WO2021237494A1

WO2021237494A1 - Apparatus and techniques for beam switching

Info

Publication number: WO2021237494A1
Application number: PCT/CN2020/092508
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yuankun ZHU; Zhuoqi XU; Pan JIANG
Original assignee: Qualcomm Inc
Current assignee: Qualcomm Inc
Priority date: 2020-05-27
Filing date: 2020-05-27
Publication date: 2021-12-02
Anticipated expiration: 2022-11-27

Abstract

Certain aspects of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a method for wireless communication by a user equipment (UE). The method generally includes receiving signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching, performing a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam, calculating a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam, and deciding whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.

Description

APPARATUS AND TECHNIQUES FOR BEAM SWITCHING

BACKGROUND

Field of the Disclosure

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to wireless communications, and more particularly, to techniques for beam switching.

Description of Related Art

Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, etc. These wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, etc. ) . Examples of such multiple-access systems include 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, LTE Advanced (LTE-A) systems, code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems, to name a few.

These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. New radio (e.g., 5G NR) is an example of an emerging telecommunication standard. NR is a set of enhancements to the LTE mobile standard promulgated by 3GPP. NR is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access by improving spectral efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum, and better integrating with other open standards using OFDMA with a cyclic prefix (CP) on the downlink (DL) and on the uplink (UL) . To these ends, NR supports beamforming, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology, and carrier aggregation.

However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there exists a need for further improvements in NR and LTE technology. Preferably, these improvements should be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.

SUMMARY

The systems, methods, and devices of the disclosure each have several aspects, no single one of which is solely responsible for its desirable attributes. Without limiting the scope of this disclosure as expressed by the claims which follow, some features will now be discussed briefly. After considering this discussion, and particularly after reading the section entitled “Detailed Description” one will understand how the features of this disclosure provide advantages that include improved beam switching.

Certain aspects of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a method for wireless communication by a user equipment (UE) . The method generally includes receiving signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching, performing a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam, calculating a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam, and deciding whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.

Certain aspects of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in an apparatus for wireless communication by a user-equipment (UE) . The apparatus generally includes a memory, and one or more processors, the memory and the one or more processors being configured to receive signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching, perform a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam, calculate a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam, and decide whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.

Certain aspects of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in an apparatus for wireless communication by a user-equipment (UE) . The apparatus generally includes means for receiving signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching, means for performing a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam, means for calculating a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam, and means for deciding whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.

Certain aspects of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon to cause a user-equipment (UE) to receive signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching, perform a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam, calculate a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam, and decide whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.

Aspects of the present disclosure provide means for, apparatus, processors, and computer-readable mediums for performing the methods described herein.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, the one or more aspects comprise the features hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims. The following description and the appended drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative features of the one or more aspects. These features are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of various aspects may be employed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that the manner in which the above-recited features of the present disclosure can be understood in detail, a more particular description, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference to aspects, some of which are illustrated in the drawings. It is to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate only certain typical aspects of this disclosure and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the description may admit to other equally effective aspects.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram conceptually illustrating an example telecommunications system, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram conceptually illustrating a design of an example a base station (BS) and user equipment (UE) , in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is an example frame format for new radio (NR) , in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating example operations for wireless communication by a UE, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating example operations for reference signal (RS) measurement reporting, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 illustrates a communications device that may include various components configured to perform operations for the techniques disclosed herein in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure.

To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures. It is contemplated that elements disclosed in one aspect may be beneficially utilized on other aspects without specific recitation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Aspects of the present disclosure provide apparatus, methods, processing systems, and computer readable mediums for beam switching. For example, the UE may receive synchronization signal blocks (SSBs) , each associated with a candidate beam for beam switching. The UE performs reference signal (RS) measurement (e.g., RS receive power (RSRP) measurement) on each of the SSBs, and report the results to a base station (BS) , to be used for selecting of a beam to be used for communication. However, the beam having the highest RSRP may not always be the best beam for communication. In certain aspects, the UE may also measure a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for each of the candidate beams, and modify the reporting of RSRP in an attempt to increase the likelihood that the BS selects the best beam for communication.

The following description provides examples of beam switching in communication systems, and is not limiting of the scope, applicability, or examples set forth in the claims. Changes may be made in the function and arrangement of elements discussed without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Various examples may omit, substitute, or add various procedures or components as appropriate. For instance, the methods described may be performed in an order different from that described, and various steps may be added, omitted, or combined. Also, features described with respect to some examples may be combined in some other examples. For example, an apparatus may be implemented or a method may be practiced using any number of the aspects set forth herein. In addition, the scope of the disclosure is intended to cover such an apparatus or method which is practiced using other structure, functionality, or structure and functionality in addition to, or other than, the various aspects of the disclosure set forth herein. It should be understood that any aspect of the disclosure disclosed herein may be embodied by one or more elements of a claim. The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration. ” Any aspect described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects.

In general, any number of wireless networks may be deployed in a given geographic area. Each wireless network may support a particular radio access technology (RAT) and may operate on one or more frequencies. A RAT may also be referred to as a radio technology, an air interface, etc. A frequency may also be referred to as a carrier, a subcarrier, a frequency channel, a tone, a subband, etc. Each frequency may support a single RAT in a given geographic area in order to avoid interference between wireless networks of different RATs.

The techniques described herein may be used for various wireless networks and radio technologies. While aspects may be described herein using terminology commonly associated with 3G, 4G, and/or new radio (e.g., 5G NR) wireless technologies, aspects of the present disclosure can be applied in other generation-based communication systems.

NR access may support various wireless communication services, such as enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) targeting wide bandwidth (e.g., 80 MHz or beyond) , millimeter wave (mmW) targeting high carrier frequency (e.g., 25 GHz or beyond) , massive machine type communications MTC (mMTC) targeting non-backward compatible MTC techniques, and/or mission critical targeting ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) . These services may include latency and reliability requirements. These services may also have different transmission time intervals (TTI) to meet respective quality of service (QoS) requirements. In addition, these services may co-exist in the same subframe. NR supports beamforming and beam direction may be dynamically configured. MIMO transmissions with precoding may also be supported. MIMO configurations in the DL may support up to 8 transmit antennas with multi-layer DL transmissions up to 8 streams and up to 2 streams per UE. Multi-layer transmissions with up to 2 streams per UE may be supported. Aggregation of multiple cells may be supported with up to 8 serving cells.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example wireless communication network 100 in which aspects of the present disclosure may be performed. For example, the wireless communication network 100 may be an NR system (e.g., a 5G NR network) . As shown in FIG. 1, the wireless communication network 100 may be in communication with a core network 132. The core network 132 may in communication with one or more base station (BSs) 110 and/or user equipment (UE) 120 in the wireless communication network 100 via one or more interfaces.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, the wireless communication network 100 may include a number of BSs 110a-z (each also individually referred to herein as BS 110 or collectively as BSs 110) and other network entities. A BS 110 may provide communication coverage for a particular geographic area, sometimes referred to as a “cell” , which may be stationary or may move according to the location of a mobile BS 110. In some examples, the BSs 110 may be interconnected to one another and/or to one or more other BSs or network nodes (not shown) in wireless communication network 100 through various types of backhaul interfaces (e.g., a direct physical connection, a wireless connection, a virtual network, or the like) using any suitable transport network. In the example shown in FIG. 1, the

BSs

110a, 110b and 110c may be macro BSs for the

macro cells

102a, 102b and 102c, respectively. The BS 110x may be a pico BS for a pico cell 102x. The BSs 110y and 110z may be femto BSs for the

femto cells

102y and 102z, respectively. A BS may support one or multiple cells. A network controller 130 may couple to a set of BSs 110 and provide coordination and control for these BSs 110 (e.g., via a backhaul) .

The BSs 110 communicate with UEs 120a-y (each also individually referred to herein as UE 120 or collectively as UEs 120) in the wireless communication network 100. The UEs 120 (e.g., 120x, 120y, etc. ) may be dispersed throughout the wireless communication network 100, and each UE 120 may be stationary or mobile. Wireless communication network 100 may also include relay stations (e.g., relay station 110r) , also referred to as relays or the like, that receive a transmission of data and/or other information from an upstream station (e.g., a BS 110a or a UE 120r) and sends a transmission of the data and/or other information to a downstream station (e.g., a UE 120 or a BS 110) , or that relays transmissions between UEs 120, to facilitate communication between devices.

According to certain aspects, the BSs 110 and UEs 120 may be configured for beam switching. As shown in FIG. 1, the UE 120a includes a beam manager 112. The beam manager 112 may be configured to receive signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching, perform a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam, calculate a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam, and decide whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 illustrates example components of BS 110a and UE 120a (e.g., in the wireless communication network 100 of FIG. 1) , which may be used to implement aspects of the present disclosure.

At the BS 110a, a transmit processor 220 may receive data from a data source 212 and control information from a controller/processor 240. The control information may be for the physical broadcast channel (PBCH) , physical control format indicator channel (PCFICH) , physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel (PHICH) , physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) , group common PDCCH (GC PDCCH) , etc. The data may be for the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) , etc. A medium access control (MAC) -control element (MAC-CE) is a MAC layer communication structure that may be used for control command exchange between wireless nodes. The MAC-CE may be carried in a shared channel such as a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) , a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) , or a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) .

The processor 220 may process (e.g., encode and symbol map) the data and control information to obtain data symbols and control symbols, respectively. The transmit processor 220 may also generate reference symbols, such as for the primary synchronization signal (PSS) , secondary synchronization signal (SSS) , and channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) . A transmit (TX) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) processor 230 may perform spatial processing (e.g., precoding) on the data symbols, the control symbols, and/or the reference symbols, if applicable, and may provide output symbol streams to the modulators (MODs) 232a-232t. Each modulator 232 may process a respective output symbol stream (e.g., for OFDM, etc. ) to obtain an output sample stream. Each modulator may further process (e.g., convert to analog, amplify, filter, and upconvert) the output sample stream to obtain a downlink signal. Downlink signals from modulators 232a-232t may be transmitted via the antennas 234a-234t, respectively.

At the UE 120a, the antennas 252a-252r may receive the downlink signals from the BS 110a and may provide received signals to the demodulators (DEMODs) in transceivers 254a-254r, respectively. Each demodulator 254 may condition (e.g., filter, amplify, downconvert, and digitize) a respective received signal to obtain input samples. Each demodulator may further process the input samples (e.g., for OFDM, etc. ) to obtain received symbols. A MIMO detector 256 may obtain received symbols from all the demodulators 254a-254r, perform MIMO detection on the received symbols if applicable, and provide detected symbols. A receive processor 258 may process (e.g., demodulate, deinterleave, and decode) the detected symbols, provide decoded data for the UE 120a to a data sink 260, and provide decoded control information to a controller/processor 280.

On the uplink, at UE 120a, a transmit processor 264 may receive and process data (e.g., for the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) ) from a data source 262 and control information (e.g., for the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) from the controller/processor 280. The transmit processor 264 may also generate reference symbols for a reference signal (e.g., for the sounding reference signal (SRS) ) . The symbols from the transmit processor 264 may be precoded by a TX MIMO processor 266 if applicable, further processed by the modulators in transceivers 254a-254r (e.g., for SC-FDM, etc. ) , and transmitted to the BS 110a. At the BS 110a, the uplink signals from the UE 120a may be received by the antennas 234, processed by the modulators 232, detected by a MIMO detector 236 if applicable, and further processed by a receive processor 238 to obtain decoded data and control information sent by the UE 120a. The receive processor 238 may provide the decoded data to a data sink 239 and the decoded control information to the controller/processor 240.

The

memories

242 and 282 may store data and program codes for BS 110a and UE 120a, respectively. A scheduler 244 may schedule UEs for data transmission on the downlink and/or uplink.

Antennas 252,

processors

266, 258, 264, and/or controller/processor 280 of the UE 120a and/or antennas 234,

processors

220, 230, 238, and/or controller/processor 240 of the BS 110a may be used to perform the various techniques and methods described herein. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the controller/processor 280 of the UE 120a has the beam manager 122, according to aspects described herein. Although shown at the controller/processor, other components of the UE 120a and BS 110a may be used to perform the operations described herein.

NR may utilize orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with a cyclic prefix (CP) on the uplink and downlink. NR may support half-duplex operation using time division duplexing (TDD) . OFDM and single-carrier frequency division multiplexing (SC-FDM) partition the system bandwidth into multiple orthogonal subcarriers, which are also commonly referred to as tones, bins, etc. Each subcarrier may be modulated with data. Modulation symbols may be sent in the frequency domain with OFDM and in the time domain with SC-FDM. The spacing between adjacent subcarriers may be fixed, and the total number of subcarriers may be dependent on the system bandwidth. The minimum resource allocation, called a resource block (RB) , may be 12 consecutive subcarriers. The system bandwidth may also be partitioned into subbands. For example, a subband may cover multiple RBs. NR may support a base subcarrier spacing (SCS) of 15 KHz and other SCS may be defined with respect to the base SCS (e.g., 30 kHz, 60 kHz, 120 kHz, 240 kHz, etc. ) .

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a frame format 300 for NR. The transmission timeline for each of the downlink and uplink may be partitioned into units of radio frames. Each radio frame may have a predetermined duration (e.g., 10 ms) and may be partitioned into 10 subframes, each of 1 ms, with indices of 0 through 9. Each subframe may include a variable number of slots (e.g., 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, …slots) depending on the SCS. Each slot may include a variable number of symbol periods (e.g., 7 or 14 symbols) depending on the SCS. The symbol periods in each slot may be assigned indices. A mini-slot, which may be referred to as a sub-slot structure, refers to a transmit time interval having a duration less than a slot (e.g., 2, 3, or 4 symbols) . Each symbol in a slot may indicate a link direction (e.g., DL, UL, or flexible) for data transmission and the link direction for each subframe may be dynamically switched. The link directions may be based on the slot format. Each slot may include DL/UL data as well as DL/UL control information.

EXAMPLE APPARATUS AND TECHNIQUES FOR BEAM SWITCHING

A UE operating in a fifth-generation (5G) radio resource control (RRC) connected (RRC_CONNECTED) state may be operating using multiple beams by transferring from one beam to another beam to well adapt to changing radio conditions. This process may be referred to as a beam switching. Beam switching is controlled by the network based, at least in part, on reference signal (RS) receive power (RSRP) of candidate beams or synchronization signal blocks (SSB) as reported by the UE. However, the selection of a beam by the network to be used by the UE may not always be accurate. For example, due to complicated radio environment and interference, the beam having the strongest RSRP as reported to the network by the UE may not be the best beam. Thus, the network may configure the UE to use one of candidate beams that may results in decreased throughput, resulting in user dissatisfaction.

In other words, in certain implementations, the UE may only provide an SSB RSRP report to facilitate beam switching. Thus, the network may be unaware of the measured signal-t-noise ratio (SNR) of the reported beams. However, the UE may be able to measure the SNR of candidate beams. Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for RS measurement (e.g., RSRP) reporting for candidate beams by taking into account the SNR of the beams.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating example operations 400 for wireless communication, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure. The operations 400 may be performed, for example, by UE (e.g., such as a UE 120a in the wireless communication network 100) . The operations 400 may be complimentary operations by the UE to the operations 400 performed by the BS.

Operations 400 may be implemented as software components that are executed and run on one or more processors (e.g., controller/processor 280 of FIG. 2) . Further, the transmission and reception of signals by the UE in operations 400 may be enabled, for example, by one or more antennas (e.g., antennas 252 of FIG. 2) . In certain aspects, the transmission and/or reception of signals by the UE may be implemented via a bus interface of one or more processors (e.g., controller/processor 280) obtaining and/or outputting signals.

The operations 400 may begin, at block 405, with the UE receiving signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching. At block 410, the UE may perform a RS measurement for the candidate beam, and at block 415, calculate a delta SNR parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam (e.g., a current beam configured for communication at the UE) and a SNR of the candidate beam. At block 420, the UE may decide whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter. For example, deciding whether to report the results of the RS measurement may include determining to apply an adjustment parameter to results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter to calculate an RS measurement parameter to be reported for the candidate beam, as described in more detail herein. In this case, the UE may transmit an indication of the RS measurement parameter. In some aspects, deciding whether to report the results of the RS measurement may include comparing the delta SNR parameter to one or more thresholds, where applying the adjustment parameter to the results of the RS measurement is based on the comparison, as described in more detail herein.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating example operations 500 for RS measurement (e.g., RSRP measurement) reporting, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure. The UE may be in 5G RRC_CONNECTED state. At block 502, the UE may perform measurement of SSBs for beam switching. For example, the UE may perform RSRP and SNR measurements on various SSBs associated with candidate beams. At block 504, the UE may determine whether an SNR of a candidate beam (C_SNR) is greater than or equal to an SNR of a current serving beam (S_SNR) of the UE. If so, at block 506, the UE may determine to report the RSRP of the candidate beam without any adjustments to the RSRP. For example, at block 508, channel state feedback (CSF) SSB reporting may occur, accordingly.

At block 510, the UE may determine a delta SNR parameter representing a difference between the S_SNR and the C_SNR (e.g., S_SNR –C_SNR) , and compare the delta SNR parameter to a threshold. For example, if the delta SNR parameter is less than or equal to 3dB, the UE may apply, at block 512, a first adjustment to the measured RSRP (M_RSRP) to determine an RSRP to be reported (R_RSRP) . For instance, R_RSRP may be equal to M_RSRP –3db. The UE may then report the R_RSRP at block 508, accordingly.

At block 514, the UE may determine whether the delta SNR parameter is greater than the first threshold (e.g., 3dB) , but less than a second threshold (e.g., 6dB) . If so, the UE may apply, at block 516, a second adjustment to the measured RSRP (M_RSRP) to determine an RSRP to be reported (R_RSRP) . For example, R_RSRP may be equal to M_RSRP –6db.

At block 518, the UE may determine whether the delta SNR parameter is greater than the second threshold (e.g., 6dB) . If so, the UE may determine, at block 520, to forgo reporting the RSRP for the candidate beam.

While the operation 500 have been described using two thresholds (e.g., 3dB and 6dB) to facilitate understanding, any number of thresholds may be used. For example, UE may only compare the delta SNR to a single threshold, and determine whether to adjust or forgo reporting of the RSRP accordingly. As another example, the UE may compare the delta SNR to more than two thresholds, and apply a different adjustment to the M_RSRP for each threshold. Moreover, while the operations 500 describe techniques for reporting an RSRP for a single candidate beam to facilitate understanding, the aspects described herein may be applied for any number of candidate beams. For example, a UE may receive multiple SSBs, each associated with a different candidate beam. The UE may perform the operations 500 for each of the candidate beams and report the R_RSRPs accordingly.

FIG. 6 illustrates a communications device 600 that may include various components (e.g., corresponding to means-plus-function components) configured to perform operations for the techniques disclosed herein, such as the operations illustrated in FIG. 4. The communications device 600 includes a processing system 602 coupled to a transceiver 608 (e.g., a transmitter and/or a receiver) . The transceiver 608 is configured to transmit and receive signals for the communications device 600 via an antenna 610, such as the various signals as described herein. The processing system 602 may be configured to perform processing functions for the communications device 600, including processing signals received and/or to be transmitted by the communications device 600.

The processing system 602 includes a processor 604 coupled to a computer-readable medium/memory 612 via a bus 606. In certain aspects, the computer-readable medium/memory 612 is configured to store instructions (e.g., computer-executable code) that when executed by the processor 604, cause the processor 604 to perform the operations illustrated in FIG. 4, or other operations for performing the various techniques discussed herein for beam switching. In certain aspects, computer-readable medium/memory 612 stores code 614 for receiving/transmitting; code 616 for measurement (e.g., RS measurement) or calculating (e.g., calculating SNR) ; code 618 for deciding or comparing; and code 620 for applying an adjustment parameter. In certain aspects, the processor 604 has circuitry configured to implement the code stored in the computer-readable medium/memory 612. The processor 604 includes circuitry 622 for receiving/transmitting; circuitry 624 for measurement (e.g., RS measurement) or calculating (e.g., calculating SNR) ; circuitry 626 for deciding or comparing; and circuitry 628 for applying an adjustment parameter.

The techniques described herein may be used for various wireless communication technologies, such as NR (e.g., 5G NR) , 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) , LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) , code division multiple access (CDMA) , time division multiple access (TDMA) , frequency division multiple access (FDMA) , orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) , single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) , time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) , and other networks. The terms “network” and “system” are often used interchangeably. A CDMA network may implement a radio technology such as Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) , cdma2000, etc. UTRA includes Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) and other variants of CDMA. cdma2000 covers IS-2000, IS-95 and IS-856 standards. A TDMA network may implement a radio technology such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) . An OFDMA network may implement a radio technology such as NR (e.g. 5G RA) , Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA) , Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) , IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) , IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) , IEEE 802.20, Flash-OFDMA, etc. UTRA and E-UTRA are part of Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) . LTE and LTE-Aare releases of UMTS that use E-UTRA. UTRA, E-UTRA, UMTS, LTE, LTE-A and GSM are described in documents from an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP) . cdma2000 and UMB are described in documents from an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project 2” (3GPP2) . NR is an emerging wireless communications technology under development.

In 3GPP, the term “cell” can refer to a coverage area of a Node B (NB) and/or a NB subsystem serving this coverage area, depending on the context in which the term is used. In NR systems, the term “cell” and BS, next generation NodeB (gNB or gNodeB) , access point (AP) , distributed unit (DU) , carrier, or transmission reception point (TRP) may be used interchangeably. A BS may provide communication coverage for a macro cell, a pico cell, a femto cell, and/or other types of cells. A macro cell may cover a relatively large geographic area (e.g., several kilometers in radius) and may allow unrestricted access by UEs with service subscription. A pico cell may cover a relatively small geographic area and may allow unrestricted access by UEs with service subscription. A femto cell may cover a relatively small geographic area (e.g., a home) and may allow restricted access by UEs having an association with the femto cell (e.g., UEs in a Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) , UEs for users in the home, etc. ) . A BS for a macro cell may be referred to as a macro BS. A BS for a pico cell may be referred to as a pico BS. A BS for a femto cell may be referred to as a femto BS or a home BS.

A UE may also be referred to as a mobile station, a terminal, an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a station, a Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) , a cellular phone, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , a wireless modem, a wireless communication device, a handheld device, a laptop computer, a cordless phone, a wireless local loop (WLL) station, a tablet computer, a camera, a gaming device, a netbook, a smartbook, an ultrabook, an appliance, a medical device or medical equipment, a biometric sensor/device, a wearable device such as a smart watch, smart clothing, smart glasses, a smart wrist band, smart jewelry (e.g., a smart ring, a smart bracelet, etc. ) , an entertainment device (e.g., a music device, a video device, a satellite radio, etc. ) , a vehicular component or sensor, a smart meter/sensor, industrial manufacturing equipment, a global positioning system device, or any other suitable device that is configured to communicate via a wireless or wired medium. Some UEs may be considered machine-type communication (MTC) devices or evolved MTC (eMTC) devices. MTC and eMTC UEs include, for example, robots, drones, remote devices, sensors, meters, monitors, location tags, etc., that may communicate with a BS, another device (e.g., remote device) , or some other entity. A wireless node may provide, for example, connectivity for or to a network (e.g., a wide area network such as Internet or a cellular network) via a wired or wireless communication link. Some UEs may be considered Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, which may be narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) devices.

In some examples, access to the air interface may be scheduled. A scheduling entity (e.g., a BS) allocates resources for communication among some or all devices and equipment within its service area or cell. The scheduling entity may be responsible for scheduling, assigning, reconfiguring, and releasing resources for one or more subordinate entities. That is, for scheduled communication, subordinate entities utilize resources allocated by the scheduling entity. Base stations are not the only entities that may function as a scheduling entity. In some examples, a UE may function as a scheduling entity and may schedule resources for one or more subordinate entities (e.g., one or more other UEs) , and the other UEs may utilize the resources scheduled by the UE for wireless communication. In some examples, a UE may function as a scheduling entity in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, and/or in a mesh network. In a mesh network example, UEs may communicate directly with one another in addition to communicating with a scheduling entity.

The methods disclosed herein comprise one or more steps or actions for achieving the methods. The method steps and/or actions may be interchanged with one another without departing from the scope of the claims. In other words, unless a specific order of steps or actions is specified, the order and/or use of specific steps and/or actions may be modified without departing from the scope of the claims.

As used herein, a phrase referring to “at least one of” a list of items refers to any combination of those items, including single members. As an example, “at least one of:a, b, or c” is intended to cover a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, and a-b-c, as well as any combination with multiples of the same element (e.g., a-a, a-a-a, a-a-b, a-a-c, a-b-b, a-c-c, b-b, b-b-b, b-b-c, c-c, and c-c-c or any other ordering of a, b, and c) .

As used herein, the term “determining” encompasses a wide variety of actions. For example, “determining” may include calculating, computing, processing, deriving, investigating, looking up (e.g., looking up in a table, a database or another data structure) , ascertaining and the like. Also, “determining” may include receiving (e.g., receiving information) , accessing (e.g., accessing data in a memory) and the like. Also, “determining” may include resolving, selecting, choosing, establishing and the like.

The previous description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the various aspects described herein. Various modifications to these aspects will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other aspects. Thus, the claims are not intended to be limited to the aspects shown herein, but is to be accorded the full scope consistent with the language of the claims, wherein reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean “one and only one” unless specifically so stated, but rather “one or more. ” Unless specifically stated otherwise, the term “some” refers to one or more. All structural and functional equivalents to the elements of the various aspects described throughout this disclosure that are known or later come to be known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the claims. Moreover, nothing disclosed herein is intended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether such disclosure is explicitly recited in the claims. No claim element is to be construed under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. §112 (f) unless the element is expressly recited using the phrase “means for” or, in the case of a method claim, the element is recited using the phrase “step for. ”

The various operations of methods described above may be performed by any suitable means capable of performing the corresponding functions. The means may include various hardware and/or software component (s) and/or module (s) , including, but not limited to a circuit, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) , or processor. Generally, where there are operations illustrated in figures, those operations may have corresponding counterpart means-plus-function components with similar numbering.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules and circuits described in connection with the present disclosure may be implemented or performed with a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP) , an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) , a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device (PLD) , discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. A general- purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any commercially available processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration.

If implemented in hardware, an example hardware configuration may comprise a processing system in a wireless node. The processing system may be implemented with a bus architecture. The bus may include any number of interconnecting buses and bridges depending on the specific application of the processing system and the overall design constraints. The bus may link together various circuits including a processor, machine-readable media, and a bus interface. The bus interface may be used to connect a network adapter, among other things, to the processing system via the bus. The network adapter may be used to implement the signal processing functions of the PHY layer. In the case of a user terminal (see FIG. 1) , a user interface (e.g., keypad, display, mouse, joystick, etc. ) may also be connected to the bus. The bus may also link various other circuits such as timing sources, peripherals, voltage regulators, power management circuits, and the like, which are well known in the art, and therefore, will not be described any further. The processor may be implemented with one or more general-purpose and/or special-purpose processors. Examples include microprocessors, microcontrollers, DSP processors, and other circuitry that can execute software. Those skilled in the art will recognize how best to implement the described functionality for the processing system depending on the particular application and the overall design constraints imposed on the overall system.

If implemented in software, the functions may be stored or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer readable medium. Software shall be construed broadly to mean instructions, data, or any combination thereof, whether referred to as software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description language, or otherwise. Computer-readable media include both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. The processor may be responsible for managing the bus and general processing, including the execution of software modules stored on the machine-readable storage media. A computer-readable storage medium may be coupled to a processor such that the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integral to the processor. By way of example, the machine-readable media may include a transmission line, a carrier wave modulated by data, and/or a computer readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon separate from the wireless node, all of which may be accessed by the processor through the bus interface. Alternatively, or in addition, the machine-readable media, or any portion thereof, may be integrated into the processor, such as the case may be with cache and/or general register files. Examples of machine-readable storage media may include, by way of example, RAM (Random Access Memory) , flash memory, ROM (Read Only Memory) , PROM (Programmable Read-Only Memory) , EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) , EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) , registers, magnetic disks, optical disks, hard drives, or any other suitable storage medium, or any combination thereof. The machine-readable media may be embodied in a computer-program product.

A software module may comprise a single instruction, or many instructions, and may be distributed over several different code segments, among different programs, and across multiple storage media. The computer-readable media may comprise a number of software modules. The software modules include instructions that, when executed by an apparatus such as a processor, cause the processing system to perform various functions. The software modules may include a transmission module and a receiving module. Each software module may reside in a single storage device or be distributed across multiple storage devices. By way of example, a software module may be loaded into RAM from a hard drive when a triggering event occurs. During execution of the software module, the processor may load some of the instructions into cache to increase access speed. One or more cache lines may then be loaded into a general register file for execution by the processor. When referring to the functionality of a software module below, it will be understood that such functionality is implemented by the processor when executing instructions from that software module.

Also, any connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. For example, if the software is transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL) , or wireless technologies such as infrared (IR) , radio, and microwave, then the coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are included in the definition of medium. Disk and disc, as used herein, include compact disc (CD) , laser disc, optical disc, digital versatile disc (DVD) , floppy disk, and

disc where disks usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce data optically with lasers. Thus, in some aspects computer-readable media may comprise non-transitory computer-readable media (e.g., tangible media) . In addition, for other aspects computer-readable media may comprise transitory computer-readable media (e.g., a signal) . Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

Thus, certain aspects may comprise a computer program product for performing the operations presented herein. For example, such a computer program product may comprise a computer-readable medium having instructions stored (and/or encoded) thereon, the instructions being executable by one or more processors to perform the operations described herein, for example, instructions for performing the operations described herein and illustrated in FIG. 4.

Further, it should be appreciated that modules and/or other appropriate means for performing the methods and techniques described herein can be downloaded and/or otherwise obtained by a user terminal and/or base station as applicable. For example, such a device can be coupled to a server to facilitate the transfer of means for performing the methods described herein. Alternatively, various methods described herein can be provided via storage means (e.g., RAM, ROM, a physical storage medium such as a compact disc (CD) or floppy disk, etc. ) , such that a user terminal and/or base station can obtain the various methods upon coupling or providing the storage means to the device. Moreover, any other suitable technique for providing the methods and techniques described herein to a device can be utilized.

It is to be understood that the claims are not limited to the precise configuration and components illustrated above. Various modifications, changes and variations may be made in the arrangement, operation and details of the methods and apparatus described above without departing from the scope of the claims.

Claims

A method for wireless communication by a user-equipment (UE) , comprising:

receiving signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching;

performing a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam;

calculating a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam; and

deciding whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.
The method of claim 1, wherein:

deciding whether to report the results of the RS measurement comprises determining to apply an adjustment parameter to results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter to calculate an RS measurement parameter to be reported for the candidate beam; and

the method further comprises transmitting an indication of the RS measurement parameter.
The method of claim 2, wherein deciding whether to report the results of the RS measurement comprises comparing the delta SNR parameter to one or more thresholds, wherein applying the adjustment parameter to the results of the RS measurement is based on the comparison.
The method of claim 2, wherein:

deciding whether to report the results of the RS measurement comprises comparing the delta SNR parameter to a first threshold; and

applying the adjustment parameter to the results of the RS measurement comprises applying a first adjustment parameter based on the delta SNR parameter being less than or equal to the first threshold.
The method of claim 4, wherein applying the adjustment parameter to the results of the RS measurement comprises applying a second adjustment parameter based on the delta SNR parameter being greater than the first threshold.
The method of claim 5, wherein:

deciding whether to report the results of the RS measurement comprises comparing the delta SNR parameter to a second threshold; and

the second adjustment parameter is applied to the results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter being less than the second threshold.
The method of claim 6, wherein determining whether to reports the results of the RS measurement comprises determining to forgo reporting the results of the RS measurement based on whether the delta SNR parameter is greater than or equal to the second threshold.
The method of any one of claims 2-5, wherein applying the adjustment parameter to the results of the RS measurement comprises subtracting the adjustment parameter from the results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.
The method of claim 1, wherein the RS measurement comprises an RS receive power (RSRP) measurement.
An apparatus for wireless communication by a user-equipment (UE) , comprising:

a memory; and

one or more processors, the memory and the one or more processors being configured to:

receive signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching;

perform a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam;

calculate a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam; and

decide whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.
An apparatus for wireless communication by a user-equipment (UE) , comprising:

means for receiving signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching;

means for performing a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam;

means for calculating a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam; and

means for deciding whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.
A computer-readable medium having instructgions stored thereon to cause a user-equipment (UE) to:

receive signaling associated with a candidate beam for beam switching;

perform a reference signal (RS) measurement for the candidate beam;

calculate a delta signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) parameter representing a difference between a SNR of a serving beam and a SNR of the candidate beam; and

decide whether to report results of the RS measurement based on the delta SNR parameter.