 10 , where the second information instructs the terminal device 10 to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 12 . The session management function 21 sends third information to the terminal device 12 , where the third information instructs the terminal device 12 to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 10 .

The session management function in the embodiment of the present application creates a reliable redundant transmission path for multiple terminal devices having a reliable pairing relationship, so as to ensure reliable transmission when the terminal device accesses through a wireless network.

The above-mentioned embodiment shown in FIG. 12 is described below by taking the serial industrial terminal supporting the EtherCAT protocol accessing the 5G network as a specific embodiment. The industrial terminal D accesses the wireless network through an integrated wireless module or an external wireless device (such as a CPE), and conducts business interaction with the Master device through the wireless network. In general, the communication model is shown in (a) of Figure 13, and the transmission path is Master->UE1->D1->D2->D3->D4->D3->D2->D1->UE1->Master . The communication model of the embodiment of the present application is shown in (b) of FIG. 13 . UE1 and UE2 have a reliability pairing relationship, and a loop redundant transmission mechanism is formed inside the 5G network. UE1 and UE2 can access the same or different connections. The network access devices, UE1 and UE2 can access the same or different user plane functions, which are not limited here to ensure the transmission reliability of the 5G network.

Based on the communication model shown in (b) of FIG. 13 , the creation of redundant paths by the session management function SMF will be described, referring to FIG. 14 , including the following steps:

S1401: The UDM stores the subscription data of UE1 (such as the above-mentioned terminal device 10) and UE2 (such as the above-mentioned terminal device 12). The subscription data of UE1 contains information about UEs that have a reliable pairing relationship with UE1, and the subscription data of UE2 Information about UEs that have a reliable pairing relationship with UE2 is subscribed.

For example, UE1 and UE2 have a reliability pairing relationship, the subscription data of UE1 has subscription information of UE2, and the subscription data of UE2 has subscription information of UE1. Optionally, the reliability pairing relationship may also indicate the master-slave relationship of the UE, for example, UE1 is the master UE and UE2 is the backup UE.

S1402: UE1 sends a session creation request to the SMF, where the session creation request carries information of a slave device (such as terminal device 11) subordinate to or served by UE1. For example, the session creation request carries the MAC address of the slave device served by UE1.

S1403: The UE2 sends a session creation request to the SMF, where the session creation request carries the information of the slave device (such as the terminal device 14) subordinate to or serving the UE2. For example, the session creation request carries the MAC address of the slave device served by UE2.

S1404: The SMF obtains the subscription data of the UE1 and the subscription data of the UE2 from the UDM, and the SMF determines that there is a reliable pairing relationship between the UE1 and the UE2 according to the subscription data of the UE1 and the subscription data of the UE2.

Optionally, the SMF determines that UE1 is the master UE and UE2 is the standby UE according to the subscription data of UE1 and the subscription data of UE2.

S1405: The SMF establishes or modifies the forwarding rules of UE1 and UE2 on the user plane function UPF.

For example, the SMF creates or modifies the uplink and downlink packet forwarding rules (eg, PDU session context or PDR, etc.) on the UPF related to UE1 and UE2 respectively through the N4 session creation or modification message. For example, the SMF may send the downlink ingress port identifiers and uplink egress port identifiers corresponding to the PDU sessions of UE1 and UE2 to the UPF through the N4 session creation or modification message. The downlink inbound port identifier and the uplink outbound port identifier may be represented by port numbers or VLAN tags.

In the context message forwarding rule of UE1, it is recorded that UE2 is a UE that has a reliable pairing relationship with UE1, and optionally, it is recorded that UE2 is a standby UE of UE1. In the context message forwarding rule of UE2, it is recorded that UE1 is a UE that has a reliable pairing relationship with UE2, and optionally, it is recorded that UE1 is the master UE of UE2.

In one possible scenario, the slave device supports redundant paths.

As shown in (a) of FIG. 15 , it is the downlink packet forwarding rules of UE1 and UE2 stored in the UPF. The UPF receives the downlink packet through the N6 port, and matches the UE1 and UE1 that transmit the downlink packet according to the PDR and the port identifier of the downlink packet (which can also be combined with the source MAC address S-MAC and/or the destination MAC address D-MAC). /or the PDU session of UE2, the PDU session is sent to UE1 and/or UE2 through the N3 port based on FAR1. At this time, the downlink ingress identifier corresponding to the PDU session of UE1 and UE2 is N3.

As shown in (b) of FIG. 15 , it is the uplink packet forwarding rules of UE1 and UE2 stored in the UPF. The UPF receives the uplink packet through the N3 port and determines the uplink outgoing port identifier of the uplink packet according to the PDR and the port identifier of the uplink packet, sends the uplink packet from UE1 to the SMF through the N6 port, and sends the uplink packet through the N6 port to the SMF. The uplink message from UE2 is sent to SMF. The port identifier of the uplink packet may be an N3 label, such as a tunnel end point identifier (TEID).

In another possible scenario, the slave device does not support redundant transmission.

As shown in (a) of FIG. 16 , it is the downlink packet forwarding rules of UE1 and UE2 stored in the UPF. In the uplink and downlink packet forwarding rules of UE1 in the UPF, the SMF instructs the UPF to copy the downlink packets received through the N6 port, and send the downlink packets to UE1 and UE2.

As shown in (b) of FIG. 16 , it is the uplink forwarding rules of UE1 and UE2 stored in the UPF. In the uplink packet forwarding rule of UE1 in the UPF, the SMF instructs the UPF to deduplicate the uplink packets from UE1 and UE2 received through the N3 port, and deduplicate the deduplicated uplink packets through the N6 port. The message is sent to the SMF. In the forwarding rule of UE2 in the UPF, the SMF instructs the UPF to forward the uplink packet received through the N3 port to the UE1. The SMF includes the address information of the slave device served by UE1 or a multicast/broadcast/special address as the packet filtering condition in the forwarding rule of UE2 in the forwarding rule of UE2.

S1406: The SMF sends a session creation response message to UE1, where the session creation response message includes the address of UE2 and/or the address of a slave device subordinate to or served by UE2. Optionally, the session creation response message indicates that UE1 is the master UE and/or indicates that UE2 is the standby UE.

S1407: The SMF sends a session creation response message to UE2, where the session creation response message includes the address of UE1 and/or the address of a slave device subordinate to or served by UE1. Optionally, the session creation response message indicates that UE1 is the master UE and/or indicates that UE2 is the standby UE.

S1408: UE1 and UE2 create internal data forwarding rules according to the session creation response message received from the SMF.

In one possible scenario, the slave device supports redundant transmission, as shown in Figure 17.

In the downlink packet forwarding rule of UE2, if UE2 receives a downlink packet sent to the slave device served by UE1, UE2 sends the downlink packet to the slave device served by UE1. UE2 may determine that the downlink packet is a data packet sent by SMF to the slave device served by UE1 according to the address of UE1 and/or the address of the slave device subordinate to or served by UE1 included in the session creation response message in S1406.

In the downlink packet forwarding rule of UE1, if UE1 receives a downlink packet sent to the slave device served by UE1, UE1 sends the downlink packet to the slave device served by UE1.

In the forwarding rule of the uplink message of the UE2, if the UE2 receives the uplink message sent by the slave device served by the UE1, the UE2 sends the uplink message to the network device such as the base station/UPF/SMF.

In the uplink packet forwarding rule of UE1, if UE1 receives an uplink packet sent by a slave device served by UE1, UE1 sends the uplink packet to a network device such as a base station/UPF/SMF.

In another possible scenario, the slave device does not support redundant paths, as shown in Figure 18.

In the downlink message forwarding rule of UE2, if UE2 sends a downlink message to the Slave device served by UE1, UE2 sends the downlink message to UE1.

In the downlink packet forwarding rule of UE1, if UE1 receives the downlink packet from UPF and the downlink packet from UE2, it deduplicates the downlink packet from UPF and the downlink packet from UE2, and deduplicates the downlink packet from UE2. The downlink message is sent to the Slave device served by UE1.

In the uplink packet forwarding rule of UE2, if UE2 receives an uplink packet sent by UE1, UE2 sends the uplink packet to network devices such as a base station/UPF/SMF.

In the uplink packet forwarding rule of UE1, if UE1 receives an uplink packet sent by a slave device served by UE1, UE1 sends the uplink packet to the network device, and UE1 replicates the uplink packet, and will copy the uplink packet to the network device. The obtained uplink message is sent to UE2.

In the embodiment of the present application, in the actual networking scenario in which the industrial terminal supporting the EtherCAT protocol communicates through the 5G network, it is realized that the industrial terminal can ensure reliable transmission when accessing through the wireless network, and improve the reliability of the wireless network.

On the basis of the foregoing embodiment for creating a redundant path, when the node on the data transmission link is not faulty, the embodiment of the present application further provides a reliable transmission process based on the foregoing redundant path.

In a possible scenario, the slave device supports redundant transmission. For illustration in conjunction with FIG. 17 , UE1 is terminal device 10 , UE2 is terminal device 12 , D1 is terminal device 11 , and D4 is terminal device 14 .

The master device sends a message 30 to the user plane function 20 , and the user plane function 20 sends the message 30 to the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 10 sends the message 30 to the terminal device 11 , and the terminal device 11 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 10 . The terminal device 12 sends the message 30 to the terminal device 14, the terminal device 14 sends the message 30 to the terminal device 11 through D3 and D2, and the terminal device 11 receives the message from the terminal device 12. message 30.

In a possible manner, the terminal device 11 sends a response 33 to the terminal device 10 for the message 30 from the terminal device 10 . The terminal device 10 sends the response 33 to the user plane function 20, and the user plane function 20 sends the response 33 to the Master device. The terminal device 11 sends a response 34 to the terminal device 12 through D2, D3, and the terminal device 14 for the message 30 from the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 12 sends the response 34 to the Master device.

In another possible manner, the terminal device 11 may de-duplicate the packet 30 from the terminal device 10 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 11 sends a response 38 to the terminal device 10 for the packet 30 after deduplication. The terminal device 10 sends the response 38 to the user plane function 20, and the user plane function 20 sends the response 28 to the Master device. Optionally, the terminal device 11 may also copy the response 38 to obtain the response 39 . The terminal device 11 sends the response 39 to the terminal device 12 through D2, D3, and the terminal device 14. The terminal device 12 sends the response 39 to the Master device.

The response 39 is copied from the response 38, and the data included in the response 30 and the data included in the response 38 may be identical, or may be partially identical.

In another possible scenario, the Slave device does not support redundant transmission. For illustration in conjunction with FIG. 18, UE1 is the terminal device 10, UE2 is the terminal device 12, D1 is the terminal device 11, D4 is the terminal device 14, and the terminal device 10 and A transmission path is established between the terminal devices 12 .

The master device sends the message 30 to the user plane function 20 , and the user plane function 20 sends the message 30 to the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 10 receives the message 30 from the user plane function 20 . The terminal device 12 sends the message 30 to the terminal device 10 , and the terminal device 10 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 10 deduplicates the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 10 sends the deduplicated packet to the terminal device 11 .

The terminal device 11 receives the deduplicated packet 30 from the terminal device 10 , and sends a response 36 to the terminal device 10 for the deduplicated packet 30 from the terminal device 10 . The terminal device 10 sends the response 36 to the user plane function 20, and the user plane function 20 sends the response 36 to the Master device.

The terminal device 11 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10, and sends a response 37 to the terminal device 10 for the message 30 from the terminal device 12. The terminal device 10 sends the response 37 to the terminal device 12, the terminal device 12 sends the response 37 to the user plane function 20, and the user plane function 20 sends the response 37 to the Master device.

On the basis of the above-mentioned embodiment of creating a redundant path, when a node on a data transmission link fails, the embodiment of the present application also provides a reliable transmission process based on the above-created redundant path, which can realize data transmission Transmission reliability protection. The possible failures of the data transmission link are shown in Figure 19. The failure may occur in: (1) the mobile network access part, such as between UE and UPF, (2) UE (such as industrial CPE, etc.), (3) Slave device. The reliable transmission process when a fault occurs in this embodiment of the present application can be applied to the architecture shown in FIG. 17 or the architecture shown in FIG. 18 .

(1) A failure occurs in the access part of the mobile network, such as a failure between the UE and the network equipment. Assuming a failure occurs between UE1 and UPF, the Master device sends downlink packets to UE2 (such as terminal device 12), and UE2 sends the received downlink packets to UE1. Therefore, even if the mobile network access part on UE1 side fails, UE1 The downlink message sent by the Master device may also be received from the mobile network access link on the UE2 side. For the uplink message sent by the slave device D1 to the master device, the UE1 sends the received uplink message to the UE2, and the UE2 sends the uplink message to the master device through the mobile network.

Optionally, the UE1 side mobile network access unavailable state may be notified to UE2. For example, UE1, a control plane network element or a user plane network element notifies UE2 that mobile network access on the UE1 side is unavailable.

When the UE2 determines that the mobile network access on the UE1 side is unavailable, the UE2 can directly send the downlink message to the Slave device. The slave device can directly send uplink packets to UE2.

In the scenario where the slave device supports redundant transmission:

The transmission process of downlink packets may include: Master->UPF->AN->UE2->D4->D3->D2->D1, or Master->UPF->AN->UE2->D4->D3- >D2->D1->UE1->D1. That is, the terminal device 11 (ie, D1 ) can receive the packet 35 from the terminal device 12 (ie, UE2 ) through the industrial terminal D.

The transmission process of uplink packets may include: D1->D2->D3->D4->UE2->AN->UPF->Master, or D1->UE1->D1->D2->D3->D4- >UE2->AN->UPF->Master.

In the scenario where the slave device does not support redundant transmission:

The transmission process of the downlink message may include: Master->UPF->AN->UE2->UE1->D1. That is, the above-mentioned terminal device 10 (ie, UE1 ) can receive the message 35 from the terminal device 12 (ie, UE2 ), and send the message 35 to the terminal device 11 (ie, D1 ). That is, the terminal device 11 (ie, D1 ) can receive the packet 35 from the terminal device 12 (ie, UE2 ).

The transmission process of the uplink message may include: D1->UE1->UE2->AN->UPF->Master.

(2) UE fails. Assuming that UE1 is faulty, a fault detection mechanism may exist between UE1 and UE2, and a fault detection mechanism may also exist between UE1 and D1. When UE1 fails, UE2 and/or D1 can quickly detect the failure of UE1, D1 can interrupt the link between D1 and UE1, and connect the port connected to D1 and UE1 to form a loop. After UE2 receives the downlink message sent by the Master, UE2 sends the downlink message to the Slave device. Since D1 forms a loop with the port connecting D1 and UE1, D1 sends the uplink message to the Master device through UE2.

In the scenario where the slave device supports/does not support redundant transmission:

The transmission process of the downlink message may include: Master->UPF->AN->UE2->D4->D3->D2->D1. That is, the terminal device 11 (ie, D1 ) can receive the packet 35 from the terminal device 12 (ie, UE2 ) through the industrial terminal D.

The transmission process of the uplink message may include: D1->D2->D3->D4->UE2->AN->UPF->Master.

(3) The Slave equipment fails. Assuming that D2 is faulty, D1 and D3 can detect that D2 is faulty through the fault detection mechanism. When the link with D2 is detected to be faulty, D1 and D3 respectively generate fault detection packets, and in the fault detection report The fault point D2 is carried in the text, and the fault detection packet is sent to the Master device. The UE1 may receive the fault detection packet from D1, parse the fault detection packet, determine that the fault point is D2, and send the fault detection packet to the Master device. UE2 may receive the fault detection packet from D3, parse the fault detection packet, determine that the fault point is D2, and send the fault detection packet to the Master device. After receiving the fault detection messages from UE1 and UE2, the master device can construct the downlink message sent to the slave device into two messages and send them to D1, D3 and D4 respectively. The Master device sends downlink packets to D1 through UE1, and sends downlink packets to D3 and D4 through UE2. After UE1 and UE2 receive the downlink message from the Master device, since it was previously determined that the fault point is D2, UE1 sends the downlink message to D1, and UE2 sends the downlink message to D3 and D4.

In the scenario where the slave device supports redundant transmission:

The transmission process of the downlink message may include: Master->UPF->AN->UE1->D1 and Master->UPF->AN->UE2->D4->D3.

The transmission process of the uplink message may include: D1->UE1->AN->UPF->Master and D3->D4->UE2->AN->UPF->Master.

In the scenario where the slave device does not support redundant transmission:

The transmission process of downlink messages may include: Master->UPF->AN->UE1->D1 or Master->UPF->AN->UE2->UE1->D1; or Master->UPF->AN-> UE2->D4->D3, or Master->UPF->AN->UE1->UE2->D4->D3.

The transmission process of the uplink message may include: D1->UE1->AN->UPF->Master or D1->UE1->UE2->AN->UPF->Master; or D3->D4->UE2-> UE1->AN->UPF->Master.

In the embodiment of this application, only two UEs (UE1 and UE2) and four slave devices (D1, D2, D3, and D4) are used as examples for description. In the actual communication scenario, the number of UEs and the number of slave devices is not limited. In the embodiment of the present application, in the scenario where the industrial terminal supporting the EtherCAT protocol is accessed through the 5G network, the rapid detection and location of faults are realized, and different redundant transmission strategies can be implemented according to different fault points, so as to ensure the continuity of services. High reliability.

The redundant path creation method according to the embodiment of the present application has been described in detail above with reference to FIGS. 12 to 19 . Based on the same inventive concept as the redundant path creation method described above, the embodiment of the present application further provides a communication device, as shown in FIG. 20 . As shown, the communication apparatus 2000 includes a processing unit 2001 and a transceiver unit 2002, and the apparatus 2000 can be used to implement the methods described in the foregoing method embodiments applied to network equipment or network equipment.

In one embodiment, the apparatus 2000 is applied to a terminal device, where the terminal device may be the terminal device 10 .

Specifically, the transceiver unit 2002 is configured to receive the message 30 from the user plane function 20, and the communication device serves the terminal device 11; receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

the processing unit 2001, configured to deduplicate the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12;

The transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to send the deduplicated packet 30 to the terminal device 11 .

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to receive a response 31 from the terminal device 11, where the response 31 corresponds to the deduplicated packet 30; A response 32 is sent, which corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to receive the packet 35 from the terminal device 12 if a fault occurs between the communication device and the user plane function 20, and send the packet 35 sent to the terminal device 11 .

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to receive first information from the session management function 21 , where the first information indicates that the packet from the user plane function 20 is to be sent to the terminal device 12 . The packet is sent to the terminal device 11 after deduplication.

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to receive second information from the session management function 21 , where the second information indicates establishing a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .

In another embodiment, the apparatus 2000 is applied to a network device, wherein the network device is the session management function 21 .

Specifically, the transceiver unit 2002 is used to obtain the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10; obtain the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12;

The processing unit 2001 is used to determine that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12;

The transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to send a forwarding rule to the user plane function 20, where the forwarding rule indicates to send a message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10 and to send a message to the terminal device through the terminal device 12 14 Send the message.

In one implementation, the forwarding rule further indicates to duplicate the message.

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to send first information to the terminal device 10, where the first information indicates that the packet from the user plane function 20 is to be sent to the terminal device 12 The packet is deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11 .

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to send second information to the terminal device 10 , where the second information indicates to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .

The transceiver unit is further configured to send third information to the terminal device 12 , where the third information indicates to establish a transmission path with the terminal device 10 .

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is specifically configured to receive information from the terminal device 11 of the terminal device 10 .

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is specifically configured to receive information from the terminal device 14 of the terminal device 12 .

In an implementation manner, the processing unit 2001 is specifically configured to acquire the subscription data of the terminal device 10, and the subscription data of the terminal device 10 indicates that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 12; and/or acquire The subscription data of the terminal device 12 indicates that there is a corresponding relationship between the subscription data of the terminal device 12 and the terminal device 10 .

In yet another embodiment, the apparatus 2000 is applied to a terminal device, where the terminal device may be the terminal device 11 .

Specifically, the transceiver unit 2002 is configured to receive the message 30 from the terminal device 10; receive the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

the processing unit 2001, configured to determine the message 30;

The transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to send a response 33 to the terminal device 10, where the response 33 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; and send a response 34 to the terminal device 12, the The response 34 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

In an implementation manner, the transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to receive a packet from the terminal device 12 if a failure occurs between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20 or if the terminal device 10 fails 35.

Specifically, the transceiver unit 2002 is configured to receive the message 30 from the terminal device 10; receive the message 30 from the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10;

the processing unit 2001, configured to determine the message 30;

The transceiver unit 2002 is further configured to send a response 36 to the terminal device 10, where the response 36 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; sending a response to the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10 37 , the response 37 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .

It should be noted that the division of modules in the embodiments of the present application is schematic, and is only a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be other division methods. In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application It can be integrated in one processing unit, or it can exist physically alone, or two or more units can be integrated in one unit. The above-mentioned integrated units may be implemented in the form of hardware, or may be implemented in the form of software functional units.

The integrated unit, if implemented in the form of a software functional unit and sold or used as an independent product, may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solutions of the present application can be embodied in the form of software products in essence, or the parts that contribute to the prior art, or all or part of the technical solutions, and the computer software products are stored in a storage medium , including several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) or a processor (processor) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods described in the various embodiments of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes: U disk, mobile hard disk, read-only memory (Read-Only Memory, ROM), random access memory (Random Access Memory, RAM), magnetic disk or optical disk and other media that can store program codes .

Based on the same concept as the above redundant path creation method, as shown in FIG. 21 , an embodiment of the present application further provides a schematic structural diagram of a communication apparatus 2100 . The apparatus 2100 may be configured to implement the methods described in the foregoing method embodiments applied to network equipment or terminal equipment, and reference may be made to the descriptions in the foregoing method embodiments. The apparatus 2100 may be located in a network device or a terminal device or be a network device or a terminal device.

The apparatus 2100 includes one or more processors 2101 . The processor 2101 may be a general-purpose processor or a special-purpose processor or the like. For example, it may be a baseband processor, or a central processing unit. The baseband processor may be used to process communication protocols and communication data, and the central processing unit may be used to control communication devices (eg, base stations, terminals, or chips, etc.), execute software programs, and process data of software programs. The communication device may include a transceiving unit for implementing signal input (reception) and output (transmission). For example, the transceiver unit may be a transceiver, a radio frequency chip, or the like.

The apparatus 2100 includes one or more of the processors 2101, and the one or more processors 2101 can implement the method of the network device or the terminal device in the above-mentioned embodiments.

Optionally, the processor 2101 may implement other functions in addition to implementing the methods in the above-described embodiments.

Optionally, in one design, the processor 2101 may execute an instruction, so that the apparatus 2100 executes the method described in the foregoing method embodiment. The instructions may be stored in whole or in part in the processor, such as instruction 2103, or may be stored in whole or in part in a memory 2102 coupled to the processor, such as instruction 2104, or may be jointly caused by

instructions

2103 and 2104. The apparatus 2100 executes the methods described in the above method embodiments.

In another possible design, the communication apparatus 2100 may also include a circuit, and the circuit may implement the functions of the network device or the terminal device in the foregoing method embodiments.

In yet another possible design, the apparatus 2100 may include one or more memories 2102 having stored thereon instructions 2104 that may be executed on the processor to cause the apparatus 2100 to perform the above-described method methods described in the examples. Optionally, data may also be stored in the memory. Instructions and/or data may also be stored in the optional processor. For example, the one or more memories 2102 may store the correspondences described in the foregoing embodiments, or related parameters or tables involved in the foregoing embodiments, and the like. The processor and the memory can be provided separately or integrated together.

In yet another possible design, the apparatus 2100 may further include a transceiver unit 2105 and an antenna 2106 . The processor 2101 may be called a processing unit, and controls the device (terminal or base station). The transceiver unit 2105 may be referred to as a transceiver, a transceiver circuit, or a transceiver, etc., and is used to implement the transceiver function of the device through the antenna 2106 .

It should be noted that the processor in this embodiment of the present application may be an integrated circuit chip, which has a signal processing capability. In the implementation process, each step of the above method embodiments may be completed by a hardware integrated logic circuit in a processor or an instruction in the form of software. The above-mentioned processor can be a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (Digital Signal Processor, DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (Application Specific Integrated Circuit, ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable gate array (Field Programmable Gate Array, FPGA) or other available Programming logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components. The methods, steps, and logic block diagrams disclosed in the embodiments of this application can be implemented or executed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of the method disclosed in conjunction with the embodiments of the present application may be directly embodied as executed by a hardware decoding processor, or executed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software modules may be located in random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers and other storage media mature in the art. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory, and completes the steps of the above method in combination with its hardware.

It can be understood that the memory in this embodiment of the present application may be a volatile memory or a non-volatile memory, or may include both volatile and non-volatile memory. Wherein, the non-volatile memory may be a read-only memory (Read-Only Memory, ROM), a programmable read-only memory (Programmable ROM, PROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (Erasable PROM, EPROM), an electrically programmable read-only memory (Erasable PROM, EPROM). Erase programmable read-only memory (Electrically EPROM, EEPROM) or flash memory. Volatile memory may be Random Access Memory (RAM), which acts as an external cache. By way of illustration and not limitation, many forms of RAM are available, such as Static RAM (SRAM), Dynamic RAM (DRAM), Synchronous DRAM, SDRAM), double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (Double Data Rate SDRAM, DDR SDRAM), enhanced synchronous dynamic random access memory (Enhanced SDRAM, ESDRAM), synchronous link dynamic random access memory (Synchlink DRAM, SLDRAM) ) and direct memory bus random access memory (Direct Rambus RAM, DR RAM). It should be noted that the memory of the systems and methods described herein is intended to include, but not be limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

Embodiments of the present application further provide a computer-readable medium on which a computer program is stored, and when the computer program is executed by a computer, implements the redundant path creation described in any of the foregoing method embodiments applied to a network device or a terminal device method.

Embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product, which implements the redundant path creation method described in any of the foregoing method embodiments applied to a network device or a terminal device when the computer program product is executed by a computer.

In the above-mentioned embodiments, it may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, it can be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When the computer instructions are loaded and executed on a computer, all or part of the processes or functions described in the embodiments of the present application are generated. The computer may be a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, computer network, or other programmable device. The computer instructions may be stored in or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another computer-readable storage medium, for example, the computer instructions may be downloaded from a website site, computer, server, or data center Transmission to another website site, computer, server or data center via wired (eg coaxial cable, optical fiber, Digital Subscriber Line, DSL) or wireless (eg infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) means. The computer-readable storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server, data center, etc. that includes an integration of one or more available media. The available media may be magnetic media (eg, floppy disks, hard disks, magnetic tapes), optical media (eg, high-density digital video discs (DVDs)), or semiconductor media (eg, solid state disks, SSD)) etc.

An embodiment of the present application further provides a processing apparatus, including a processor and an interface; the processor is configured to execute the redundant path creation method described in any of the foregoing method embodiments applied to a network device or a terminal device.

It should be understood that the above-mentioned processing device may be a chip, and the processor may be implemented by hardware or software. When implemented by hardware, the processor may be a logic circuit, an integrated circuit, etc.; when implemented by software At the time, the processor can be a general-purpose processor, which is realized by reading the software codes stored in the memory, and the memory can be integrated in the processor, and can be located outside the processor and exist independently.

An embodiment of the present application further provides a communication system, where the communication system includes the session management function 21 described in any of the foregoing embodiments, and the user plane function 20 that receives the forwarding rule from the session management function 21 .

The communication system may be applied to an industrial Ethernet network, and the terminal device 11 may or may not support redundant transmission.

Optionally, the communication system may further include, execute the terminal device 10 described in any of the foregoing embodiments, execute the terminal device 12 described in any of the foregoing embodiments, and execute the terminal device 11 described in any of the foregoing embodiments. . The terminal device 11 may support redundant transmission, or may not support redundant transmission.

Optionally, the communication system may further include a terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12 . The terminal device 14 may or may not support redundant transmission.

Those of ordinary skill in the art can realize that the units and algorithm steps of each example described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware, computer software, or a combination of the two. Interchangeability, the above description has generally described the components and steps of each example in terms of function. Whether these functions are performed in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality using different methods for each particular application, but such implementations should not be considered beyond the scope of this application.

Those skilled in the art can clearly understand that, for the convenience and brevity of description, the specific working process of the system, device and unit described above may refer to the corresponding process in the foregoing method embodiments, which will not be repeated here.

In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other manners. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are only illustrative. For example, the division of units is only a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be other division methods, for example, multiple units or components may be combined or integrated. to another system, or some features can be ignored, or not implemented. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may also be electrical, mechanical or other forms of connection.

Units described as separate components may or may not be physically separated, and components shown as units may or may not be physical units, that is, may be located in one place, or may be distributed to multiple network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solutions of the embodiments of the present application.

In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist physically alone, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit. The above-mentioned integrated units may be implemented in the form of hardware, or may be implemented in the form of software functional units.

From the description of the above embodiments, those skilled in the art can clearly understand that the present application can be implemented by hardware, firmware, or a combination thereof. When implemented in software, the functions described above may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage medium can be any available medium that a computer can access. By way of example and not limitation, computer readable media may include RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage media or other magnetic storage devices, or be capable of carrying or storing instructions or data structures in the form of desired program code and any other medium that can be accessed by a computer. also. Any connection can be appropriately made into a computer-readable medium. For example, if the software is transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave, then the coaxial cable , fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, wireless, and microwave are included in the fusing of the pertinent medium. Disk and disc, as used in this application, includes compact disc (CD), laser disc, optical disc, digital versatile disc (DVD), floppy disk, and blu-ray disc, where disks generally reproduce data magnetically, and discs Lasers are used to optically copy data. Combinations of the above are also included within the scope of computer-readable media.

In a word, the above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the technical solutions of the present application, and are not intended to limit the protection scope of the present application. Any modification, equivalent replacement, improvement, etc. made within the spirit and principle of this application shall be included within the protection scope of this application.

Claims

A method for creating redundant paths, comprising:

The terminal device 10 receives the message 30 from the user plane function 20, and the terminal device 10 serves the terminal device 11;

the terminal device 10 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

The terminal device 10 deduplicates the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12;

The terminal device 10 sends the deduplicated packet 30 to the terminal device 11 .
The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

The terminal device 10 receives a response 31 from the terminal device 11, where the response 31 corresponds to the deduplicated packet 30;

The terminal device 10 sends a response 32 to the terminal device 12 , and the response 32 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .
The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein if a fault occurs between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20, the method further comprises:

The terminal device 10 receives the message 35 from the terminal device 12 and sends the message 35 to the terminal device 11 .
The method according to any one of claims 1-3, wherein the method further comprises:

The terminal device 10 receives the first information from the session management function 21, the first information indicates that the packet from the user plane function 20 and the packet of the terminal device 12 are deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11.
The method of claim 4, wherein the method further comprises:

The terminal device 10 receives second information from the session management function 21 , the second information indicating the establishment of a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .
A method for creating redundant paths, comprising:

The session management function 21 obtains the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10;

The session management function 21 acquires the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12;

The session management function 21 determines that there is a correspondence between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12;

The session management function 21 sends a forwarding rule to the user plane function 20, and the forwarding rule instructs to send a message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10 and to send a message to the terminal device 14 through the terminal device 12. arts.
The method of claim 6, wherein the forwarding rule further indicates to duplicate the message.
The method of claim 6 or 7, wherein the method further comprises:

The session management function 21 sends first information to the terminal device 10, the first information indicating that the packet from the user plane function 20 and the packet from the terminal device 12 are deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 10. The terminal device 11 is described.
The method according to any one of claims 6-8, wherein the method further comprises:

The session management function 21 sends second information to the terminal device 10 , the second information indicating the establishment of a transmission path with the terminal device 12 .
The method according to any one of claims 6-9, wherein the session management function 21 acquiring the terminal equipment 11 served by the terminal equipment 10 comprises:

The session management function 21 receives information from the terminal device 11 of the terminal device 10 .
The method according to any one of claims 6-10, wherein the session management function 21 acquiring the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12 comprises:

The session management function 21 receives information from the terminal device 14 of the terminal device 12 .
The method according to any one of claims 6-11, wherein the session management function 21 determines that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12, comprising:

The session management function 21 acquires the subscription data of the terminal device 10, and the subscription data of the terminal device 10 indicates that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 12; and/or

The session management function 21 acquires the subscription data of the terminal device 12 , and the subscription data of the terminal device 12 indicates that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 .
A method for creating redundant paths, comprising:

The terminal device 11 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 10;

the terminal device 11 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

The terminal device 11 sends a response 33 to the terminal device 10, where the response 33 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10;

The terminal device 11 sends a response 34 to the terminal device 12 , and the response 34 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .
The method according to claim 13, wherein, if a failure occurs between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20 or if the terminal device 10 fails, the method further comprises:

The terminal device 11 receives the message 35 from the terminal device 12 .
A method for creating redundant paths, comprising:

The terminal device 11 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 10;

The terminal device 11 receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10;

The terminal device 11 sends a response 36 to the terminal device 10, where the response 36 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10;

The terminal device 11 sends a response 37 to the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10 , and the response 37 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .
The method according to claim 15, wherein if a failure occurs between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20 or if the terminal device 10 fails, the method further comprises:

The terminal device 11 receives the message 35 from the terminal device 12 .
A communication device, comprising a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is configured to receive the message 30 from the user plane function 20, and the communication device serves the terminal device 11; receives the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

the processing unit, configured to de-duplicate the packet 30 from the user plane function 20 and the packet 30 from the terminal device 12;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send the deduplicated packet 30 to the terminal device 11 .
The communication apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to receive a response 31 from the terminal device 11, where the response 31 corresponds to the deduplicated packet 30 ; send a response 32 to the terminal device 12, the response 32 corresponding to the message 30 from the terminal device 12.
The communication device according to claim 17 or 18, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to receive a report from the terminal device 12 if a failure occurs between the communication device and the user plane function 20 The message 35 is sent to the terminal device 11 .
The communication device according to any one of claims 17-19, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to receive first information from the session management function 21, the first information indicating The packet of the function 20 and the packet of the terminal device 12 are deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11 .
The communication apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to receive second information from the session management function 21, the second information indicating that the communication between the terminal device 12 and the terminal device 12 is established. transmission path.
A communication device, comprising a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is used to obtain the terminal device 11 served by the terminal device 10; obtain the terminal device 14 served by the terminal device 12;

The processing unit is used to determine that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10 and the terminal device 12;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send a forwarding rule to the user plane function 20, where the forwarding rule indicates to send a message to the terminal device 11 through the terminal device 10 and to send a message to the terminal device 14 through the terminal device 12 Send message.
23. The communication apparatus of claim 22, wherein the forwarding rule further indicates to duplicate the message.
The communication apparatus according to claim 22 or 23, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to send first information to the terminal device 10, where the first information indicates that the communication from the user plane function 20 is to be transmitted. The packet and the packet from the terminal device 12 are deduplicated and sent to the terminal device 11 .
The communication apparatus according to any one of claims 22 to 24, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to send second information to the terminal device 10, where the second information indicates that the 12 transmission paths between.
The communication apparatus according to any one of claims 22 to 25, wherein the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive information from the terminal equipment 11 of the terminal equipment 10.
The communication apparatus according to any one of claims 22 to 26, wherein the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive information from the terminal equipment 14 of the terminal equipment 12.
The communication apparatus according to any one of claims 22 to 27, wherein the processing unit is specifically configured to acquire subscription data of the terminal device 10, and the subscription data of the terminal device 10 indicates the There is a corresponding relationship between the devices 12; and/or the subscription data of the terminal device 12 is acquired, and the subscription data of the terminal device 12 indicates that there is a corresponding relationship between the terminal device 10.
A communication device, comprising a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is configured to receive the message 30 from the terminal device 10; receive the message 30 from the terminal device 12;

the processing unit, configured to determine the message 30;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send a response 33 to the terminal device 10, where the response 33 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; and send a response 34 to the terminal device 12, the response 34 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .
The communication device according to claim 29, characterized in that, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive data from the terminal device 10 if there is a failure between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20 or if the terminal device 10 fails The message 35 of the terminal device 12 is described.
A communication device, comprising a processing unit and a transceiver unit;

The transceiver unit is configured to receive the message 30 from the terminal device 10; receive the message 30 from the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10;

the processing unit, configured to determine the message 30;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send a response 36 to the terminal device 10, where the response 36 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 10; and send a response 37 to the terminal device 12 through the terminal device 10 , the response 37 corresponds to the message 30 from the terminal device 12 .
The communication device according to claim 31, characterized in that, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive data from the terminal device 10 if there is a failure between the terminal device 10 and the user plane function 20 or if the terminal device 10 fails The message 35 of the terminal device 12 is described.
A communication device, characterized in that the device includes a processor, a transceiver and a memory;

the transceiver for sending and receiving messages;

the memory for storing computer program instructions;

The processor is configured to execute part or all of the computer program instructions in the memory, so as to execute the method according to any one of claims 1-5 through the transceiver, or to execute the method according to any one of claims 6-12. A method according to any one of claims 13-14, or a method according to any one of claims 15-16.
A computer-readable storage medium, wherein computer-readable instructions are stored in the computer-readable storage medium, and when a computer reads and executes the computer-readable instructions, the computer is made to execute the method as claimed in claim 1. -5 The method of any one of claims 6-12, or the method of any one of claims 13-14, or the execution of any one of claims 15-16 The method of any one.
A communication system, characterized in that, the communication system includes a session management function 21 that executes the method according to any one of claims 6-12, and a session management function 21 that receives the forwarding rules from the session management function 21. User plane function 20.