In Embodiment 2, the terminal determines, based the subframe format, the uplink transmission time-frequency resource that can be used by the terminal to perform uplink transmission, and therefore the network side device can perform targeted detection on a specific time-frequency resource, and does not need to receive, through blind detection or the like, an uplink signal sent by the terminal, thereby greatly improving effectiveness of grant free transmission.
Embodiment 3 of the grant free transmission method provided is shown in FIG. 10. The method provided in Embodiment 3 is a combination of that in Embodiment 1 and that in Embodiment 2. The terminal may generate a corresponding uplink signal based on a subframe format, or may determine, based on a subframe format, an uplink transmission time-frequency resource that can be used by the terminal to perform uplink transmission, thereby further improving flexibility and effectiveness of uplink grant free transmission. For details, refer to the steps in FIG. 9. A detailed implementation process of the steps is described in detail in text description corresponding to FIG. 7 and FIG. 8. Details are not described herein again.