Specifically, the network device may send the first control information through multiple beams, the first control information sent through different beams is transmitted on different candidate resource sets, and different beams aim at different directions, thereby each of terminal devices at different positions may receive the first control information at a large receiving power on a beam which aims at the terminal device itself. That is, in the multiple candidate resource sets, different candidate resource sets are used for transmitting the first control information on which beamforming is performed by using different beams. The terminal device needs to detect the first control information on each candidate resource in the multiple candidate resource sets. Herein, a format and a content of the first control information, for example, a DCI format used by the first control information, are known to the terminal device, and the terminal device needs to perform blind detection in the multiple candidate resource sets respectively.

It should be understood that in each of the candidate resource sets, the terminal device may detect the first control information transmitted in each of the candidate resource sets respectively, or may perform joint detection on the first control information in the multiple candidate resource sets.

Optionally, in an implementation of the first aspect, determining, by the terminal device, the target resource set from the multiple candidate resource sets according to the detection result of the first control information includes: the terminal device determines the target resource set from at least one resource set, in which the first control information is capable of being detected, in the multiple candidate resource sets.