Access mechanism for proximity-based service UE-to-network relay service

1. A method for a relay user equipment (UE) to forward packets between a base station and a remote UE, the method comprising:

determining a relay service type;

assigning network functions by the base station to at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE for a relay network slice, wherein the relay network slice and the corresponding network functions are based on the relay service type;

selecting one or more sidelink (SL)-radio resources to forward the packets for the relay network slice between the remote UE and the relay UE.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the relay service type is a Layer-2 relaying or a Layer-3 relaying.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selecting the one or more SL-radio resources comprises:

sending an SL-measurement configuration from the base station to at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the sidelink-measurement configuration includes a list of SL-candidate component (CC) carriers.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the list of SL-CC carriers includes licensed band component carriers and/or unlicensed band component carriers.

6. The method of claim 3 , wherein the SL-measurement configuration includes at least one of a frequency identifier of a candidate component carrier, a target cell ID, a sidelink synchronization signal ID, an occupancy ratio, and a threshold for component carrier selection.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selecting the one or more SL-radio resources comprises:

sending an SL-measurement report from at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE to the base station;

sending an SL-radio access network (RAN) profile configuration message from the base station to at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the SL-RAN profile configuration message includes at least one of frame structure, modulation, multiplexing, cyclic prefix length, transmission time interval, and sub-carrier spacing.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the base station is configured to dynamically configure a radio access network structure for optimizing the relay service.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network functions include at least one of path selection, in-sequence delivering, header compression, security, ACK/NACK, segmentation/concatenation, HARQ, QoS mapping, and scheduling based on Proximity-based Service (ProSe) Per-Packet Priority (PPPP) or Relay Group Priority.

11. A base station comprising:

one or more non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for a relay user equipment (UE) to forward packets between the base station and a remote UE, the method comprising:

determining a relay service type;

assigning network functions by the base station to at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE for a relay network slice, wherein the relay network slice and the corresponding network functions are based on the relay service type;

selecting one or more sidelink (SL)-radio resources to forward the packets for the relay network slice between the remote UE and the relay UE.

12. The base station of claim 11 , wherein the relay service type is a Layer-2 relaying or a Layer-3 relaying.

13. The base station of claim 11 , wherein the selecting the one or more SL-radio resources comprises:

sending an SL-measurement configuration from the base station to at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE.

14. The base station of claim 13 , wherein the sidelink-measurement configuration includes a list of SL-candidate component (CC) carriers.

15. The base station of claim 14 , wherein the list of SL-CC carriers includes licensed band component carriers and/or unlicensed band component carriers.

16. The base station of claim 13 , wherein the SL-measurement configuration includes at least one of a frequency identifier of a candidate component carrier, a target cell ID, a sidelink synchronization signal ID, an occupancy ratio, and a threshold for component carrier selection.

17. The base station of claim 11 , wherein the selecting the one or more SL-radio resources comprises:

receiving an SL-measurement report from at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE;

sending an SL-radio access network (RAN) profile configuration message from the base station to at least one of the remote UE and the relay UE.

18. The base station of claim 11 , wherein the base station is configured to dynamically configure a radio access network structure for optimizing the relay service.

19. The base station of claim 11 , wherein the network functions include at least one of path selection, in-sequence delivering, header compression, security, ACK/NACK, segmentation/concatenation, HARQ, QoS mapping, and scheduling based on Proximity-based Service (ProSe) Per-Packet Priority (PPPP) or Relay Group Priority.

20. A user equipment (UE) for wireless communication, the UE comprising:

one or more non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon;

at least one processor coupled to the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media, and configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to:

receive network functions assigned by a base station for a relay network slice,

wherein the relay network slice and the corresponding network functions are based on a relay service type transmitted by the base station;

receive a sidelink (SL)-measurement configuration from the base station;

take measurements of SL-candidate component (CC) carriers based on the SL-measurement configuration;

provide an SL-measurement report to the base station;

receive an SL-radio resource configuration and a corresponding SL-radio access network (RAN) profile configuration from the base station to forward packets for the relay network slice between the UE and another UE.

21. The UE of claim 20 , wherein the at least one processor is coupled to the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media, and configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to:

encode or decode a packet on an SL-radio resource based on the corresponding SL-RAN profile configuration.