A signal processing method includes: obtaining first indication information, where the first indication information includes a measurement parameter; performing, by a signal forwarding device based on the measurement parameter, signal quality measurement on a received first uplink signal sent by a target user terminal UE; sending a signal quality measurement result to a base station; if obtaining second indication information sent by the base station, receiving a second uplink signal sent by the target UE, and forwarding the second uplink signal to the base station, where the second indication information is sent by the base station to the signal forwarding device, after the base station determines, based on the signal quality measurement result, to determine to allocate the target UE to the signal forwarding device as subordinate UE.