WO2017095467A1

WO2017095467A1 - Systems, methods and devices for mitigating beam interference in beam based cell-less operation

Info

Publication number: WO2017095467A1
Application number: PCT/US2016/024638
Authority: WO
Inventors: Hyejung Jung; Alexei Davydov; Gregory V. Morozov
Original assignee: Intel Corporation
Priority date: 2015-12-01
Filing date: 2016-03-29
Publication date: 2017-06-08
Also published as: TW201740696A

Abstract

Strong beam interference can be mitigated. This mitigation can include related radio resource management (RRM) measurement reports and channel state information (CSI) measurement configuration. These mitigations can be used for third generation partnership project (3GPP) fifth generation (5G) radio access technologies (RATs) including beam based cell-less operation and/or which supports flexible transmission/reception point switching and multi-point beam aggregation. For example, user equipment (UE) and access point (AP) transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) beam information can be exploited. This beam information can be determined by spatial channel characteristics and can be obtained during optimal Tx-Rx beam pair acquisition and tracking, such as for interference avoidance. Compared to instantaneous channel information including the phase variation, spatial channel information such as angle of arrival (AoA) or angle of departure (AoD) can change more slowly. In some embodiments, the beam interference measurement and coordination can also be suitable for non-ideal backhaul deployment scenarios.

Description

SYSTEMS, METHODS AND DEVICES FOR MITIGATING BEAM INTERFERENCE IN

BEAM BASED CELL-LESS OPERATION

Related Application

[0001] This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/261,736 filed December 1, 2015, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Technical Field

[0002] The present disclosure relates to beam formed wireless communications and more specifically to enable mitigation of beam interference in beam based cell-less operation of wireless communication devices.

Brief Description of the Drawings

[0003] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a beam-forming system with serving beams and potentially active beams consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0004] FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a beam-forming system with active beams and potentially interfering beams consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0005] FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a long term evolution (LTE) communication frame consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0006] FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) multiplexing in LTE consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0007] FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating CSI-RS configurations consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0008] FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method for managing interference in a wireless network consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0009] FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a UE consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0010] FIG. 8 is an example illustration of a LTE capable device consistent with

embodiments disclosed herein.

[0011] FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating electronic device circuitry 900 consistent with embodiments disclosed herein. Detailed Description

[0012] A detailed description of systems and methods consistent with embodiments of the present disclosure is provided below. While several embodiments are described, it should be understood that the disclosure is not limited to any one embodiment, but instead encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications, and equivalents. In addition, while numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments disclosed herein, some embodiments can be practiced without some or all of these details. Moreover, for the purpose of clarity, certain technical material that is known in the related art has not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the disclosure.

[0013] Techniques, apparatus and methods are disclosed that enable mitigation of strong beam interference. This mitigation can include related radio resource management (RRM) measurement reports and channel state information (CSI) measurement configuration. These mitigations can be used for third generation partnership project (3GPP) fifth generation (5G) radio access technologies (RATs) including beam based cell-less operation and/or which supports flexible transmission/reception point switching and multi-point beam aggregation.

[0014] For example, user equipment (UE) and access point (AP) transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) beam information can be exploited. This beam information can be determined by spatial channel characteristics and can be obtained during optimal Tx-Rx beam pair acquisition and tracking, such as for interference avoidance. Compared to instantaneous channel information including the phase variation, spatial channel information such as angle of arrival (AoA) or angle of departure (AoD) can change more slowly. In some embodiments, the beam interference measurement and coordination can also be suitable for non-ideal backhaul deployment scenarios.

[0015] In one example, a 5G RAT, operated in both current cellular bands and frequency bands above 6GHz, can exploit multi-site/multi-point cooperation with advanced MIMO (e.g., massive MIMO), in order to provide high area traffic capacity and consistent user experience. Narrow beam based system operation with a large number of antennas can increase spectral efficiency by reducing the interference and enabling more number of users to be spatially multiplexed. However, if unwanted beams are received together with desired beams via the same optimal receive (Rx) beam, high-level of interference can also be observed at the receiver due to large beamforming gains of unwanted beams.

[0016] For access points (APs) operated in a time duplex multiplexing (TDD) mode, dynamic TDD uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) configuration may be beneficial for low latency communication and flexible adaptation to data traffic. However, when each AP with a massive MIMO system is allowed to configure UL/DL region dynamically, DL transmit (Tx) beams may cause strong interference towards neighboring APs' receivers.

[0017] Strong beam interference can be mitigated or avoided by including related radio resource management (RRM) measurement reports and channel state information (CSI) measurement configuration for 5G RAT beam based cell-less operation. The beam based operation can support flexible transmission/reception point switching and multi-point beam aggregation.

[0018] Wireless mobile communication technology uses various standards and protocols to transmit data between a base station and a wireless mobile device. Wireless communication system standards and protocols can include the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) long term evolution (LTE); the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard, which is commonly known to industry groups as worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX); and the IEEE 802.11 standard, which is commonly known to industry groups as Wi-Fi. In 3 GPP radio access networks (RANs) in LTE systems, the base station can include Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) Node Bs (also commonly denoted as evolved Node Bs, enhanced Node Bs, eNodeBs, or eNBs) and/or Radio Network Controllers (RNCs) in an E-UTRAN, which communicate with devices such as user equipment (UE).

[0019] Tx beams received by a common Rx beam or received with similar angle of arrival values can be considered as potential interfering beams, as it is difficult to separate those beams spatially at the receiver. Upon user equipment's (UE's) DL Tx/Rx beam acquisition, UE can identify and report one or more sets of potential interfering beams, where the beams in a respective set are received by a common Rx beam. Then, the network can dynamically configure UE-specific channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) with flexibly configured active beams and/or potential interfering beams for UE's beam interference measurements. If the strong interfering beams are transmitted from different APs or sites, and if the APs are connected with non-ideal backhaul with separate schedulers, the APs negotiate restricted time-frequency resource zones of each other to avoid co-scheduling of strong interfering beams on the same or overlapped resources.

[0020] For UL-to-UL interference handling, each AP can identify potential interfering UEs or UE Tx beams whose UL Rx beams are the same, based on the UL/DL spatial reciprocity or reception of UL sounding reference signal (SRS) and random access preambles. [0021] For DL-to-UL interference handling, some radio resources can be reserved for APs to sequentially transmit their beam reference signals to neighboring APs, and this can be done during off-peak time of the network thanks to static nature of spatial channel characteristics for channels between APs.

[0022] In one example shown in FIGs. 1 and 2, of mitigating or avoiding DL to DL interference of APs 104 to UE 102, the system can perform operations including: (1) the network transmits a beam reference signal (BRS); (2) the UE identify serving beams 106 and potential active beams 108; (3) the UE reports the serving beams 106, 108; (4) the network configures active beams 214 and potential interfering beams 212; (5) the UE performing channel measurements for the configured active beams 214 and indicated potential interfering beams 212; (6) the UE transmit one or more CSI reports with and without interfering beam transmissions; and (7) the network avoids scheduling strong interfering beams based on the CSI reports. It should be noted that operations are numbered for convenience and may not be performed in sequential order, but can be out-of-order, in parallel, etc. In some

embodiments, operations can be omitted. It should be noted that a set of potential active beams 108 is a subset of a set of serving beams.

[0023] In operation (1), the network transmits a beam reference signal (BRS) for a UE' s RRM measurements.

[0024] In operation (2), the UE 102 identifies serving beams 106, 108 and potential active beams 108 by measuring the received BRS and selecting DL Tx beams with received power that are above predefined or network-configured threshold values. The UE groups the identified serving beams 106, 108, and potential active beams 108, based on angle of arrival (AoA) estimates and/or DL Rx beams acquired for the selected DL Tx beams. The Tx beams received by a common Rx beam 1 10 or received with similar AoA values can be considered as potential interfering beams 212.

[0025] For serving beams (a set S) 106, 108: A set of RRM measurement beams whose received power at the UE 102 is above the threshold value RSRP_S. S = {S₀, 5₁₍ ... , where S_t is a set of serving beams 106, 108 which are optimally received with the UE Rx beam i 1 10, and N is the number of UE Rx beams.

[0026] For potential active beams (a set A^U) 108: A subset of serving beams 106, 108 whose received power at the UE 102 is above the threshold value RSRP_a, where RSRP_a > RSRP_S. A^U = {A_Q , AI , ... , A^I_₁}, where is a set of potential active beams 108 which are optimally received with the UE Rx beam i 1 10. [0027] In operation (3), the UE 102 reports the selected DL Tx serving beams 106, 108 per UE Rx beam 1 10 as an RRC message such as an RRM measurement report, which indicates S and A^u with RSRP values. The UE 102 defines a number of Tx beam groups according to its Rx beams, and the serving beams 106, 108 in a given Tx beam group are received by the same UE Rx beam 1 10.

[0028] In operation (4), The network configures active beams A^B 214 and potential interfering beams I^B 212, based on the reported potential active beams 108 and the beam deployment knowledge such as angle of departure (AoD) and whether beams are from the same site or from different sites, and indicates related CSI resources for the A^B and 7^s .

[0029] For configured active beams (a set A^B) 214: A set of beams related to a subset of the reported serving beams. A^B = {A^B, A^B, ... , A^B _₁}, where Af is a set of configured active beams 214 which are optimally received with the UE Rx beam i 1 10. Note that the configured active beams 214 may be down selected from the reported potential active beams 108. Alternatively, beams for RRM measurements may be different from beams for CSI measurements and data communications, in terms of a beam width and a beamforming gain. Thus, the configured active beams 214 are related to the subset of the reported serving beams 106, 108, but they are not the same.

[0030] For potential interfering beams (a set I^B) 212: A set of beams related to a subset of the reported serving beams 106, 108 which the network identifies as potential interfering beams 212 to the configured active beams 214.

[0031] In operation (5), The UE 102 performs channel measurements for the configured active beams A^B 214 and indicated potential interfering beams I^B 212 on the indicated CSI resources, and calculates CSI information of the configured active beams 214 such as channel quality indicator (CQI)/ precoding matrix indicator (PMI)/ rank indicator (RI) for two cases 1) interfering beams 212 are transmitted and 2) interfering beams 212 are not transmitted. To emulate the impact of interference, the UE may calculate CQI and optionally PMI of each interfering beam 212 based on interfering beam channel measurements, and may assume that the obtained CQI/PMI are used for interfering beam transmission. Alternatively, CQIs of the interfering beams 212 for interference emulation may be predetermined, or configured along with CSI resource configuration by the network.

[0032] In operation (6), The UE 102 may transmit one or more sets of CSI reports with and without assuming interfering beam transmissions for each active beam 214 or each set of active beams 214 from different Tx beam groups (e.g., for a transmission rank >1). Alternatively, the UE 102 may transmit one CSI report per active beam 214 or per set of active beams 214 of different Tx beam groups, which includes values indicating CQI degradation (e.g., differential CQI) by assuming interfering beam transmission. In another embodiment, UE may transmit one CSI report per active beam 214 or per set of active beams 214 of different Tx beam groups, and separately transmit CQIs of all potential interfering beams. To reduce the CSI report overhead, the network may configure the UE 102 to transmit CSI reports for the best 2 or 3 active beams or set of active beams of different Tx beam groups within the configured active beams.

[0033] In operation (7), The network (e.g., AP 104) receives the CSI reports indicating the impact of potential interfering beams 212, and avoids scheduling strong interfering beams, which causes large CQI degradation or rank/throughput reduction, on time-frequency radio resources overlapped with resources for the configured active beams 214 for the UE 102. If the strong interfering beams are transmitted from different APs 104 and the APs 104 are connected with non-ideal backhaul with separate schedulers, the APs 104 transmitting the configured active beams 214 are coordinating with the APs 104 transmitting the interfering beams via LTE X2-like interface to avoid co-channel scheduling of the configured active beams 214 and strong interfering beams. An example can be seen in FIGs. 1 and 2, when UE 102 receives the configured active beams 214 from AP 1 (104) with UE Rx beam 1 (110), the UE 102 can receive a strong interfering beam from AP3. Once AP 1 (104) or both AP 1 (104) and AP 3(104) receive the CSI reports from the UE 102 indicating the strong interference, AP 1 (104) and AP 3 (104) may negotiate restricted time-frequency resource zones of each other to avoid co-scheduling of those beams on the same or overlapped resources.

[0034] In one example of mitigating or avoiding UL to UL interference, the system can use UL Rx beam information and perform operations including: (1) the network (or each AP receiver) can acquire and track one or more optimal UL Rx beams for UE Tx beams, and can identify potential interfering UEs and/or UE Tx beams; (2) cooperating APs can avoid scheduling interfering UEs and/or UE transmit beams on overlapped time-frequency radio resources; and/or (3) cooperating APs can negotiate restricted time-frequency resources for potential interfering UEs and/or UE Tx beams.

[0035] In operation (1), the network or each AP receiver acquires and tracks one or more optimal UL Rx beams for UE Tx beams (including omni-transmission), based on the reciprocity of DL/UL spatial propagation parameters such as AoA and AoD and/or reception of UL SRS and random access preambles. That is, by receiving from the UE or exchanging among APs the UE DL Tx/Rx beam measurement report and/or by preamble/SRS reception, each AP can identify potential interfering UEs or UE Tx beams whose UL Rx beams are the same, and can estimate the potential interference level by measuring each UE's received signal.

[0036] In operation (2), cooperating APs that are connected via ideal backhaul links and/or a centralized scheduler in the network can avoid scheduling UEs or UE transmit beams, which use the same UL Rx beam and may cause strong interference, on overlapped time-frequency radio resources.

[0037] In operation (3), cooperating APs, that are connected via non-ideal backhaul links and that have an independent scheduler, can negotiate restricted time-frequency resource zones of each other for potential interfering UEs. The restriction can also include limiting interfering UE's transmit power

[0038] If APs in the network are densely deployed and each AP in the TDD mode is allowed to configure UL/DL region dynamically, neighboring APs may have different communication directions, that is, one AP receiving and the other AP transmitting, which may cause (DL) AP-to-(UL) AP interference. In addition, transmitting UEs may cause interference to receiving UEs, so called as (UL) UE-to-(DL) UE interference. UE-to-UE interference tends to be not persistent, as it is expected that a victim UE may report degraded CQI and/or re- select serving beams with updated UE Rx beams.

[0039] In one example of mitigating or avoiding DL to UL interference or UL to DL interference, the system can mitigate and/or avoid interference by perform operations including: (1) performing AP-to-AP interference measurements; and (2) negotiate restricted time-frequency resource zones to avoid co-scheduling DL Tx and UL Rx beams on the same or overlapped resources.

[0040] In operation (1), if the AP can simultaneously receive and transmit on same or adjacent bands, i.e., a full-duplex AP, then all APs may receive each other's BRS while transmitting their own BRS to perform AP-to-AP interference measurement. If the AP can either receive or transmit in a given instance, i.e., a half-duplex AP, then some radio resources are reserved for APs to sequentially transmit their BRS to neighboring APs, where a BRS format (including time-frequency location) intended to neighboring APs may be different from a BRS format intended to the UEs. Since APs are not moving, and antenna orientations of APs are assumed to be almost constant over the time, identifying strong Tx-to- Rx interference beam pairs among APs via BRS transmission and reception may not need to occur very often, and this can be done during off-peak time in terms of network loading. [0041] In operation (2), each AP identifies potential strong interfering Tx beams of neighbor APs and corresponding Rx beams. The cooperating APs may negotiate restricted time- frequency resource zones of each other to avoid co-scheduling of those DL Tx and UL Rx beams on the same or overlapped resources.

[0042] In order to assist the network with identifying potential interfering beams and configuring UE's interference measurement properly, the UE may group DL Tx serving beams according to DL Rx beams and report DL Tx serving beams per DL Rx beam in an RRC message. Below is an exemplary measurement result information element in the RRC message.

MeasResult ::= SEQUENCE (SIZE (l . maxUERxBeam)) OF MeasResultPerRxBeam

MeasResultPerRxBeam : := SEQUENCE (SIZE (l . maxDLTxBeam)) OF

MeasResultForDLTxBeam

MeasResultForDLTxBeam : := SEQUENCE { measResult SEQUENCE {

txBeamld TxBeamld

rsrpResult RSRP-Range rsrqResult RSRQ-Range

}

[0043] The network signals the UE-specific CSI-RS and CSI-IM configuration dynamically as a downlink control information (DO) format, in order to support UE's CSI measurement with flexibly configured active beams and/or potential interfering beams. The network configures a set of non-zero-power channel state information reference signals (NZP-CSI- RS) for UE's channel measurement of active beams and another set of NZP-CSI-RS for UE's channel measurement of potential interfering beams. In addition, CSI-IM is configured for measurement of other interferences, where both the active and potential interfering beams are not transmitted.

[0044] FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram 300 illustrating long term evolution (LTE)

communication frame 304 of 10 ms duration 302. In one embodiment, each frequency allocation can be in 180 kHz increments, and a channel bandwidth of 1.08 MHz (six times 180 kHz = 1.08 MHz bandwidth) is shown in the diagram. In some embodiments, the channel bandwidth can be expanded to 110 blocks of 180 kHz (110 times 180 kHz = 19.8 MHz). Frame 304 can be 10 ms with each slot 308 being 0.5 ms (and each subframe 306 being 1 ms).

[0045] A resource block 310 spanned over 1 slot duration 308 includes seven symbols at 12 orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers. Resource element 312 is one OFDM subcarrier for the duration of one OFDM symbol. Resource block 310 can include 84 resource elements 312 when using a normal cyclic prefix (CP). OFDM spacing between individual subcarriers in LTE can be 15 kHz. The duration of one OFDM symbol includes a period for the CP or a guard period to help prevent multipath inter-symbol interference (ISI) between consecutive OFDM symbols.

[0046] CSI subframes and a CSI region size (in terms of the number of OFDM symbols) within a given CSI subframe can be configured dynamically, semi-statically via higher-layer signaling, or with a predetermined and fixed value. Within one symbol, orthogonal CSI-RS resources are configured for channel measurements of active beams and interfering beams and for other interference measurements under given one or more UE Rx beams. Along with subcarrier allocation on CSI-RS, one or more Tx beam groups, which UE defined and signaled via RRM measurement report and can indicate corresponding UE Rx beams, are signaled.

[0047] FIG. 4 illustrates an example of multi-user CSI-RS multiplexing within the CSI region 416, and FIG. 5 presents a set of CSI-RS configuration options. For a given symbol, CSI-RS resources 406, 408, 410, 412, 414 may be assigned to one UE for every other set of 12 subcarriers or every fourth set of 6 subcarriers in available subcarriers. FIG. 5 shows configurations (a) 520 and (b) 522 that present CSI-RS configuration within a set of 12 subcarriers with two UE Rx beams (rank 1-2, that is, the maximum supportable rank of 2 in configuration (a) 520) and four configured UE Rx beams (rank 1-4, that is, the maximum supportable rank of 4 in configuration (b) 522). In FIG. 5 (a) 520, multiple active beams of one Tx beam group are configured. In this example, a UE independently calculates CSI information of each active beam of the same Tx beam group 502, 504, and jointly calculates CSI information of two active beams, each of which is from a different Tx beam group. A similar principle is applied to other configurations in FIG. 5. RI and PMI may be reported, when the UE performs joint CSI calculation of multiple active beams from different Tx beam groups.

[0048] FIG. 5 also shows configurations (c) 524 and (d) 526 that present CSI-RS

configuration within a set of 6 subcarriers with one UE Rx beams (rank 1 in configuration (c) 524) and two configured UE Rx beams (rank 1-2, the maximum supportable rank of 2 in configuration (d) 526). Similar to above, a UE independently calculates CSI information of each active beam of the same Tx beam group 514, 516, 518, and jointly calculates CSI information of two active beams, each of which is from a different Tx beam group.

[0049] An exemplary DCI format to support CSI-RS resource allocation and configuration shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 can be provided. The following information can be transmitted by means of the DCI format for dynamic CSI measurement configuration. An assigned symbol indicator can be 4 bits, a bitmap whose length 4 is same as the maximum CSI region size in terms of the number of symbols. Each bit corresponds to a symbol in the CSI region, and ' 1 ' indicates that the symbol is assigned to the UE. To minimize the number of reserved bits or the number of allowed payload sizes, it may be assumed that up to 2 symbols can be allocated to each UE.

[0050] For each allocated symbol, 27 bits are transmitted as follows: a CSI resource size indicator: 1 bit, T indicating 12 subcarriers and '0' indicating 6 subcarriers; a CSI resource allocation indicator: 2 bits. The most significant bit (MSB) of the field indicates resource selection between two sets of subcarriers as follows:

[0051] where k is a subcarrier index for all available subcarriers. The least significant bit (LSB) of the field indicates selection between two subsets of subcarriers in a selected set of subcarriers as follows:

[0052] where k' is a subcarrier index for the selected set of subcarriers. If the CSI resource size indicator is set to Ί ', the LSB is reserved. Finally, Tx beam group index can include 24 bits, indicating up to 4 Tx beam groups (6 bits per Tx beam group).

[0053] FIG. 6 shows a method 600 for managing interference in a wireless network. The method can be performed by various systems including those shown in FIGs. 1, 7 and 8. In block 602, the UE receives beam reference signals (BRS) from one or more access points (APs) in a wireless communication network, wherein each BRS is associated with a downlink (DL) transmit (Tx) beam. In block 604, the UE identifies a set of DL Tx beams as serving beams based at least in part on measuring the received BRS and selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which an associated received power is above a first threshold value. In block 606, the UE identifies a subset of the serving beams as potential active beams based at least in part on the associated received power being above a second threshold value, wherein the second threshold value is greater than the first threshold value. In block 608, the UE groups the identified serving beams and potential active beams, based on angle of arrival (AoA) estimates or DL receive (Rx) beams for the serving beams and potential active beams. In block 610, the UE transmits a radio resource management (RRM) measurement report to the one or more APs in the wireless communication network, wherein the RRM measurement report indicates the serving beams and potential active beams per DL Rx beam. In block 612, the UE receives an indication for one or more channel state information (CSI) measurement configurations, wherein the one or more CSI measurement configurations define channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources for a set of configured active beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams and a set of potential interfering beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams. In block 614, the UE transmits one or more CSI reports indicating impact of the set of potential interfering beams.

[0054] As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group), and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware

components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may be implemented in, or functions associated with the circuitry may be implemented by, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, circuitry may include logic, at least partially operable in hardware.

[0055] Embodiments described herein may be implemented into a system using any suitably configured hardware and/or software. FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating,

for one embodiment, example components of a user equipment (UE) or mobile station (MS) device 700. In some embodiments, the UE device 700 may include application circuitry 702, baseband circuitry 704, Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 706, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 708, and one or more antennas 710, coupled together at least as shown in FIG. 7.

[0056] The application circuitry 702 may include one or more application processors. By way of non-limiting example, the application circuitry 702 may include one or more single- core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination of general- purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors,

application processors, etc.). The processor(s) may be operably coupled and/or include memory/storage, and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the mem ory /storage to enable various applications and/or operating systems to run on the system. [0057] By way of non-limiting example, the baseband circuitry 704 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry 704 may include one or more baseband processors and/or control logic. The baseband circuitry 704 may be configured to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 706. The baseband 704 may also be configured to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 706. The baseband processing circuitry 704 may interface with the application circuitry 702 for generation and processing of the baseband signals, and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 706.

[0058] By way of non-limiting example, the baseband circuitry 704 may include at least one of a second generation (2G) baseband processor 704 A, a third generation (3G) baseband processor 704B, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 704C, other baseband processor(s) 704D for other existing generations, and generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., fifth generation (5G), 6G, etc.). The baseband circuitry 704 (e.g., at least one of baseband processors 704A-704D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 706. By way of non-limiting example, the radio control functions may include signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, other functions, and combinations thereof. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 704 may be programmed to perform Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, constellation mapping/demapping functions, other functions, and combinations thereof. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 704 may be programmed to perform convolutions, tail-biting convolutions, turbo, Viterbi, Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functions, other functions, and combinations thereof. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functions are not limited to these examples, and may include other suitable functions.

[0059] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may include elements of a protocol stack. By way of non-limiting example, elements of an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) protocol including, for example, physical (PHY), media access control (MAC), radio link control (RLC), packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), and/or radio resource control (RRC) elements. A central processing unit (CPU) 704E of the baseband circuitry 704 may be programmed to run elements of the protocol stack for signaling of the PHY, MAC, RLC, PDCP and/or RRC layers. In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 704F. The audio DSP(s) 704F may include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation. The audio DSP(s) 704F may also include other suitable processing elements.

[0060] The baseband circuitry 704 may further include memory/storage 704G. The memory/storage 704G may include data and/or instructions for operations performed by the processors of the baseband circuitry 704 stored thereon. In some embodiments, the memory/storage 704G may include any combination of suitable volatile memory and/or nonvolatile memory. The memory/storage 704G may also include any combination of various levels of memory/storage including, but not limited to, read-only memory (ROM) having embedded software instructions (e.g., firmware), random access memory (e.g., dynamic random access memory (DRAM)), cache, buffers, etc. In some embodiments, the memory/storage 704G may be shared among the various processors or dedicated to particular processors.

[0061] Components of the baseband circuitry 704 may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 704 and the application circuitry 702 may be implemented together, such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

[0062] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may provide for

communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) and/or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 704 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0063] The RF circuitry 706 may enable communication with wireless networks

using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. The RF circuitry 706 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 708, and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 704. The RF circuitry 706 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 704, and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 708 for transmission. [0064] In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the RF circuitry 706 may include mixer circuitry 706A, amplifier circuitry 706B, and filter circuitry 706C. The transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 706 may include filter circuitry 706C and mixer circuitry 706A. The RF circuitry 706 may further include synthesizer circuitry 706D configured to synthesize a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 706A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 708 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 706D. The amplifier circuitry 706B may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals.

[0065] The filter circuitry 706C may include a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry 704 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may include zero- frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706A of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0066] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706A of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 706D to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 708. The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 704 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 706C. The filter circuitry 706C may include a low-pass filter (LPF), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers, and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and/or upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706A may be arranged for direct downconversion and/or direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706A of the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyne operation. [0067] In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital baseband signals. In such embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry, and the baseband circuitry 704 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry 706.

[0068] In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0069] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 706D may include one or more of a fractional -N synthesizer and a fractional N/N+l synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 706D may include a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider, other synthesizers and combinations thereof.

[0070] The synthesizer circuitry 706D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 706A of the RF circuitry 706 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 706D may be a fractional N/N+l synthesizer.

[0071] In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 704 or the applications processor 702 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by the applications processor 702.

[0072] The synthesizer circuitry 706D of the RF circuitry 706 may include a divider, a delay- locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may include a dual modulus divider (DMD), and the phase accumulator may include a digital phase accumulator (DP A). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+l (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In such embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL may provide negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[0073] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 706D may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency, etc.) and used in conjunction with a quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include an IQ/polar converter.

[0074] The FEM circuitry 708 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 710, amplify the received signals, and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 706 for further processing. The FEM circuitry 708 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry 706 for transmission by at least one of the one or more antennas 710.

[0075] In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 708 may include a TX/RX switch configured to switch between a transmit mode and a receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry 708 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 708 may include a low-noise amplifier (LNA) to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 706). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 708 may include a power amplifier (PA) configured to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 706), and one or more filters configured to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 710.

[0076] In some embodiments, the MS device 700 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, a display, a camera, one of more sensors, an input/output (I/O) interface, other elements, and combinations thereof.

[0077] In some embodiments, the MS device 700 may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques, and/or methods as described herein, or portions thereof.

[0078] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 8 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 800 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 810, one or more memory/storage devices 820, and one or more communication resources 830, each of which are communicatively coupled via a bus 840.

[0079] The processors 810 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor 812 and a processor 814. The memory/storage devices 820 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof.

[0080] The communication resources 830 may include interconnection and/or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 804 and/or one or more databases 806 via a network 808. For example, the communication resources 830 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low

Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

[0081] Instructions 850 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 810 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 850 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 810 (e.g., within the processor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices 820, or any suitable combination thereof.

Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 850 may be transferred to the hardware resources 800 from any combination of the peripheral devices 804 and/or the databases 806.

Accordingly, the memory of processors 810, the memory/storage devices 820, the peripheral devices 804, and the databases 806 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0082] FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating electronic device circuitry 900 that can be eNB circuitry, UE circuitry, network node circuitry, or some other type of circuitry in accordance with various embodiments. In embodiments, the electronic device circuitry 900 can be, or can be incorporated into or otherwise a part of, an eNB, a UE, a mobile station (MS), a BTS, a network node, or some other type of electronic device. In embodiments, the electronic device circuitry 900 can include radio transmit circuitry 910 and receive circuitry 912 coupled to control circuitry 914 (e.g., baseband processor(s), etc.). In embodiments, the transmit circuitry 910 and/or receive circuitry 912 can be elements or modules of transceiver circuitry, as shown. In some embodiments, some or all of the control circuitry 915 can be in a device separate or external from the transmit circuitry 910 and the receive circuitry 912 (baseband processors shared by multiple antenna devices, as in cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations, for example).

[0083] The electronic device circuitry 910 can be coupled with one or more plurality of antenna elements 916 of one or more antennas. The electronic device circuitry 900 and/or the components of the electronic device circuitry 900 can be configured to perform operations similar to those described elsewhere in this disclosure.

[0084] In embodiments where the electronic device circuitry 900 is or is incorporated into or otherwise part of a UE, the transmit circuitry 910 can transmit or generate beam information and/or data as shown in FIGs. 1-4. The receive circuitry 912 can receive beam information and/or data as shown in FIGs. 1-4.

[0085] In embodiments where the electronic device circuitry 900 is an e B, BTS and/or a network node, or is incorporated into or is otherwise part of an eNB, BTS and/or a network node, the transmit circuitry 910 can transmit or generate beam information and/or data as shown in FIGs. 1-4. The receive circuitry 912 can receive beam information and/or data as shown in FIGs. 1-4.

[0086] In certain embodiments, the electronic device circuitry 900 shown in FIG. 9 is operable to perform one or more methods, such as the methods shown in FIG. 6.

[0087] As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group), and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware

Examples

[0088] The following examples pertain to further embodiments.

[0089] Example 1 is a computer program product. The computer program products consist of a computer-readable storage medium storing program code for causing one or more processors to perform a method. The method includes receiving beam reference signals (BRS) from one or more access points (APs) in a wireless communication network, where each BRS is associated with a downlink (DL) transmit (Tx) beam; identifying a set of DL Tx beams as serving beams based in part on measuring the received BRS and selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which an associated received power is above a first threshold value; identifying a subset of the serving beams as potential active beams based in part on the associated received power being above a second threshold value, where the second threshold value is greater than the first threshold value; grouping the identified serving beams and potential active beams, based on angle of arrival (AoA) estimates or DL receive (Rx) beams for the serving beams and potential active beams; transmitting a radio resource management (RRM) measurement report to one or more APs in the wireless communication network, where the RRM measurement report indicates the serving beams and potential active beams per DL Rx beam; receiving an indication for one or more channel state information (CSI) measurement configurations, where the CSI measurement configurations define channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources for a set of configured active beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams and a set of potential interfering beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams; performing channel measurements for the set of configured active beams and the set of potential interfering beams, and calculating CSI information of the configured active beams with transmission of the potential interfering beams and without transmission of the set of potential interfering beams; and transmitting one or more CSI reports indicating impact of the set of potential interfering beams.

[0090] In Example 2, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which the associated received power is above the first threshold value further includes receiving a network- configured first threshold value.

[0091] In Example 3, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which the associated received power is above the first threshold value further includes using a predefined first threshold value.

[0092] In Example 4, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include the first threshold value as a RSRP measurement threshold.

[0093] In Example 5, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of potential active beams received with a higher power than the set of serving beams. [0094] In Example 6, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of configured active beams and a set of potential interfering beams determined by one or more APs in the wireless communication network, based on the reported set of potential active beams and beam deployment knowledge.

[0095] In Example 7, the subject matter of Example 6 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of configured active beams down-selected from the reported set of potential active beams.

[0096] In Example 8, the subject matter of Example 6 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of configured active beams related to a subset of the reported set of potential active beams which are not the same.

[0097] In Example 9, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a CSI measurement configuration containing orthogonal CSI-RS resources for channel measurements of the set of active beams and the set of potential interfering beams, and for other interference measurements within one symbol, and related one or more UE Rx beams.

[0098] In Example 10, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include calculating channel quality indicator (CQI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and assuming that the obtained CQI are used for transmission of a corresponding potential interfering beam.

[0099] In Example 11, the subject matter of Example 10 or any of the Examples described herein may further include calculating precoding matrix indicator (PMI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and using the obtained CQI and PMI for transmission of the corresponding potential interfering beam.

[0100] In Example 12, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include that CQIs of the set of potential interfering beams for interference emulation are predetermined as a fixed value, or configured along with the CSI measurement configurations.

[0101] In Example 13, the subject matter of Example 1 or any of the Examples described herein may further include one or more CSI reports containing values indicating channel quality indicator (CQI) degradation with potential interfering beam transmission.

[0102] Example 14 is a method for managing interference in a wireless network. The method includes receiving beam reference signals (BRS) from one or more access points (APs) in a wireless communication network, where each BRS is associated with a downlink (DL) transmit (Tx) beam; identifying a set of DL Tx beams as serving beams based in part on measuring the received BRS and selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which an associated received power is above a first threshold value; identifying a subset of the serving beams as potential active beams based in part on the associated received power being above a second threshold value, where the second threshold value is greater than the first threshold value; grouping the identified serving beams and potential active beams, based on angle of arrival (AoA) estimates or DL receive (Rx) beams for the serving beams and potential active beams; transmitting a radio resource management (RRM) measurement report the one or more APs in the wireless communication network, where the RRM measurement report indicates the serving beams and potential active beams per DL Rx beam; receiving an indication for one or more channel state information (CSI) measurement configurations, where the one or more CSI measurement configurations define channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources for a set of configured active beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams and a set of potential interfering beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams; performing channel measurements for the set of configured active beams and the set of potential interfering beams, and calculating CSI information of the set of configured active beams with transmission of the set of potential interfering beams and without transmission of the set of potential interfering beams; and transmitting one or more CSI reports indicating impact of the set of potential interfering beams.

[0103] In Example 15, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which the associated received power is above the first threshold value further includes receiving a network- configured first threshold value.

[0104] In Example 16, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which the associated received power is above the first threshold value further includes using a predefined first threshold value.

[0105] In Example 17, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include the first threshold value as a RSRP measurement threshold.

[0106] In Example 18, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of potential active beams received with a higher power than the set of serving beams.

[0107] In Example 19, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of configured active beams and a set of potential interfering beams determined by one or more APs in the wireless communication network, based on the reported set of potential active beams and beam deployment knowledge.

[0108] In Example 20, the subject matter of Example 19 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of configured active beams down-selected from the reported set of potential active beams.

[0109] In Example 21, the subject matter of Example 19 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of configured active beams related to a subset of the reported set of potential active beams which are not the same.

[0110] In Example 22, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a CSI measurement configuration including orthogonal CSI-RS resources for channel measurements of the set of active beams and the set of potential interfering beams and for other interference measurements within one symbol, and related one or more UE Rx beams.

[0111] In Example 23, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include calculating channel quality indicator (CQI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and assuming that the obtained CQI are used for transmission of a corresponding potential interfering beam.

[0112] In Example 24, the subject matter of Example 23 or any of the Examples described herein may further include calculating precoding matrix indicator (PMI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and using the obtained CQI and PMI for transmission of the corresponding potential interfering beam.

[0113] In Example 25, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a set of potential interfering beams for interference emulation predetermined as a fixed value, or configured along with the CSI measurement

configurations.

[0114] In Example 26, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include one or more CSI reports containing values indicating channel quality indicator (CQI) degradation with potential interfering beam transmission.

[0115] In Example 27, the subject matter of Example 14 or any of the Examples described herein may further include one or more CSI reports with channel quality indicators (CQIs) of the set of potential interfering beams.

[0116] Example 28 is an apparatus containing a procedure to perform a method as indicated in any of Example 14-27. [0117] Example 29 is a machine-readable storage including machine-readable instructions, which, when executed, implement a method or realize an apparatus as identified in any of Example 14-27.

[0118] Example 30 is a machine-readable medium including code, which, when executed, cause a machine to perform the method of any one of Example 14-27.

[0119] Example 31 is an apparatus for an access point (AP) for uplink (UL) to UL

interference handling. The apparatus includes a cellular wireless interface designed for beamforming and communication with a user equipment (UE); a backhaul interface designed for communicating with a second AP; and a processor. The process is designed to identify potential interfering UE beams based in part on reciprocity of downlink (DL) spatial propagation parameters with UL spatial propagation parameters and reception of UL signals; estimate a potential interference level based in part on each UE received signal; and restrict transmissions of the potential interfering UE beams to non-overlapping time-frequency radio resources.

[0120] In Example 32, the subject matter of Example 31 or any of the Examples described herein may further include the access point as an enhanced node B (eNB).

[0121] In Example 33, the subject matter of Example 31 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a centralized scheduler designed to dynamically schedule transmissions of the potential interfering UE beams for the AP and the second AP to non- overlapping time-frequency radio resources.

[0122] In Example 34, the subject matter of Example 31 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a first cooperative scheduler designed to communicate with a second cooperative scheduler of the second AP; and restrict transmissions of the potential interfering UE beams for the AP and the second AP to predetermined or semi-statically configured non-overlapping time-frequency radio resources.

[0123] In Example 35, the subject matter of Example 31 or any of the Examples described herein may further include angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD) in the spatial propagation parameters, and where UL signals include UL sounding reference signal (SRS) and random access preambles.

[0124] In Example 36, the subject matter of Example 31 or any of the Examples described herein may further include requesting the interfering UE to limit transmit power.

[0125] Example 37 is an apparatus of an enhanced Node B (eNB). The apparatus includes one or more processors. The processors are designed to receive the BRS from a second eNB; determine eNB to eNB interference, including strong transmit to receive interference beam pairs; and negotiate restricted time-frequency resources between eNBs to avoid co-scheduling of downlink transmit and uplink receive beams.

[0126] In Example 38, the subject matter of Example 37 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a transceiver designed to communicate with a set of user equipment (UE) and receive the beam reference signal (BRS); and an antenna designed for beamforming and coupled to the transceiver.

[0127] In Example 39, the subject matter of Example 38 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a transceiver designed for half duplex transmission and receipt, and where one or more processors are further designed to reserve resources for sequentially transmitting a local BRS to a neighboring eNB and receiving the BRS from the neighboring eNB.

[0128] In Example 40, the subject matter of Example 38 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a transceiver designed for full duplex transmission of a local BRS to a neighboring eNB and receipt of the BRS from a neighboring eNBs.

[0129] In Example 41, the subject matter of Example 37 or any of the Examples described herein may further include negotiating restricted time-frequency resources to avoid co- scheduling on a same resource or overlapping resources.

[0130] In Example 42, the subject matter of Example 37 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a transceiver designed to transmit a local BRS to a neighboring eNB and receive the local BRS from the neighboring eNB during an off-peak time with respect to wireless network loading.

[0131] Example 43 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE). The apparatus includes a processor designed to determine potential interfering beams; group downlink (DL) transmit (Tx) serving beams according to DL receive (Rx) beams; and report DL Tx serving beams per DL Rx beam in a radio resource control (RRC) message.

[0132] In Example 44, the subject matter of Example 43 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a transceiver designed to communicate with an enhanced Node B (eNB); and an antenna designed for beamforming and coupled to the transceiver.

[0133] In Example 45, the subject matter of Example 43 or any of the Examples described herein may further include, where reporting the DL Tx serving beams, further includes receiving a UE-specific channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or channel state information interference measurement (CSI-IM) configuration dynamically from a network as a downlink control information (DCI) format. [0134] In Example 46, the subject matter of Example 43 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a processor designed to receive network configuration for a set of non-zero-power channel state information reference signal (NZP-CSI-RS) for channel measurement of active beams.

[0135] In Example 47, the subject matter of Example 43 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a processor designed to receive network configuration for a set of non-zero-power channel state information reference signals (NZP-CSI-RS) for channel measurement of potential interfering beams.

[0136] In Example 48, the subject matter of Example 43 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a processor designed to perform channel state information interference measurement (CSI-EVI) that is arranged for measurement of other interferences, when both the active and potential interfering beams are not transmitted.

[0137] In Example 49, the subject matter of Example 43 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a processor designed to use channel state information (CSI) subframes and a CSI region size within a CSI subframe that is designed dynamically, semi- statically via higher-layer signaling, or with a predetermined and a fixed value.

[0138] In Example 50, the subject matter of Example 49 or any of the Examples described herein may further include the CSI region size as a number of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols within the CSI subframe.

[0139] Example 51 is an apparatus for managing interference in a wireless network. The apparatus includes a method for receiving beam reference signals (BRS) from one or more access points (APs) in a wireless communication network, where each BRS is associated with a downlink (DL) transmit (Tx) beam; a method for identifying a set of DL Tx beams as serving beams based in part on measuring the received BRS and selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which an associated received power is above a first threshold value; a method for identifying a subset of the serving beams as potential active beams based in part on the associated received power being above a second threshold value, where the second threshold value is greater than the first threshold value; a method for grouping the identified serving beams and potential active beams, based on angle of arrival (AoA) estimates or DL receive (Rx) beams for the serving beams and potential active beams; a method for transmitting a radio resource management (RRM) measurement report to the one or more APs in the wireless communication network, where the RRM measurement report indicates the serving beams and potential active beams per DL Rx beam; a method for receiving an indication for one or more channel state information (CSI) measurement designs, where one or more CSI measurement designs define channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources for a set of configured active beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams and a set of potential interfering beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams; a method for performing channel measurements for the set of configured active beams and the set of potential interfering beams, and calculating CSI information of the set of configured active beams with transmission of the set of potential interfering beams and without transmission of the set of potential interfering beams; and a method for transmitting one or more CSI reports indicating impact of the set of potential interfering beams.

[0140] In Example 52, the subject matter of Example 51 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a method for selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which the associated received power is above the first threshold value, further including a method for receiving a network-configured first threshold value.

[0141] In Example 53, the subject matter of Example 51 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a method for selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which the associated received power is above the first threshold value, further including a method for using a predefined first threshold value.

[0142] In Example 54, the subject matter of Example 51 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a method for calculating channel quality indicator (CQI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and assuming that the obtained CQI are used for transmission of a corresponding potential interfering beam.

[0143] In Example 55, the subject matter of Example 54 or any of the Examples described herein may further include a method for calculating a precoding matrix indicator (PMI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and using the obtained CQI and PMI for transmission of the corresponding potential interfering beam.

[0144] Embodiments and implementations of the systems and methods described herein may include various operations, which may be embodied in machine-executable instructions to be executed by a computer system. A computer system may include one or more general- purpose or special-purpose computers (or other electronic devices). The computer system may include hardware components that include specific logic for performing the operations or may include a combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware.

[0145] Computer systems and the computers in a computer system may be connected via a network. Suitable networks for configuration and/or use as described herein include one or more local area networks, wide area networks, metropolitan area networks, and/or Internet or IP networks, such as the World Wide Web, a private Internet, a secure Internet, a value-added network, a virtual private network, an extranet, an intranet, or even stand-alone machines which communicate with other machines by physical transport of media. In particular, a suitable network may be formed from parts or entireties of two or more other networks, including networks using disparate hardware and network communication technologies.

[0146] One suitable network includes a server and one or more clients; other suitable networks may contain other combinations of servers, clients, and/or peer-to-peer nodes, and a given computer system may function both as a client and as a server. Each network includes at least two computers or computer systems, such as the server and/or clients. A computer system may include a workstation, laptop computer, disconnectable mobile computer, server, mainframe, cluster, so-called "network computer" or "thin client," tablet, smart phone, personal digital assistant or other hand-held computing device, "smart" consumer electronics device or appliance, medical device, or a combination thereof.

[0147] Suitable networks may include communications or networking software, such as the software available from Novell®, Microsoft®, and other vendors, and may operate using TCP/IP, SPX, IPX, and other protocols over twisted pair, coaxial, or optical fiber cables, telephone lines, radio waves, satellites, microwave relays, modulated AC power lines, physical media transfer, and/or other data transmission "wires" known to those of skill in the art. The network may encompass smaller networks and/or be connectable to other networks through a gateway or similar mechanism.

[0148] Various techniques, or certain aspects or portions thereof, may take the form of program code (i.e., instructions) embodied in tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD- ROMs, hard drives, magnetic or optical cards, solid-state memory devices, a nontransitory computer-readable storage medium, or any other machine-readable storage medium wherein, when the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine, such as a computer, the machine becomes an apparatus for practicing the various techniques. In the case of program code execution on programmable computers, the computing device may include a processor, a storage medium readable by the processor (including volatile and nonvolatile memory and/or storage elements), at least one input device, and at least one output device. The volatile and nonvolatile memory and/or storage elements may be a RAM, an EPROM, a flash drive, an optical drive, a magnetic hard drive, or other medium for storing electronic data. The eNB (or other base station) and UE (or other mobile station) may also include a transceiver component, a counter component, a processing component, and/or a clock component or timer component. One or more programs that may implement or utilize the various techniques described herein may use an application programming interface (API), reusable controls, and the like. Such programs may be implemented in a high-level procedural or an object-oriented programming language to communicate with a computer system. However, the program(s) may be implemented in assembly or machine language, if desired. In any case, the language may be a compiled or interpreted language, and combined with hardware implementations.

[0149] Each computer system includes one or more processors and/or memory; computer systems may also include various input devices and/or output devices. The processor may include a general purpose device, such as an Intel®, AMD®, or other "off-the-shelf microprocessor. The processor may include a special purpose processing device, such as ASIC, SoC, SiP, FPGA, PAL, PLA, FPLA, PLD, or other customized or programmable device. The memory may include static RAM, dynamic RAM, flash memory, one or more flip-flops, ROM, CD-ROM, DVD, disk, tape, or magnetic, optical, or other computer storage medium. The input device(s) may include a keyboard, mouse, touch screen, light pen, tablet, microphone, sensor, or other hardware with accompanying firmware and/or software. The output device(s) may include a monitor or other display, printer, speech or text synthesizer, switch, signal line, or other hardware with accompanying firmware and/or software.

[0150] It should be understood that many of the functional units described in this

specification may be implemented as one or more components, which is a term used to more particularly emphasize their implementation independence. For example, a component may be implemented as a hardware circuit comprising custom very large scale integration (VLSI) circuits or gate arrays, or off-the-shelf semiconductors such as logic chips, transistors, or other discrete components. A component may also be implemented in programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays, programmable array logic, programmable logic devices, or the like.

[0151] Components may also be implemented in software for execution by various types of processors. An identified component of executable code may, for instance, comprise one or more physical or logical blocks of computer instructions, which may, for instance, be organized as an object, a procedure, or a function. Nevertheless, the executables of an identified component need not be physically located together, but may comprise disparate instructions stored in different locations that, when joined logically together, comprise the component and achieve the stated purpose for the component.

[0152] Indeed, a component of executable code may be a single instruction, or many instructions, and may even be distributed over several different code segments, among different programs, and across several memory devices. Similarly, operational data may be identified and illustrated herein within components, and may be embodied in any suitable form and organized within any suitable type of data structure. The operational data may be collected as a single data set, or may be distributed over different locations including over different storage devices, and may exist, at least partially, merely as electronic signals on a system or network. The components may be passive or active, including agents operable to perform desired functions.

[0153] Several aspects of the embodiments described will be illustrated as software modules or components. As used herein, a software module or component may include any type of computer instruction or computer-executable code located within a memory device. A software module may, for instance, include one or more physical or logical blocks of computer instructions, which may be organized as a routine, program, object, component, data structure, etc., that perform one or more tasks or implement particular data types. It is appreciated that a software module may be implemented in hardware and/or firmware instead of or in addition to software. One or more of the functional modules described herein may be separated into sub-modules and/or combined into a single or smaller number of modules.

[0154] In certain embodiments, a particular software module may include disparate instructions stored in different locations of a memory device, different memory devices, or different computers, which together implement the described functionality of the module. Indeed, a module may include a single instruction or many instructions, and may be distributed over several different code segments, among different programs, and across several memory devices. Some embodiments may be practiced in a distributed computing environment where tasks are performed by a remote processing device linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, software modules may be located in local and/or remote memory storage devices. In addition, data being tied or rendered together in a database record may be resident in the same memory device, or across several memory devices, and may be linked together in fields of a record in a database across a network.

[0155] Reference throughout this specification to "an example" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the example is included in at least one embodiment. Thus, appearances of the phrase "in an example" in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

[0156] As used herein, a plurality of items, structural elements, compositional elements, and/or materials may be presented in a common list for convenience. However, these lists should be construed as though each member of the list is individually identified as a separate and unique member. Thus, no individual member of such list should be construed as a de facto equivalent of any other member of the same list solely based on its presentation in a common group without indications to the contrary. In addition, various embodiments and examples may be referred to herein along with alternatives for the various components thereof. It is understood that such embodiments, examples, and alternatives are not to be construed as a de facto equivalents of one another, but are to be considered as separate and autonomous representations.

[0157] Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the following description, numerous specific details are provided, such as examples of materials, frequencies, sizes, lengths, widths, shapes, etc., to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the embodiments may be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, etc. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the embodiments.

[0158] It should be recognized that the systems described herein include descriptions of specific embodiments. These embodiments can be combined into single systems, partially combined into other systems, split into multiple systems or divided or combined in other ways. In addition, it is contemplated that parameters/attributes/aspects/etc. of one

embodiment can be used in another embodiment. The parameters/attributes/aspects/etc. are merely described in one or more embodiments for clarity, and it is recognized that the parameters/attributes/aspects/etc. can be combined with or substituted for

parameters/attributes/aspects/etc. of another embodiment unless specifically disclaimed herein.

[0159] Although the foregoing has been described in some detail for purposes of clarity, it will be apparent that certain changes and modifications may be made without departing from the principles thereof. It should be noted that there are many alternative ways of

implementing both the processes and apparatuses described herein. Accordingly, the present embodiments are to be considered illustrative and not restrictive, and the embodiments are not to be limited to the details given herein, but may be modified within the scope and equivalents of the appended claims.

[0160] Those having skill in the art will appreciate that many changes may be made to the details of the above-described embodiments without departing from the underlying principles. The scope of the present embodiments should, therefore, be determined only by the following claims.

Claims

Claims:

1. A method for managing interference in a wireless network, the method

comprising:

receiving beam reference signals (BRS) from one or more access points (APs) in a wireless communication network, wherein each BRS is associated with a downlink (DL) transmit (Tx) beam;

identifying a set of DL Tx beams as serving beams based at least in part on measuring the received BRS and selecting one or more DL Tx beams in which an associated received power is above a first threshold value;

identifying a subset of the serving beams as potential active beams based at least in part on the associated received power being above a second threshold value, wherein the second threshold value is greater than the first threshold value;

grouping the identified serving beams and potential active beams, based on angle of arrival (AoA) estimates or DL receive (Rx) beams for the serving beams and potential active beams;

transmitting a radio resource management (RRM) measurement report to the one or more APs in the wireless communication network, wherein the RRM measurement report indicates the serving beams and potential active beams per DL Rx beam;

receiving an indication for one or more channel state information (CSI) measurement configurations, wherein the one or more CSI measurement configurations define channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources for a set of configured active beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams and a set of potential interfering beams selected from the set of DL Tx beams;

performing channel measurements for the set of configured active beams and the set of potential interfering beams, and calculating CSI information of the set of configured active beams with transmission of the set of potential interfering beams and without transmission of the set of potential interfering beams; and

transmitting one or more CSI reports indicating impact of the set of potential interfering beams.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the one or more DL Tx beams in which the associated received power is above the first threshold value further comprises receiving a network-configured first threshold value.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first threshold value is a RSRP measurement threshold.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of configured active beams and the set of potential interfering beams are determined by the one or more APs in the wireless communication network, based on the reported set of potential active beams and beam deployment knowledge.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the set of configured active beams are down- selected from the reported set of potential active beams.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the set of configured active beams are related to a subset of the reported set of potential active beams and are not the same.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the CSI measurement configuration further comprises orthogonal CSI-RS resources for channel measurements of the set of active beams and the set of potential interfering beams and for other interference measurements within one symbol, and related one or more UE Rx beams.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising calculating channel quality indicator (CQI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and assuming that the obtained CQI are used for transmission of a corresponding potential interfering beam.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising calculating precoding matrix indicator (PMI) of each potential interfering beam based on interfering beam channel measurements, and using the obtained CQI and PMI for transmission of the corresponding potential interfering beam.

10. An apparatus comprising means to perform a method as claimed in any of claims

1-9.

11. Machine-readable storage including machine-readable instructions, when executed, to implement a method or realize an apparatus as claimed in any of claims 1-9.

12. A machine readable medium including code, when executed, to cause a machine to perform the method of any one of claims 1-9.

13. An apparatus for an access point (AP) for uplink (UL) to UL interference handling, comprising:

a cellular wireless interface configured for beamforming and communication with a user equipment (UE);

a backhaul interface configured for communicating with a second AP; and a processor configured to: identify potential interfering UE beams based at least in part on reciprocity of downlink (DL) spatial propagation parameters with UL spatial propagation parameters and reception of UL signals;

estimate a potential interference level based at least in part on each UE received signal; and

restrict transmissions of the potential interfering UE beams to non-overlapping time-frequency radio resources.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the access point is an enhanced node B

(eNB).

15. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising a centralized scheduler configured to dynamically schedule transmissions of the potential interfering UE beams for the AP and the second AP to non-overlapping time-frequency radio resources.

16. The apparatus of any of claims 13-15, further comprising a first cooperative scheduler configured to:

communicate with a second cooperative scheduler of the second AP; and

restrict transmissions of the potential interfering UE beams for the AP and the second

AP to predetermined or semi-statically configured non-overlapping time-frequency radio resources.

17. The apparatus of any of claims 13-15, wherein the spatial propagation parameters are angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD), and

wherein UL signals include UL sounding reference signal (SRS) and random access preambles.

18. An apparatus of an enhanced Node B (eNB), comprising:

one or more processors configured to:

receive a beam reference signal (BRS) from a second eNB;

determine eNB to eNB interference, including strong transmit to receive interference beam pairs; and

negotiate restricted time-frequency resources between the eNB and the second eNB to avoid co-scheduling of downlink transmit and uplink receive beams.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising:

a transceiver configured to communicate with a set of user equipment (UE) and receive the beam reference signal (BRS); and

an antenna configured for beamforming and coupled to the transceiver.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the transceiver is configured for half duplex transmission and receipt, and

wherein the one or more processors are further configured to reserve resources for sequentially transmitting a local BRS to a neighboring eNB and receiving the BRS from the neighboring eNB.

21. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the transceiver is configured for full duplex transmission of a local BRS to a neighboring eNB and receipt of the BRS from a neighboring eNBs.

22. The apparatus of any of claims 19-21, wherein the transceiver is configured to transmit a local BRS to a neighboring eNB and receive the local BRS from the neighboring eNB during an off-peak time with respect to wireless network loading.

23. An apparatus for a user equipment (UE), comprising:

a processor configured to:

determine potential interfering beams;

group downlink (DL) transmit (Tx) serving beams according to DL receive (Rx) beams; and

report DL Tx serving beams per DL Rx beam in a radio resource control (RRC) message.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising:

a transceiver configured to communicate with an enhanced Node B (eNB); and an antenna configured for beamforming and coupled to the transceiver.

25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein to report the DL Tx serving beams further comprises to receive a UE-specific channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or channel state information interference measurement (CSI-IM) configuration dynamically from a network as a downlink control information (DCI) format.

26. The apparatus of any of claims 23-25, wherein the processor is further configured to receive network configuration for a set of non-zero-power channel state information reference signal (NZP-CSI-RS) for channel measurement of active beams.

27. The apparatus of any of claims 23-25, wherein the processor is further configured to use channel state information (CSI) subframes and a CSI region size within a CSI subframe that is configured dynamically, semi-statically via higher-layer signaling, or with a predetermined and a fixed value.