WO2022169716A1 - Systems and methods of beamforming indication - Google Patents

Abstract

Various embodiments herein provide techniques for beam indication and/or beam failure detection in a wireless cellular network. For example, a user equipment may generate a beam measurement report based on beam measurements for one or more beams, and may send the beam measurement report to a transmission-reception point (TRP). In some embodiments, the beam measurement report may be a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE). The UE and TRP may apply one or more beams from the report after a predefined time period, e.g., measured from the transmission/reception of the report or the transmission/reception of an acknowledgement that the report was successfully received by the TRP. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Description

SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF BEAMFORMING INDICATION

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/144,881, which was filed February 2, 2021; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/149,529, which was filed February 15, 2021; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/155,239, which was filed March 1, 2021; and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/159,928, which was filed March 11, 2021.

FIELD

Various embodiments generally may relate to the field of wireless communications. For example, some embodiments may relate to beamforming indication.

BACKGROUND

In 3GPP Release (Rel)-15 New Radio (NR) there is fixed/static relation between transmit (Tx) beam and the reference signals that are used. In particular, according to Rel-15 NR specification, the user equipment (UE) may assume that a synchronization signal (SS) / physical broadcast channel (PBCH) block (also referred to as SSB) with the same index is quasi-colocated (QCLed) with respect to all parameters across different time occasions of the SS/PBCH block. Such static Tx beamforming assignment allows efficient beam Tx and receive (Rx) beam pair acquisition. However, the actual Tx beamforming indication may require higher layer signalling that therefore implies noticeable latency.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To facilitate this description, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings.

Figure 1 illustrates new beam indication using fixed / static Tx beam-forming assignment, in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 2 illustrates a procedure for beam indication in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 3 schematically illustrates a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 4 schematically illustrates components of a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 5 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 non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

Figures 6-8 illustrate example processes in accordance with various embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects of various embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the various aspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In certain instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the various embodiments with unnecessary detail. For the purposes of the present document, the phrases “A or B” and “A/B” mean (A), (B), or (A and B).

Various embodiments herein provide techniques for beam indication and/or beam failure detection in a wireless cellular network. For example, a user equipment may generate a beam measurement report based on beam measurements for one or more beams, and may send the beam measurement report to a transmission-reception point (TRP). In some embodiments, the beam measurement report may be a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE). The UE and TRP may apply one or more beams from the report after a predefined time period, e.g., measured from the transmission/reception of the report or the transmission/reception of an acknowledgement that the report was successfully received by the TRP. In some embodiments, the acknowledgement that the report was successfully received may be indicated by a downlink control information (DCI) transmitted from the TRP to the UE that schedules a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) with a same hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process ID and a toggled new data indicator (NDI).

As discussed above, in 3GPP Release (Rel)-15 New Radio (NR) there is fixed/static relation between transmit (Tx) beam and the reference signals that are used. In particular, according to Rel- 15 NR specification, the user equipment (UE) may assume that a synchronization signal (SS) / physical broadcast channel (PBCH) block (also referred to as SSB) with the same index is quasi-colocated (QCLed) with respect to all parameters across different time occasions of the SS/PBCH block. Such static Tx beamforming assignment allows efficient beam Tx and receive (Rx) beam pair acquisition. However, the actual Tx beamforming indication may require higher layer signalling that therefore implies noticeable latency. For example, as shown in Figure 1, UE may be configured to perform beam management using SS/PBCH blocks. The UE may perform Layer 1 (LI) - reference signal received power (RSRP) measurements based on a corresponding configuration, identify a new Tx beam, and report this information to a transmission-reception point (TRP) using index of the corresponding SS/PBCH block. In this scenario, in order to change the Tx beam for certain physical channel or reference signal, gNB should indicate a new TCI state that includes a selected SS/PBCH block. Such indication is usually performed by high-layer signalling (e.g., radio resource control (RRC) or medium access control (MAC) control element (CE)) and takes at least 3ms between indication of new transmission control index (TCI) state and application of the new Rx beam.

Previous solutions rely on the beam indication for physical channels / reference signals using TCI state (for downlink (DL)) or spatial relation info (for uplink (UL)). TCI state of spatial relation info is provided to the UE using higher layer signaling. In such Tx beam-forming assignment framework, new Tx beam indication for certain physical channel or reference signal introduces noticeable latency due to higher layer signaling.

Various embodiments herein provide a new Tx beamforming indication based on the reported SS/PBCH or CSI-RS index. Embodiments of implicit beam indication may allow more efficient Tx beamforming updates without involving high layer signaling from gNB to UE.

According to some embodiments, UE may be configured for SS/PBCH or CSLRS resource index reporting with Ll-RSPR for beam management purpose. In one example, SS/PBCH or CSLRS index with Ll-RSRP can be provided by the UE using higher layer signaling, e.g. MAC CE. The reporting can be periodic or aperiodic based on some triggering event. In particular, for periodic reporting the reporting periodicity can be defined for MAC CE. For aperiodic, the reporting condition can be defined to reduce signaling overhead. For example, if the Ll-RSRP measurements on the current Tx beam used for PDCCH or PDSCH becomes worse than the Ll-RSRP of the other Tx beam measured by the UE, UE can report new Tx beam information using MAC CE along with Ll-RSPR information. In another embodiment in which MAC CE report contains more than one synchronization signal block resource indicator (SSBRI), the aperiodic triggering event(s) may include one or more of

- Event BM1 : The ordered list of the reported SSBRI is different compared to the previously reported ordered list of SSBRI;

- Event BM2: The best SSBRI with highest Ll-RSRP is changed;

- Event BM3: Ll-RSRP for one of the reported SSBRI in the previous report becomes below Ll-RSRP threshold; and/or

- Event BM4: SSBRI not provided in the previous report becomes better then Ll-RSRP threshold. Upon successful reception of the MAC CE, both gNB and UE can implicitly update the current Tx beam after predetermined time interval, e.g. X symbols. In some embodiments, successful reception of the MAC CE may be determined based on a downlink control information (DCI) received by the UE (e.g., in a PDCCH) that schedules a PUSCH transmission from UE with the same HARQ process ID and new data indicator (NDI) toggled. The predetermined time interval (e.g., X symbols) may be measured from receipt and/or transmission of the DCI, and/or from transmission and/or reception of the report from the UE. An example of the procedure is illustrated in Figure 2.

In some embodiments, the MAC CE contains one or multiple SSBRI reports. The number of SSBRI reports may be configured to the UE using higher layers. The SSBRI reports may also contain absolute Ll-RSRP values for each reported SSBRI, e.g., where measured value of Ll- RSRP is quantized to a 7-bit value in the range [-140, -44] dBm with IdB step size (see Table). It will be apparent that other quantization levels and/or range of values may be used in accordance with various embodiments.

Table 1 Ll-RSRP reporting

In some embodiments, if the number of detected SSB is less than the number of SSBRI reports, MAC CE may include an indication of the number of detected SSB that is reported by MAC CE. For example, MAC CE may include field indicating the number of reported SSBRIs. In this case, the payload size of MAC CE may be dependent on this parameter. In another example of the embodiment one of the possible Ll-RSRP values reported by the UE may include a state indicating SSBRI is not detected or SSBRI has very low Ll-RSRP below minimum sensitivity of the receiver. In this case reporting of the corresponding Ll-RSRP state indicates that the beam was not detected.

In another embodiment, one dedicated SS / PBCH index can be used for transmission of the current Tx beam, e.g. the Tx beam assignment may be adaptive for that SS / PBCH index. The corresponding transmission of SS / PBCH may be useful for easier tracking of the active Tx beam.

In another embodiment, SS/PBCH may be transmitted using beams with wider beamwidth compared to beams that are used for other physical channels. In some such embodiments, after new SS/PBCH beam is identified and reported by the UE to TRP, it becomes active for CSI-RS for beam management after X symbols. The X symbols may be counted from the SS/PBCH beam report or from the acknowledgement to the corresponding SS/PBCH report transmission. According to this embodiment, TRP may also transmit CSI-RS with different narrow beams to refine the Tx beamforming around beam direction determined by the SS/PBCH beam. To facilitate Rx beam refinement at the UE, CSI-RS with the same narrow beamforming may be transmitted one or multiple times. The UE may performs measurements using the CSI- RS. The new active CSI-RS beam (e.g., along with Ll-RSRP measurements) may be reported to TRP (e.g., using MAC CE or uplink control information (UCI) over PUSCH / PUCCH). The new active CSI-RS beam may be reported using a CSI-RS resource index (CRI). Once the new active CSI-RS beam is reported, the CSI-RS beam may be considered as active for PDSCH, PDCCH, PUSCH and PUSCH for the first control resource set (CORESET) transmission, but not earlier than X symbols after the CSI-RS report or acknowledgement to this report.

In another embodiment, the CSI-RS beam is considered active, from the first discrete Fourier transform (DFT) - spread (s) - orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) configured as DL symbol in a time-division duplexing (TDD) period, but not earlier than X symbols after the CSI-RS report or acknowledgement to this report. In some embodiments, the CSI-RS beam is considered active from the first DFT-s-OFDM configured as UL symbol in a TDD period, but not earlier than X symbols after the CSI-RS report or acknowledgement to this report. In some embodiments, the CSI-RS beam is considered active from the first demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) symbol, but not earlier than X symbols after the CSI-RS report or acknowledgement to this report. In some embodiments, one or more DM-RS symbols should be inserted in X symbol after CSI-RS report, e.g., in case there is a PDSCH or PUSCH transmission. In the above embodiment, X symbols may be required to perform processing of the UE report.

In another embodiment, CSI-RS beam is considered active from the first CORESET occasion + Y symbols, where the first CORESET occasion is the first PDCCH monitoring occasion which is not earlier than X symbols after the report. In this embodiment additional Y symbols after CORESET may be required to provide ACK/NACK report to CSI report which serves as beam indication. In one example, DCI can be used for ACK/NACK of the CSI report containing preferred beam. In another example, the existing bits in DCI can be used for ACK/NACK, e.g., if aperiodic CSI-RS with aperiodic CSI are triggered then NACK is assumed, else if aperiodic CSI-RS with aperiodic CSI are not triggered then ACK of the preferred beam is assumed. This embodiment may be used for other timing applications based on TDD boundary, DL or UL boundary, and/or DM-RS symbol within PDSCH or PUSCH transmission. In another embodiment, beam failure detection and recovery (BFDR) may be configured for the UE. According to various embodiments herein, beam failure detection (BFD) may be performed based on demodulation reference signals (DM-RSs) of PDCCH. For example, the UE may be configured with a CORESET (e.g., frequency domain resources where PDDCH can be sent) and a search space (e.g., time domain resource where PDCCH can be sent) that UE should use for BFD monitoring. The UE may derive the hypothetical block error rate (BLER) of PDCCH based on the DM-RS measurements of PDCCH in the corresponding CORESET and compare the BLER with a pre-determined BLER threshold. In addition to BLER measurement on DM-RS of CORESET, UE may also perform new beam identification (NBI) using SS/PBCH reference signals. The beam used for SS/PBCH transmission may be considered as candidate beam, e.g., if its Ll-RSRP measured on corresponding SS/PBCH is above pre-determined Ll- RSRPmin threshold.

The beam failure detection recovery procedure starts, if the BLER on DM-RS of PDCCH remains above certain BLER threshold after Q consecutive BLER measurements and UE has detected at least one candidate SS/PBCH beam. In one example, Q = 1. In another example, Q > 1. The new beam is then indicated by the UE, e.g., using a physical random access channel (PRACH) or MAC CE transmission. In case of PRACH transmission, the new SS/PBCH beam may be indicated implicitly to gNB by transmitting a PRACH preamble on a PRACH resource which is associated with the corresponding SS/PBCH block. For the MAC CE based approach, the new SS/PBCH beam may be indicated explicitly using the MAC CE. In some embodiments, the MAC CE may be transmitted using Message (Msg) 3 of the random access procedure.

In some embodiments, BFR may be declared when the BLER is above a threshold within certain time window, e.g. window comprising Z TDD periods, where Z is one or more .

SYSTEMS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS

Figures 3-5 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of disclosed embodiments.

Figure 3 illustrates a network 300 in accordance with various embodiments. The network 300 may operate in a manner consistent with 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3 GPP systems, or the like.

The network 300 may include a UE 302, which may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 304 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 302 may be communicatively coupled with the RAN 304 by a Uu interface. The UE 302 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, tablet computer, wearable computer device, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment, in-car entertainment device, instrument cluster, head-up display device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic/engine control unit, electronic/engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine-type communication device, M2M or D2D device, loT device, etc.

In some embodiments, the network 300 may include a plurality of UEs coupled directly with one another via a sidelink interface. The UEs may be M2M/D2D devices that communicate using physical sidelink channels such as, but not limited to, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc.

In some embodiments, the UE 302 may additionally communicate with an AP 306 via an over-the-air connection. The AP 306 may manage a WLAN connection, which may serve to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 304. The connection between the UE 302 and the AP 306 may be consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 306 could be a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi®) router. In some embodiments, the UE 302, RAN 304, and AP 306 may utilize cellular-WLAN aggregation (for example, LWA/LWIP). Cellular-WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 302 being configured by the RAN 304 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

The RAN 304 may include one or more access nodes, for example, AN 308. AN 308 may terminate air-interface protocols for the UE 302 by providing access stratum protocols including RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, and LI protocols. In this manner, the AN 308 may enable data/voice connectivity between CN 320 and the UE 302. In some embodiments, the AN 308 may be implemented in a discrete device or as one or more software entities running on server computers as part of, for example, a virtual network, which may be referred to as a CRAN or virtual baseband unit pool. The AN 308 be referred to as a BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP, TRP, etc. The AN 308 may be a macrocell base station or a low power base station for providing femtocells, picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

In embodiments in which the RAN 304 includes a plurality of ANs, they may be coupled with one another via an X2 interface (if the RAN 304 is an LTE RAN) or an Xn interface (if the RAN 304 is a 5G RAN). The X2/Xn interfaces, which may be separated into control/user plane interfaces in some embodiments, may allow the ANs to communicate information related to handovers, data/context transfers, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc. The ANs of the RAN 304 may each manage one or more cells, cell groups, component carriers, etc. to provide the UE 302 with an air interface for network access. The UE 302 may be simultaneously connected with a plurality of cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 304. For example, the UE 302 and RAN 304 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 302 to connect with a plurality of component carriers, each corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In dual connectivity scenarios, a first AN may be a master node that provides an MCG and a second AN may be secondary node that provides an SCG. The first/second ANs may be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-eNB, etc.

The RAN 304 may provide the air interface over a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum. To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may use LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms based on CA technology with PCells/Scells. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may perform medium/carrier-sensing operations based on, for example, a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

In V2X scenarios the UE 302 or AN 308 may be or act as a RSU, which may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE. An RSU implemented in or by: a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU”; an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU”; a gNB may be referred to as a “gNB-type RSU”; and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well as applications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low latency communications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular/WLAN communications services. The components of the RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or a backhaul network.

In some embodiments, the RAN 304 may be an LTE RAN 310 with eNBs, for example, eNB 312. The LTE RAN 310 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: SCS of 15 kHz; CP-OFDM waveform for DL and SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo codes for data and TBCC for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS for PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation; and CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurements, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operating on sub-6 GHz bands.

In some embodiments, the RAN 304 may be an NG-RAN 314 with gNBs, for example, gNB 316, or ng-eNBs, for example, ng-eNB 318. The gNB 316 may connect with 5G-enabled UEs using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 316 may connect with a 5G core through an NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The ng-eNB 318 may also connect with the 5G core through an NG interface, but may connect with a UE via an LTE air interface. The gNB 316 and the ng-eNB 318 may connect with each other over an Xn interface.

In some embodiments, the NG interface may be split into two parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries traffic data between the nodes of the NG-RAN 314 and a UPF 348 (e.g., N3 interface), and an NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface between the nodes of the NG-RAN314 and an AMF 344 (e.g., N2 interface).

The NG-RAN 314 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following characteristics: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM and DFT-s-OFDM for UL; polar, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller codes for control and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use a CRS, but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS for phase tracking for PDSCH; and tracking reference signal for time tracking. The 5G-NR air interface may operating on FR1 bands that include sub-6 GHz bands or FR2 bands that include bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may include an SSB that is an area of a downlink resource grid that includes PSS/SSS/PBCH.

In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWPs for various purposes. For example, BWP can be used for dynamic adaptation of the SCS. For example, the UE 302 can be configured with multiple BWPs where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 302, the SCS of the transmission is changed as well. Another use case example of BWP is related to power saving. In particular, multiple BWPs can be configured for the UE 302 with different amount of frequency resources (for example, PRBs) to support data transmission under different traffic loading scenarios. A BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs can be used for data transmission with small traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 302 and in some cases at the gNB 316. A BWP containing a larger number of PRBs can be used for scenarios with higher traffic load.

The RAN 304 is communicatively coupled to CN 320 that includes network elements to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (for example, users of UE 302). The components of the CN 320 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes. In some embodiments, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the functions provided by the network elements of the CN 320 onto physical compute/storage resources in servers, switches, etc. A logical instantiation of the CN 320 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 320 may be referred to as a network sub-slice.

In some embodiments, the CN 320 may be an LTE CN 322, which may also be referred to as an EPC. The LTE CN 322 may include MME 324, SGW 326, SGSN 328, HSS 330, PGW 332, and PCRF 334 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. Functions of the elements of the LTE CN 322 may be briefly introduced as follows.

The MME 324 may implement mobility management functions to track a current location of the UE 302 to facilitate paging, bearer activation/deactivation, handovers, gateway selection, authentication, etc.

The SGW 326 may terminate an SI interface toward the RAN and route data packets between the RAN and the LTE CN 322. The SGW 326 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.

The SGSN 328 may track a location of the UE 302 and perform security functions and access control. In addition, the SGSN 328 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 324; MME selection for handovers; etc. The S3 reference point between the MME 324 and the SGSN 328 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3 GPP access network mobility in idle/active states.

The HSS 330 may include a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions. The HSS 330 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. An S6a reference point between the HSS 330 and the MME 324 may enable transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating/authorizing user access to the LTE CN 320.

The PGW 332 may terminate an SGi interface toward a data network (DN) 336 that may include an application/content server 338. The PGW 332 may route data packets between the LTE CN 322 and the data network 336. The PGW 332 may be coupled with the SGW 326 by an S5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. The PGW 332 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection (for example, PCEF). Additionally, the SGi reference point between the PGW 332 and the data network 3 36 may be an operator external public, a private PDN, or an intra-operator packet data network, for example, for provision of IMS services. The PGW 332 may be coupled with a PCRF 334 via a Gx reference point. The PCRF 334 is the policy and charging control element of the LTE CN 322. The PCRF 334 may be communicatively coupled to the app/content server 338 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for service flows. The PCRF 332 may provision associated rules into a PCEF (via Gx reference point) with appropriate TFT and QCI.

In some embodiments, the CN 320 may be a 5GC 340. The 5GC 340 may include an AUSF 342, AMF 344, SMF 346, UPF 348, NSSF 350, NEF 352, NRF 354, PCF 356, UDM 358, and AF 360 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. Functions of the elements of the 5GC 340 may be briefly introduced as follows.

The AUSF 342 may store data for authentication of UE 302 and handle authentication- related functionality. The AUSF 342 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. In addition to communicating with other elements of the 5GC 340 over reference points as shown, the AUSF 342 may exhibit an Nausf service-based interface.

The AMF 344 may allow other functions of the 5GC 340 to communicate with the UE 302 and the RAN 304 and to subscribe to notifications about mobility events with respect to the UE 302. The AMF 344 may be responsible for registration management (for example, for registering UE 302), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 344 may provide transport for SM messages between the UE 302 and the SMF 346, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 344 may also provide transport for SMS messages between UE 302 and an SMSF. AMF 344 may interact with the AUSF 342 and the UE 302 to perform various security anchor and context management functions. Furthermore, AMF 344 may be a termination point of a RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between the RAN 304 and the AMF 344; and the AMF 344 may be a termination point of NAS (Nl) signaling, and perform NAS ciphering and integrity protection. AMF 344 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 302 over an N3 IWF interface.

The SMF 346 may be responsible for SM (for example, session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 348 and AN 308); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP function; configuring traffic steering at UPF 348 to route traffic to proper destination; termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; controlling part of policy enforcement, charging, and QoS; lawful intercept (for SM events and interface to LI system); termination of SM parts of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating AN specific SM information, sent via AMF 344 over N2 to AN 308; and determining SSC mode of a session. SM may refer to management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or “session” may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 302 and the data network 336. The UPF 348 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to data network 336, and a branching point to support multi-homed PDU session. The UPF 348 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, enforce the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF- to-QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF 348 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network.

The NSSF 350 may select a set of network slice instances serving the UE 302. The NSSF 350 may also determine allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAIs, if needed. The NSSF 350 may also determine the AMF set to be used to serve the UE 302, or a list of candidate AMFs based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 354. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 302 may be triggered by the AMF 344 with which the UE 302 is registered by interacting with the NSSF 350, which may lead to a change of AMF. The NSSF 350 may interact with the AMF 344 via an N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown). Additionally, the NSSF 350 may exhibit an Nnssf service-based interface.

The NEF 352 may securely expose services and capabilities provided by 3 GPP network functions for third party, internal exposure/re-exposure, AFs (e.g., AF 360), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, the NEF 352 may authenticate, authorize, or throttle the AFs. NEF 352 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 360 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 352 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal 5GC information. NEF 352 may also receive information from other NFs based on exposed capabilities of other NFs. This information may be stored at the NEF 352 as structured data, or at a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The stored information can then be re-exposed by the NEF 352 to other NFs and AFs, or used for other purposes such as analytics. Additionally, the NEF 352 may exhibit an Nnef service-based interface.

The NRF 354 may support service discovery functions, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide the information of the discovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF 354 also maintains information of available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and an “instance” may refer to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Additionally, the NRF 354 may exhibit the Nnrf service-based interface.

The PCF 356 may provide policy rules to control plane functions to enforce them, and may also support unified policy framework to govern network behavior. The PCF 356 may also implement a front end to access subscription information relevant for policy decisions in a UDR of the UDM 358. In addition to communicating with functions over reference points as shown, the PCF 356 exhibit an Npcf service-based interface.

The UDM 358 may handle subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions, and may store subscription data of UE 302. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between the UDM 358 and the AMF 344. The UDM 358 may include two parts, an application front end and a UDR. The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM 358 and the PCF 356, and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFDs for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 302) for the NEF 352. The Nudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR 221 to allow the UDM 358, PCF 356, and NEF 352 to access a particular set of the stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM- FE, which is in charge of processing credentials, location management, subscription management and so on. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification handling, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs over reference points as shown, the UDM 358 may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.

The AF 360 may provide application influence on traffic routing, provide access to NEF, and interact with the policy framework for policy control.

In some embodiments, the 5GC 340 may enable edge computing by selecting operator/3^rd party services to be geographically close to a point that the UE 302 is attached to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. To provide edge-computing implementations, the 5GC 340 may select a UPF 348 close to the UE 302 and execute traffic steering from the UPF 348 to data network 336 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 360. In this way, the AF 360 may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 360 is considered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF 360 to interact directly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF 360 may exhibit an Naf service-based interface.

The data network 336 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third party services that may be provided by one or more servers including, for example, application/content server 338.

Figure 4 schematically illustrates a wireless network 400 in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless network 400 may include a UE 402 in wireless communication with an AN 404. The UE 402 and AN 404 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, like-named components described elsewhere herein.

The UE 402 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 404 via connection 406. The connection 406 is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols such as an LTE protocol or a 5G NR protocol operating at mmWave or sub-6GHz frequencies.

The UE 402 may include a host platform 408 coupled with a modem platform 410. The host platform 408 may include application processing circuitry 412, which may be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 414 of the modem platform 410. The application processing circuitry 412 may run various applications for the UE 402 that source/ sink application data. The application processing circuitry 412 may further implement one or more layer operations to transmit/receive application data to/from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (for example UDP) and Internet (for example, IP) operations

The protocol processing circuitry 414 may implement one or more of layer operations to facilitate transmission or reception of data over the connection 406. The layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuitry 414 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC and NAS operations.

The modem platform 410 may further include digital baseband circuitry 416 that may implement one or more layer operations that are “below” layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 414 in a network protocol stack. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations including one or more of HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/decoding, layer mapping/de-mapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding, which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency or spatial coding, reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

The modem platform 410 may further include transmit circuitry 418, receive circuitry 420, RF circuitry 422, and RF front end (RFFE) 424, which may include or connect to one or more antenna panels 426. Briefly, the transmit circuitry 418 may include a digital -to-analog converter, mixer, intermediate frequency (IF) components, etc.; the receive circuitry 420 may include an analog-to-digital converter, mixer, IF components, etc.; the RF circuitry 422 may include a low-noise amplifier, a power amplifier, power tracking components, etc.; RFFE 424 may include filters (for example, surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beamforming components (for example, phase-array antenna components), etc. The selection and arrangement of the components of the transmit circuitry 418, receive circuitry 420, RF circuitry 422, RFFE 424, and antenna panels 426 (referred generically as “transmit/receive components”) may be specific to details of a specific implementation such as, for example, whether communication is TDM or FDM, in mmWave or sub-6 gHz frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, may be disposed in the same or different chips/modules, etc.

In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry 414 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the transmit/receive components.

A UE reception may be established by and via the antenna panels 426, RFFE 424, RF circuitry 422, receive circuitry 420, digital baseband circuitry 416, and protocol processing circuitry 414. In some embodiments, the antenna panels 426 may receive a transmission from the AN 404 by receive-beamforming signals received by a plurality of antennas/antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels 426.

A UE transmission may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry 414, digital baseband circuitry 416, transmit circuitry 418, RF circuitry 422, RFFE 424, and antenna panels 426. In some embodiments, the transmit components of the UE 404 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam emitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panels 426.

Similar to the UE 402, the AN 404 may include a host platform 428 coupled with a modem platform 430. The host platform 428 may include application processing circuitry 432 coupled with protocol processing circuitry 434 of the modem platform 430. The modem platform may further include digital baseband circuitry 436, transmit circuitry 438, receive circuitry 440, RF circuitry 442, RFFE circuitry 444, and antenna panels 446. The components of the AN 404 may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with like-named components of the UE 402. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, the components of the AN 408 may perform various logical functions that include, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

Figure 5 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 non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, Figure 5 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 500 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 510, one or more memory/storage devices 520, and one or more communication resources 530, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 540 or other interface circuitry. For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 502 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/ sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 500.

The processors 510 may include, for example, a processor 512 and a processor 514. The processors 510 may be, for example, 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 DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

The memory/storage devices 520 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 520 may include, but are not limited to, any type of volatile, non-volatile, or semi-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

The communication resources 530 may include interconnection or network interface controllers, components, or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 504 or one or more databases 506 or other network elements via a network 508. For example, the communication resources 530 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB, Ethernet, etc.), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® Low Energy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

Instructions 550 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 510 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 550 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 510 (e.g., within the processor’s cache memory), the memory/storage devices 520, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 550 may be transferred to the hardware resources 500 from any combination of the peripheral devices 504 or the databases 506. Accordingly, the memory of processors 510, the memory/storage devices 520, the peripheral devices 504, and the databases 506 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media. EXAMPLE PRO EDURES

In some embodiments, the electronic device(s), network(s), system(s), chip(s), component(s), or portions or implementations thereof, of Figure 3-5, or some other figure herein, may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques, or methods as described herein, or portions thereof. One such process 600 is depicted in Figure 6. In some embodiments, the process 600 may be performed by a UE or a portion thereof. At 602, the process 600 may include generating beam measurements for respective beams. At 604, the process 600 may further include selecting one or more beams based on the beam measurements. At 606, the process 600 may further include encoding, for transmission to a transmissionreception point (TRP), a report to indicate the selected one or more beams. At 608, the process 600 may further include applying a first beam of the selected one or more beams after a predefined time period.

Figure 7 illustrates another example process 700 in accordance with various embodiments. The process 700 may be performed by a TRP and/or gNB (e.g., a TRP implemented by a gNB). At 702, the process 700 may include receiving, from a user equipment (UE), a measurement report for one or more beams. At 704, the process 700 may further include encoding, for transmission to the UE, an acknowledgement that the measurement report was received by the TRP. At 706, the process may further include applying a first beam of the one or more beams after a pre-defined time period from transmission of the acknowledgement.

Figure 8 illustrates another example process 800 in accordance with various embodiments. The process 800 may be performed by a UE or a portion thereof. At 802, the process 800 may include estimating a block error rate (BLER) of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) based on one or more measurements of respective demodulation reference signals (DM-RSs) of the PDCCH. At 804, the process 800 may further include determining that the BLER is greater than a BLER threshold. At 806, the process 800 may further include identifying a candidate synchronization signal (SS) / physical broadcast channel (PBCH) beam. At 808, the process 800 may further include encoding a message, for transmission to a next generation Node B (gNB) based on the determination that the BLER is greater than the BLER threshold, to indicate the identified candidate SS/PBCH beam.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components set forth in one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods as set forth in the example section below. For example, the baseband circuitry as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc. as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below in the example section.

EXAMPLES

Various non-limiting examples are provided below.

Example Al includes one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM) having instructions, stored thereon, that when executed by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) cause the UE to: generate beam measurements for respective beams; select one or more beams based on the beam measurements; encode, for transmission to a transmissionreception point (TRP), a report to indicate the selected one or more beams; and apply a first beam of the selected one or more beams after a pre-defined time period.

Example A2 includes the one or more NTCRM of example Al or some other example herein, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the UE to receive an indication that the TRP successfully received the report, wherein the pre-defined time period is from reception of the indication.

Example A3 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A2 or some other example herein, wherein the indication is a downlink control information (DCI) that includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) grant with a same hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identity (ID) as the report transmitted by the UE and a toggled new data indicator (NDI).

Example A4 includes the one or more NTCRM of example Al or some other example herein, wherein the report is a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

Example A5 includes the one or more NTCRM of example Al or some other example herein, wherein the report includes a synchronization signal block resource indicator (SSBRI) and the associated beam measurement for each of the selected one or more beams.

Example A6 includes the one or more NTCRM of example Al or some other example herein, wherein the report includes an indicator of a number of the selected one or more beams included in the report, wherein a payload size of the report is based on the indicator.

Example A7 includes the one or more NTCRM of example Al or some other example herein, wherein the beam measurement for the first beam is performed on a synchronization signal block (SSB) with a first beamwidth, and wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the UE to: receive, from the TRP, one or more channel state information (CSI)- reference signals (RSs) that are within the first beam and have a second beamwidth that is less than the first beamwidth; generate respective CSI-RS measurements for the one or more CSI- RSs; and report the CSI-RS measurements to the TRP. Example A8 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A7 or some other example herein, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the UE to activate a first CSI-RS of the one or more CSI-RSs based on the respective CSI-RS measurements.

Example A9 includes the one or more NTCRM of any one of examples Al to A8 or some other example herein, wherein to apply the first beam includes to receive a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), receive a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), transmit a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), or transmit a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) using the first beam.

Example A10 includes one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM) having instructions, stored thereon, that when executed by one or more processors of a transmission-reception point (TRP) cause the TRP to: receive, from a user equipment (UE), a measurement report for one or more beams; encode, for transmission to the UE, an acknowledgement that the measurement report was received by the TRP; and apply a first beam of the one or more beams after a pre-defined time period from transmission of the acknowledgement.

Example Al 1 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A10 or some other example herein, wherein the acknowledgement is a downlink control information (DCI) that includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) grant with a same hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identity (ID) as the report transmitted by the UE and a toggled new data indicator (NDI).

Example A12 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A10 or some other example herein, wherein the measurement report is a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

Example A13 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A10 or some other example herein, wherein the measurement report includes a synchronization signal block resource indicator (SSBRI) and the associated beam measurement for each of the one or more beams.

Example A14 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A10 or some other example herein, wherein the measurement report includes an indicator of a number of the selected one or more beams included in the report, wherein a payload size of the measurement report is based on the indicator.

Example A15 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A10 or some other example herein, wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the TRP to: encode one or more synchronization signal blocks (SSBs) for transmission for the beam measurement report, wherein the one or more SSBs have a first beamwidth; encode, for transmission after receipt of the measurement report, one or more channel state information (CSI)- reference signals (RSs) that are within the first beam and have a second beamwidth that is less than the first beamwidth; and receive a CSI-RS measurement report from the UE based on the one or more CSI-RSs.

Example A16 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A15 or some other example herein, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the TRP to activate a first CSI-RS of the one or more CSI-RSs based on the CSI-RS measurement report.

Example Al 7 includes the one or more NTCRM of any one of examples Al 0 to Al 6 or some other example herein, wherein to apply the first beam includes to transmit a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), transmit a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), receive a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), or receive a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) using the first beam.

Example Al 8 includes one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM) having instructions, stored thereon, that when executed by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) cause the UE to: estimate a block error rate (BLER) of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) based on one or more measurements of respective demodulation reference signals (DM-RSs) of the PDCCH; determine that the BLER is greater than a BLER threshold; identify a candidate synchronization signal (SS) / physical broadcast channel (PBCH) beam; and encode a message, for transmission to a next generation Node B (gNB) based on the determination that the BLER is greater than the BLER threshold, to indicate the identified candidate SS/PBCH beam.

Example A19 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A18 or some other example herein, wherein the message is transmitted based on a number of estimated BLERs of the PDCCH being greater than the BLER threshold, wherein the number is two or more.

Example A20 includes the one or more NTCRM of example Al 8 or some other example herein, wherein the message is a physical random access channel (PRACH) message.

Example A21 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A20 or some other example herein, wherein the candidate SS/PBCH beam is indicated by transmission of the PRACH message on a PRACH resource that is associated with the candidate SS/PBCH beam.

Example A22 includes the one or more NTCRM of example Al 8 or some other example herein, wherein the message is a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

Example A23 includes the one or more NTCRM of example A22 or some other example herein, wherein the MAC CE is included in a message 3 (Msg 3) of a random access procedure.

Example A24 includes the one or more NTCRM of any one of examples Al 8 to A23 or some other example herein, wherein the determination that the BLER is greater than the BLER threshold corresponds to the BLER being greater than the BLER threshold over a defined time window. Example Bl may include a method of beamforming assignment, wherein the method includes:

- Configuration of the beam management measurements and reporting for the UE using downlink reference signals;

- Based on configuration and measurement, reporting from the UE the selected index of the reference signal together beam quality; and

- Application of the transmission and reception beams according to the reported reference signal at TRP and UE after pre-determined time.

Example B2 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein the reference signals are SS / PBCH.

Example B3 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein reporting is periodic or aperiodic.

Example B4 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein reporting is based on MAC CE signalling.

Example B5 may include the method of example B4 or some other example herein, aperiodic reporting is based on the event when the measured quality of the new measured reference signals becomes better than measured quality of the current reference signal transmitted using the same beamforming as is currently used for the physical channels.

Example B6 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein the measured quality is Ll-RSRP (reference signal received power) without averaging in time or spatial domain.

Example B7 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein the new beam becomes active for the physical channels after predetermined time interval after report transmission.

Example B8 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein the new beam becomes active for the physical channel after predetermined time interval after HARQ-ACK transmission from TRP to UE in response to the MAC CE.

Example B9 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein HARQ-ACK transmission is a PDCCH that schedules a PUSCH transmission with the same HARQ process ID with new data indicator (NDI) toggled.

Example BIO may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein SS/PBCH has adaptive beam assignment.

Example Bl 1 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein the new beam becomes active for the channel state information reference signals after predetermined time interval after report or acknowledgement transmission to the report. Example B12 may include the method of example Bl or some other example herein, wherein the new beam becomes active for the channel state information reference signals after predetermined time interval after report or acknowledgement transmission to the report.

Example B13 may include the method of example B 12 or some other example herein, wherein multiple CSI-RS signal are transmitted using multiple beams based on the active beam of SS / PBCH.

Example B14 may include the method of example B 13 or some other example herein, wherein subset of CSI-RS signals can be transmitted multiple time to facilitate beam refinement at the UE.

Example B15 may include the method of example B 13 or some other example herein, wherein UE reports index of CSI-RS and Ll-RSRP based on the CSI-RS signal measurements.

Example B16 may include the method of example B 15 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active for downlink and uplink physical channels after predetermined time interval after report or acknowledgement transmission to the report.

Example B17 may include the method of example B 15 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active from the first CORESET transmission occasion but not but not earlier than predetermined time interval after report or acknowledgement transmission to the report.

Example B18 may include the method of example B 15 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active from the first symbol TDD period, but not earlier than X symbols after the report.

Example B19 may include the method of example B 15 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active from the first symbol DL part of TDD period, but not earlier than X symbols after the report.

Example B20 may include the method of example B 15 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active from the first symbol UL part of TDD period, but not earlier than X symbols after the report.

Example B21 may include the method of example B 15 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active from the first DM-RS symbol, but not earlier than X symbols after the report if PDSCH is scheduled.

Example B22 may include the method of example B15 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active from predetermined number of symbols after the first CORESET transmission occasion wherein first CORESET occasion should be not earlier than another predetermined time interval after report. Example B23 may include the method of example B22 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active if the PDCCH in the CORESET contains DCI with positive acknowledgement.

Example B24 may include the method of example B22 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam doesn’t become active if the PDCCH contains DCI with negative acknowledgement.

Example B25 may include the method of example B24 or some other example herein, wherein negative acknowledgement is aperiodic CSI-RS triggering with beam refinement.

Example B26 may include the system and method of example B23 or some other example herein, wherein positive acknowledgement is aperiodic CSI-RS triggering with beam refinement.

Example B27 may include a method of beam failure detection and recovery, wherein the method includes:

- monitoring of beam failure using demodulation reference signals of the physical control channel (PDCCH)

- monitoring of the candidate beam using beam identification reference signals; and/or

- detecting of the beam failure at the UE and indication of the new candidate beam to TRP.

Example B28 may include the method of example B27 or some other example herein, wherein beam failure detection on the physical layer is declared when the hypothetical average block error rate for the control channel of certain aggregation level is above threshold.

Example B29 may include the system and method of example B28 or some other example herein, wherein beam failure is declared on the higher layer after pre-determined number of the beam failure events on the physical layer.

Example B30 may include system and method of example B29 or some other example herein, wherein pre-determined number of beam failure event on the physical layer is one.

Example B31 may include the method of example B27-B30 or some other example herein, wherein multiple CSI-RS signal are transmitted using multiple beams based on the active beam of SS / PBCH.

Example B32 may include the method of example B31 or some other example herein, wherein subset of CSI-RS signals can be transmitted multiple time to facilitate beam refinement at the UE.

Example B33 may include the method of example B31 or some other example herein, wherein UE reports index of CSI-RS and Ll-RSRP based on the CSI-RS signal measurements. Example B34 may include the method of example B33 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active for downlink and uplink physical channels after predetermined time interval after report or acknowledgement transmission to the report.

Example B35 may include the method of example B33 or some other example herein, wherein new CSI-RS beam becomes active from the first CORESET transmission occasion but not but not earlier than predetermined time interval after report or acknowledgement transmission to the report.

Example B36 may include a method comprising: receiving configuration information for beam management measurements and reporting; generating one or more beam measurements on one or more reference signals based on the configuration information; generating, for transmission, a report to indicate an index and a corresponding beam quality of a selected reference signal of the one or more reference signals; and applying a transmission beam and/or a reception beam according to the selected reference signal.

Example B37 may include the method of example B36 or some other example herein, wherein the transmission beam and/or the reception beam is applied after a pre-determined time period (e.g., from transmission of the report).

Example B38 may include the method of examples B36-B37 or some other example herein, wherein the one or more reference signals include one or more SS / PBCH signals.

Example B39 may include the method of examples B36-B38 or some other example herein, wherein the report is a periodic report or an aperiodic report.

Example B40 may include the method of examples B36-B39 or some other example herein, wherein the report is generated based on MAC CE signalling.

Example B41 may include the method of example B36-B40 or some other example herein, wherein the transmission beam and/or the reception beam is applied in an earliest symbol of a TDD period that is not earlier than X symbols after transmission of the report.

Example B42 may include the method of example 36-40 or some other example herein, wherein the transmission beam and/or the reception beam is applied in an earliest DL symbol of a TDD period that is not earlier than X symbols after transmission of the report.

Example B43 may include the method of example B36-B40 or some other example herein, wherein the transmission beam and/or the reception beam is applied in an UL earliest symbol of a TDD period that is not earlier than X symbols after transmission of the report. Example B44 may include the method of example B36-B40 or some other example herein, wherein the transmission beam and/or the reception beam is applied in an earliest DMRS symbol of a TDD period that is not earlier than X symbols after transmission of the report.

Example B45 may include the method of example B36-B40 or some other example herein, wherein the transmission beam and/or the reception beam is applied after a first CORESET transmission occasion that is after a predetermined time period from transmission of the report.

Example B46 may include the method of example B45 or some other example herein, further comprising: receiving a DCI in the first CORESET transmission occasion, wherein the DCI includes a positive acknowledgement, and wherein the transmission beam and/or the reception beam is applied based on the positive acknowledgement.

Example Z01 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z02 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z03 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z04 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or portions or parts thereof.

Example Z05 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or portions thereof.

Example Z06 may include a signal as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or portions or parts thereof.

Example Z07 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure. Example Z08 may include a signal encoded with data as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example Z09 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, Bl- B46, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example Z10 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors is to cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B46, or portions thereof.

Example Z11 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element is to cause the processing element to carry out the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples A1-A24, Bl- B46, or portions thereof.

Example Z12 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z13 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z14 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Example Z15 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Any of the above-described examples may be combined with any other example (or combination of examples), unless explicitly stated otherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Abbreviations

Unless used differently herein, terms, definitions, and abbreviations may be consistent with terms, definitions, and abbreviations defined in 3GPP TR 21.905 vl6.0.0 (2019-06). For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations may apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein. 3 GPP Third AP Application BRAS Broadband Generation 35 Protocol, Antenna Remote Access

Partnership Port, Access Point 70 Server Project API Application BSS Business 4G Fourth Programming Interface Support System Generation APN Access Point BS Base Station 5G Fifth 40 Name BSR Buffer Status Generation ARP Allocation and 75 Report 5GC 5G Core Retention Priority BW Bandwidth network ARQ Automatic BWP Bandwidth Part AC Repeat Request C-RNTI Cell

Application 45 AS Access Stratum Radio Network Client ASP 80 Temporary ACK Application Service Identity

Acknowledgem Provider CA Carrier ent Aggregation, ACID 50 ASN. l Abstract Syntax Certification

Application Notation One 85 Authority Client Identification AUSF Authentication CAPEX CAPital AF Application Server Function Expenditure Function AWGN Additive CBRA Contention

AM Acknowledged 55 White Gaussian Based Random Mode Noise 90 Access

AMBRAggregate BAP Backhaul CC Component Maximum Bit Rate Adaptation Protocol Carrier, Country AMF Access and BCH Broadcast Code, Cryptographic

Mobility 60 Channel Checksum

Management BER Bit Error Ratio 95 CCA Clear Channel Function BFD Beam Assessment AN Access Failure Detection CCE Control Network BLER Block Error Channel Element ANR Automatic 65 Rate CCCH Common

Neighbour Relation BPSK Binary Phase 100 Control Channel Shift Keying CE Coverage

Enhancement CDM Content COTS Commercial C-RNTI Cell Delivery Network Off-The-Shelf RNTI CDMA Code- CP Control Plane, CS Circuit Division Multiple Cyclic Prefix, Switched Access 40 Connection 75 CSAR Cloud Service

CFRA Contention Free Point Archive Random Access CPD Connection CSI Channel-State CG Cell Group Point Descriptor Information CGF Charging CPE Customer CSI-IM CSI

Gateway Function 45 Premise 80 Interference CHF Charging Equipment Measurement

Function CPICHCommon Pilot CSI-RS CSI

CI Cell Identity Channel Reference Signal CID Cell-ID (e g., CQI Channel CSI-RSRP CSI positioning method) 50 Quality Indicator 85 reference signal CIM Common CPU CSI processing received power Information Model unit, Central CSI-RSRQ CSI CIR Carrier to Processing Unit reference signal Interference Ratio C/R received quality CK Cipher Key 55 Command/Resp 90 CSI-SINR CSI CM Connection onse field bit signal-to-noise and Management, CRAN Cloud Radio interference

Conditional Access ratio Mandatory Network, Cloud CSMA Carrier Sense CMAS Commercial 60 RAN 95 Multiple Access Mobile Alert Service CRB Common CSMA/CA CSMA CMD Command Resource Block with collision CMS Cloud CRC Cyclic avoidance Management System Redundancy Check CSS Common CO Conditional 65 CRI Channel -State 100 Search Space, CellOptional Information specific Search CoMP Coordinated Resource Space Multi-Point Indicator, CSI-RS CTF Charging CORESET Control Resource Trigger Function Resource Set 70 Indicator 105 CTS Clear-to-Send CW Codeword 35 DSL Domain ECSP Edge

CWS Contention Specific Language. Computing Service

Window Size Digital 70 Provider

D2D Device-to- Subscriber Line EDN Edge

Device DSLAM DSL Data Network

DC Dual 40 Access Multiplexer EEC Edge

Connectivity, Direct DwPTS Enabler Client Current Downlink Pilot 75 EECID Edge

DCI Downlink Time Slot Enabler Client

Control E-LAN Ethernet Identification

Information 45 Local Area Network EES Edge

DF Deployment E2E End-to-End Enabler Server

Flavour ECCA extended clear 80 EESID Edge

DL Downlink channel Enabler Server

DMTF Distributed assessment, Identification

Management Task 50 extended CCA EHE Edge Force ECCE Enhanced Hosting Environment

DPDK Data Plane Control Channel 85 EGMF Exposure

Development Kit Element, Governance

DM-RS, DMRS Enhanced CCE Management

Demodulation 55 ED Energy Function

Reference Signal Detection EGPRS DN Data network EDGE Enhanced 90 Enhanced DNN Data Network Datarates for GSM GPRS Name Evolution EIR Equipment

DNAI Data Network 60 (GSM Evolution) Identity Register Access Identifier EAS Edge eLAA enhanced

Application Server 95 Licensed Assisted

DRB Data Radio EASID Edge Access,

Bearer Application Server enhanced LAA

DRS Discovery 65 Identification EM Element

Reference Signal ECS Edge Manager

DRX Discontinuous Configuration Server 100 eMBB Enhanced Reception Mobile

Broadband EMS Element 35 E-UTRA Evolved FCCH Frequency

Management System UTRA 70 Correction CHannel eNB evolved NodeB, E-UTRAN Evolved FDD Frequency E-UTRAN Node B UTRAN Division Duplex

EN-DC E- EV2X Enhanced V2X FDM Frequency

UTRA-NR Dual 40 F1AP Fl Application Division

Connectivity Protocol 75 Multiplex EPC Evolved Packet Fl-C Fl Control FDM A F requency Core plane interface Division Multiple

EPDCCH Fl-U Fl User plane Access enhanced 45 interface FE Front End

PDCCH, enhanced FACCH Fast 80 FEC Forward Error Physical Associated Control Correction

Downlink Control CHannel FFS For Further

Cannel FACCH/F Fast Study

EPRE Energy per 50 Associated Control FFT Fast Fourier resource element Channel/Full 85 Transformation

EPS Evolved Packet rate feL AA further System FACCH/H Fast enhanced Licensed

EREG enhanced REG, Associated Control Assisted enhanced resource 55 Channel/Half Access, further element groups rate 90 enhanced LAA ETSI European FACH Forward Access FN Frame Number

Telecommunica Channel FPGA Field- tions Standards FAUSCH Fast Programmable Gate Institute 60 Uplink Signalling Array

ETWS Earthquake and Channel 95 FR Frequency

Tsunami Warning FB Functional Range

System Block FQDN Fully eUICC embedded FBI Feedback Qualified Domain UICC, embedded 65 Information Name

Universal FCC Federal 100 G-RNTI GERAN Integrated Circuit Communications Radio Network

Card Commission Temporary Identity GERAN GSM Global System 70 HSDPA High

GSM EDGE for Mobile Speed Downlink RAN, GSM EDGE Communication Packet Access

Radio Access s, Groupe Special HSN Hopping

Network 40 Mobile Sequence Number

GGSN Gateway GPRS GTP GPRS 75 HSPA High Speed Support Node Tunneling Protocol Packet Access GLONASS GTP-UGPRS HSS Home

GLObal'naya Tunnelling Protocol Subscriber Server

NAvigatsionnay 45 for User Plane HSUPA High a Sputnikovaya GTS Go To Sleep 80 Speed Uplink Packet Si sterna (Engl.: Signal (related Access Global Navigation to WUS) HTTP Hyper Text

Satellite GUMMEI Globally Transfer Protocol

System) 50 Unique MME HTTPS Hyper gNB Next Identifier 85 Text Transfer Protocol Generation NodeB GUTI Globally Secure (https is gNB-CU gNB- Unique Temporary http/ 1.1 over centralized unit, Next UE Identity SSL, i.e. port 443)

Generation 55 HARQ Hybrid ARQ, LBlock

NodeB Hybrid 90 Information centralized unit Automatic Block gNB-DU gNB- Repeat Request ICCID Integrated distributed unit, Next HANDO Handover Circuit Card

Generation 60 HFN HyperFrame Identification

NodeB Number 95 I AB Integrated distributed unit HHO Hard Handover Access and

GNSS Global HLR Home Location Backhaul Navigation Satellite Register ICIC Inter-Cell

System 65 HN Home Network Interference

GPRS General Packet HO Handover 100 Coordination

Radio Service HPLMN Home ID Identity,

GPSI Generic Public Land Mobile identifier

Public Subscription Network

Identifier IDFT Inverse Discrete 35 IMPI IP Multimedia ISO International Fourier Private Identity 70 Organisation for

Transform IMPU IP Multimedia Standardisation IE Information PUblic identity ISP Internet Service element IMS IP Multimedia Provider IBE In-Band 40 Subsystem IWF Interworking- Emission IMSI International 75 Function IEEE Institute of Mobile I-WLAN Electrical and Subscriber Interworking

Electronics Identity WLAN Engineers 45 loT Internet of Constraint IEI Information Things 80 length of the Element IP Internet convolutional

Identifier Protocol code, USIM IEIDL Information Ipsec IP Security, Individual key Element 50 Internet Protocol kB Kilobyte (1000

Identifier Data Security 85 bytes) Length IP-CAN IP- kbps kilo-bits per IETF Internet Connectivity Access second Engineering Task Network Kc Ciphering key Force 55 IP-M IP Multicast Ki Individual

IF Infrastructure IPv4 Internet 90 subscriber

IM Interference Protocol Version 4 authentication

Measurement, IPv6 Internet key

Intermodulation Protocol Version 6 KPI Key , IP Multimedia 60 IR Infrared Performance Indicator IMC IMS IS In Sync 95 KQI Key Quality Credentials IRP Integration Indicator IMEI International Reference Point KSI Key Set Mobile ISDN Integrated Identifier

Equipment 65 Services Digital ksps kilo-symbols Identity Network 100 per second IMGI International ISIM IM Services KVM Kernel Virtual mobile group identity Identity Module Machine LI Layer 1 35 LTE Long Term 70 Broadcast and (physical layer) Evolution Multicast Ll-RSRP Layer 1 LWA LTE-WLAN Service reference signal aggregation MBSFN received power LWIP LTE/WLAN Multimedia L2 Layer 2 (data 40 Radio Level 75 Broadcast link layer) Integration with multicast L3 Layer 3 IPsec Tunnel service Single (network layer) LTE Long Term Frequency LAA Licensed Evolution Network Assisted Access 45 M2M Machine-to- 80 MCC Mobile Country LAN Local Area Machine Code Network MAC Medium Access MCG Master Cell LADN Local Control Group Area Data Network (protocol MCOT Maximum LBT Listen Before 50 layering context) 85 Channel Talk MAC Message Occupancy LCM LifeCycle authentication code Time Management (security/ encry pti on MCS Modulation and LCR Low Chip Rate context) coding scheme LCS Location 55 MAC-A MAC 90 MDAF Management Services used for Data Analytics LCID Logical authentication Function Channel ID and key MD AS Management LI Layer Indicator agreement Data Analytics LLC Logical Link 60 (TSG T WG3 context) 95 Service Control, Low Layer MAC-IMAC used for MDT Minimization of Compatibility data integrity of Drive Tests LPLMN Local signalling messages ME Mobile PLMN (TSG T WG3 context) Equipment LPP LTE 65 MANO 100 MeNB master eNB Positioning Protocol Management MER Message Error LSB Least and Orchestration Ratio Significant Bit MBMS MGL Measurement

Multimedia Gap Length MGRP Measurement 35 Access Communication Gap Repetition CHannel 70 s Period MPUSCH MTC MU-MIMO Multi

MIB Master Physical Uplink Shared User MIMO Information Block, Channel MWUS MTC Management 40 MPLS MultiProtocol wake-up signal, MTC

Information Base Label Switching 75 WUS MIMO Multiple Input MS Mobile Station NACK Negative Multiple Output MSB Most Acknowledgement MLC Mobile Significant Bit NAI Network Location Centre 45 MSC Mobile Access Identifier MM Mobility Switching Centre 80 NAS Non-Access Management MSI Minimum Stratum, Non- Access MME Mobility System Stratum layer Management Entity Information, NCT Network MN Master Node 50 MCH Scheduling Connectivity MNO Mobile Information 85 Topology Network Operator MSID Mobile Station NC-JT NonMO Measurement Identifier coherent Joint

Object, Mobile MSIN Mobile Station Transmission

Originated 55 Identification NEC Network MPBCH MTC Number 90 Capability

Physical Broadcast MSISDN Mobile Exposure CHannel Subscriber ISDN NE-DC NR-E-

MPDCCH MTC Number UTRA Dual Physical Downlink 60 MT Mobile Connectivity Control Terminated, Mobile 95 NEF Network

CHannel Termination Exposure Function

MPDSCH MTC MTC Machine-Type NF Network Physical Downlink Communication Function Shared 65 s NFP Network

CHannel mMTCmassive MTC, 100 Forwarding Path

MPRACH MTC massive NFPD Network Physical Random Machine-Type Forwarding Path

Descriptor NFV Network NPRACH 70 S-NNSAI Single-

Functions Narrowband NSSAI

Virtualization Physical Random NSSF Network Slice

NFVI NFV Access CHannel Selection Function

Infrastructure 40 NPUSCH NW Network

NF VO NFV Narrowband 75 NWUSNarrowband

Orchestrator Physical Uplink wake-up signal,

NG Next Shared CHannel Narrowband WUS

Generation, Next Gen NPSS Narrowband NZP Non-Zero

NGEN-DC NG- 45 Primary Power

RAN E-UTRA-NR Synchronization 80 O&M Operation and

Dual Connectivity Signal Maintenance

NM Network NSSS Narrowband ODU2 Optical channel

Manager Secondary Data Unit - type 2

NMS Network 50 Synchronization OFDM Orthogonal

Management System Signal 85 Frequency Division

N-PoP Network Point NR New Radio, Multiplexing of Presence Neighbour Relation OFDMA

NMIB, N-MIB NRF NF Repository Orthogonal

Narrowband MIB 55 Function Frequency Division

NPBCH NRS Narrowband 90 Multiple Access

Narrowband Reference Signal OOB Out-of-band

Physical NS Network OO S Out of

Broadcast Service Sync

CHannel 60 NSA Non- Standalone OPEX OPerating

NPDCCH operation mode 95 EXpense

Narrowband NSD Network OSI Other System

Physical Service Descriptor Information

Downlink NSR Network OSS Operations

Control CHannel 65 Service Record Support System

NPDSCH NSSAINetwork Slice 100 OTA over-the-air

Narrowband Selection PAPR Peak-to-

Physical Assistance Average Power

Downlink Information Ratio

Shared CHannel PAR Peak to PDN Packet Data POC PTT over Average Ratio 35 Network, Public Cellular PBCH Physical Data Network 70 PP, PTP Point-to- Broadcast Channel PDSCH Physical Point PC Power Control, Downlink Shared PPP Point-to-Point Personal Channel Protocol

Computer 40 PDU Protocol Data PRACH Physical PCC Primary Unit 75 RACH Component Carrier, PEI Permanent PRB Physical Primary CC Equipment resource block PCell Primary Cell Identifiers PRG Physical PCI Physical Cell 45 PFD Packet Flow resource block ID, Physical Cell Description 80 group Identity P-GW PDN Gateway ProSe Proximity

PCEF Policy and PHICH Physical Services, Charging hybrid-ARQ indicator Proximity-

Enforcement 50 channel Based Service Function PHY Physical layer 85 PRS Positioning

PCF Policy Control PLMN Public Land Reference Signal Function Mobile Network PRR Packet

PCRF Policy Control PIN Personal Reception Radio and Charging Rules 55 Identification Number PS Packet Services Function PM Performance 90 PSBCH Physical

PDCP Packet Data Measurement Sidelink Broadcast Convergence PMI Precoding Channel

Protocol, Packet Matrix Indicator PSDCH Physical Data Convergence 60 PNF Physical Sidelink Downlink Protocol layer Network Function 95 Channel

PDCCH Physical PNFD Physical PSCCH Physical Downlink Control Network Function Sidelink Control

Channel Descriptor Channel

PDCP Packet Data 65 PNFR Physical PSSCH Physical Convergence Protocol Network Function 100 Sidelink Shared

Record Channel

PSCell Primary SCell PSS Primary RAB Radio Access Link Control

Synchronization 35 Bearer, Random 70 layer

Signal Access Burst RLC AM RLC

PSTN Public Switched RACH Random Access Acknowledged Mode

Telephone Network Channel RLC UM RLC

PT-RS Phase-tracking RADIUS Remote Unacknowledged reference signal 40 Authenti cati on Di al 75 Mode

PTT Push-to-Talk In User Service RLF Radio Link

PUCCH Physical RAN Radio Access Failure

Uplink Control Network RLM Radio Link

Channel RAND RANDom Monitoring

PUSCH Physical 45 number (used for 80 RLM-RS

Uplink Shared authentication) Reference

Channel RAR Random Access Signal for RLM

QAM Quadrature Response RM Registration

Amplitude RAT Radio Access Management

Modulation 50 Technology 85 RMC Reference

QCI QoS class of RAU Routing Area Measurement Channel identifier Update RMSI Remaining

QCL Quasi coRB Resource block, MSI, Remaining location Radio Bearer Minimum

QFI QoS Flow ID, 55 RBG Resource block 90 System

QoS Flow group Information

Identifier REG Resource RN Relay Node

QoS Quality of Element Group RNC Radio Network

Service Rel Release Controller

QPSK Quadrature 60 REQ REQuest 95 RNL Radio Network

(Quaternary) Phase RF Radio Layer

Shift Keying Frequency RNTI Radio Network

QZSS Quasi-Zenith RI Rank Indicator Temporary

Satellite System RIV Resource Identifier

RA-RNTI Random 65 indicator value 100 ROHC RObust Header

Access RNTI RL Radio Link Compression

RLC Radio Link RRC Radio Resource

Control, Radio Control, Radio Resource Control 35 S-RNTI SRNC 70 SCS Subcarrier layer Radio Network Spacing

RRM Radio Resource Temporary SCTP Stream Control

Management Identity Transmission

RS Reference S-TMSI SAE Protocol

Signal 40 Temporary Mobile 75 SDAP Service Data

RSRP Reference Station Adaptation

Signal Received Identifier Protocol,

Power SA Standalone Service Data

RSRQ Reference operation mode Adaptation

Signal Received 45 SAE System 80 Protocol layer

Quality Architecture SDL Supplementary

RS SI Received Signal Evolution Downlink Strength SAP Service Access SDNF Structured Data

Indicator Point Storage Network

RSU Road Side Unit 50 SAPD Service Access 85 Function

RSTD Reference Point Descriptor SDP Session

Signal Time SAPI Service Access Description Protocol difference Point Identifier SDSF Structured Data

RTP Real Time SCC Secondary Storage Function

Protocol 55 Component Carrier, 90 SDU Service Data

RTS Ready-To-Send Secondary CC Unit RTT Round Trip SCell Secondary Cell SEAF Security Time SCEF Service Anchor Function

Rx Reception, Capability Exposure SeNB secondary eNB Receiving, Receiver 60 Function 95 SEPP Security Edge S1AP SI Application SC-FDMA Single Protection Proxy Protocol Carrier Frequency SFI Slot format

Sl-MME SI for Division indication the control plane Multiple Access SFTD Space- Sl-U SI for the user 65 SCG Secondary Cell 100 Frequency Time plane Group Diversity, SFN

S-GW Serving SCM Security and frame timing Gateway Context difference

Management SFN System Frame SoC System on Chip Signal based

Number SON Self-Organizing Reference

SgNB Secondary gNB Network Signal Received

SGSN Serving GPRS SpCell Special Cell Power

Support Node 40 SP-CSI-RNTISemi- 75 SS-RSRQ

S-GW Serving Persistent CSI RNTI Synchronization

Gateway SPS Semi-Persistent Signal based

SI System Scheduling Reference

Information SQN Sequence Signal Received

SI-RNTI System 45 number 80 Quality

Information RNTI SR Scheduling SS-SINR

SIB System Request Synchronization

Information Block SRB Signalling Signal based Signal

SIM Subscriber Radio Bearer to Noise and

Identity Module 50 SRS Sounding 85 Interference Ratio

SIP Session Reference Signal SSS Secondary

Initiated Protocol SS Synchronization Synchronization

SiP System in Signal Signal

Package SSB Synchronization SSSG Search Space

SL Sidelink 55 Signal Block 90 Set Group

SLA Service Level SSID Service Set SSSIF Search Space

Agreement Identifier Set Indicator

SM Session SS/PBCH Block SST Slice/Service

Management SSBRI SS/PBCH Types

SMF Session 60 Block Resource 95 SU-MIMO Single

Management Function Indicator, User MIMO

SMS Short Message Synchronization SUL Supplementary

Service Signal Block Uplink

SMSF SMS Function Resource TA Timing

SMTC SSB-based 65 Indicator 100 Advance, Tracking

Measurement Timing SSC Session and Area

Configuration Service TAC Tracking Area

SN Secondary Continuity Code

Node, Sequence SS-RSRP TAG Timing

Number 70 Synchronization 105 Advance Group TAI TPMI Transmitted UDSF Unstructured

Tracking Area Precoding Matrix Data Storage Network

Identity Indicator Function

TAU Tracking Area TR Technical UICC Universal Update 40 Report 75 Integrated Circuit

TB Transport Block TRP, TRxP Card TBS Transport Block Transmission UL Uplink Size Reception Point UM

TBD To Be Defined TRS Tracking Unacknowledge

TCI Transmission 45 Reference Signal 80 d Mode

Configuration TRx Transceiver UML Unified

Indicator TS Technical Modelling Language

TCP Transmission Specifications, UMTS Universal

Communication Technical Mobile

Protocol 50 Standard 85 Tel ecommuni ca

TDD Time Division TTI Transmission tions System

Duplex Time Interval UP User Plane

TDM Time Division Tx Transmission, UPF User Plane Multiplexing Transmitting, Function

TDMATime Division 55 Transmitter 90 URI Uniform

Multiple Access U-RNTI UTRAN Resource Identifier

TE Terminal Radio Network URL Uniform

Equipment Temporary Resource Locator

TEID Tunnel End Identity URLLC Ultra-

Point Identifier 60 UART Universal 95 Reliable and Low

TFT Traffic Flow Asynchronous Latency

Template Receiver and USB Universal Serial

TMSI Temporary Transmitter Bus

Mobile UCI Uplink Control USIM Universal

Subscriber 65 Information 100 Subscriber Identity

Identity UE User Equipment Module

TNL Transport UDM Unified Data USS UE-specific

Network Layer Management search space

TPC Transmit Power UDP User Datagram Control 70 Protocol UTRA UMTS 35 VoIP Voice-over-IP, Terrestrial Radio Voice-over- Internet Access Protocol

UTRAN VPLMN Visited

Universal Public Land Mobile Terrestrial Radio 40 Network

Access VPN Virtual Private

Network Network

UwPTS Uplink VRB Virtual Pilot Time Slot Resource Block V2I Vehicle-to- 45 WiMAX Infrastruction Worldwide

V2P Vehicle-to- Interoperability Pedestrian for Microwave

V2V Vehicle-to- Access Vehicle 50 WLANWireless Local

V2X Vehicle-to- Area Network everything WMAN Wireless

VIM Virtualized Metropolitan Area Infrastructure Manager Network VL Virtual Link, 55 WPANWireless VLAN Virtual LAN, Personal Area Network Virtual Local Area X2-C X2-Control Network plane VM Virtual X2-U X2-User plane Machine 60 XML extensible

VNF Virtualized Markup Network Function Language

VNFFG VNF XRES EXpected user

Forwarding Graph RESponse VNFFGD VNF 65 XOR exclusive OR

Forwarding Graph ZC Zadoff-Chu

Descriptor ZP Zero Power VNFMVNF Manager For the purposes of the present document, the following terms and definitions are applicable to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

The term “circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes hardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functionality. The term “circuitry” may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the program code used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term “processor circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carrying out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording, storing, and/or transferring digital data. Processing circuitry may include one or more processing cores to execute instructions and one or more memory structures to store program and data information. The term “processor circuitry” may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), a single-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computerexecutable instructions, such as program code, software modules, and/or functional processes. Processing circuitry may include more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, or the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and/or deep learning (DL) accelerators. The terms “application circuitry” and/or “baseband circuitry” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as, “processor circuitry.”

The term “interface circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, I/O interfaces, peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or the like. The term “user equipment” or “UE” as used herein refers to a device with radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment” or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as, client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device including a wireless communications interface.

The term “network element” as used herein refers to physical or virtualized equipment and/or infrastructure used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term “network element” may be considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term “computer system” as used herein refers to any type interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. Additionally, the term “computer system” and/or “system” may refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled with one another. Furthermore, the term “computer system” and/or “system” may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another and configured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The term “appliance,” “computer appliance,” or the like, as used herein refers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g., software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. A “virtual appliance” is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide a specific computing resource.

The term “resource” as used herein refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, such as computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPU time, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardware time or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports or network sockets, channel/link allocation, throughput, memory usage, storage, network, database and applications, workload units, and/or the like. A “hardware resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by physical hardware element(s). A “virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application, device, system, etc. The term “network resource” or “communication resource” may refer to resources that are accessible by computer devices/ systems via a communications network. The term “system resources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services, and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services, accessible through a server where such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term “channel” as used herein refers to any transmission medium, either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or a data stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalent to “communications channel,” “data communications channel,” “transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,” “data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequency carrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or medium through which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” as used herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like as used herein refers to the creation of an instance. An “instance” also refers to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code.

The terms “coupled,” “communicatively coupled,” along with derivatives thereof are used herein. The term “coupled” may mean two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another, may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other but still cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements that are said to be coupled with each other. The term “directly coupled” may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another. The term “communicatively coupled” may mean that two or more elements may be in contact with one another by a means of communication including through a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wireless communication channel or link, and/or the like.

The term “information element” refers to a structural element containing one or more fields. The term “field” refers to individual contents of an information element, or a data element that contains content.

The term “SMTC” refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration .

The term “SSB” refers to an SS/PBCH block. The term “a “Primary Cell” refers to the MCG cell, operating on the primary frequency, in which the UE either performs the initial connection establishment procedure or initiates the connection re-establishment procedure.

The term “Primary SCG Cell” refers to the SCG cell in which the UE performs random access when performing the Reconfiguration with Sync procedure for DC operation.

The term “Secondary Cell” refers to a cell providing additional radio resources on top of a Special Cell for a UE configured with CA.

The term “Secondary Cell Group” refers to the subset of serving cells comprising the PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UE configured with DC. The term “Serving Cell” refers to the primary cell for a UE in RRC CONNECTED not configured with CA/DC there is only one serving cell comprising of the primary cell.

The term “serving cell” or “serving cells” refers to the set of cells comprising the Special Cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE in RRC CONNECTED configured with CA/.

The term “Special Cell” refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell of the SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term “Special Cell” refers to the Pcell.

Claims

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM) having instructions, stored thereon, that when executed by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) cause the UE to: generate beam measurements for respective beams; select one or more beams based on the beam measurements; encode, for transmission to a transmission-reception point (TRP), a report to indicate the selected one or more beams; and apply a first beam of the selected one or more beams after a pre-defined time period.

2. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the UE to receive an indication that the TRP successfully received the report, wherein the pre-defined time period is from reception of the indication.

3. The one or more NTCRM of claim 2, wherein the indication is a downlink control information (DCI) that includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) grant with a same hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identity (ID) as the report transmitted by the UE and a toggled new data indicator (ND I).

4. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the report is a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

5. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the report includes a synchronization signal block resource indicator (SSBRI) and the associated beam measurement for each of the selected one or more beams.

6. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the report includes an indicator of a number of the selected one or more beams included in the report, wherein a payload size of the report is based on the indicator.

7. The one or more NTCRM of claim 1, wherein the beam measurement for the first beam is performed on a synchronization signal block (SSB) with a first beamwidth, and wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the UE to:

46 receive, from the TRP, one or more channel state information (CSI)- reference signals (RSs) that are within the first beam and have a second beamwidth that is less than the first beam width; generate respective CSI-RS measurements for the one or more CSI-RSs; and report the CSI-RS measurements to the TRP.

8. The one or more NTCRM of claim 7, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the UE to activate a first CSI-RS of the one or more CSI-RSs based on the respective CSI-RS measurements.

9. The one or more NTCRM of any one of claims 1 to 8, wherein to apply the first beam includes to receive a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), receive a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), transmit a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), or transmit a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) using the first beam.

10. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM) having instructions, stored thereon, that when executed by one or more processors of a transmissionreception point (TRP) cause the TRP to: receive, from a user equipment (UE), a measurement report for one or more beams; encode, for transmission to the UE, an acknowledgement that the measurement report was received by the TRP; and apply a first beam of the one or more beams after a pre-defined time period from transmission of the acknowledgement.

11. The one or more NTCRM of claim 10, wherein the acknowledgement is a downlink control information (DCI) that includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) grant with a same hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identity (ID) as the report transmitted by the UE and a toggled new data indicator (NDI).

12. The one or more NTCRM of claim 10, wherein the measurement report is a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

13. The one or more NTCRM of claim 10, wherein the measurement report includes a synchronization signal block resource indicator (SSBRI) and the associated beam measurement for each of the one or more beams.

47

14. The one or more NTCRM of claim 10, wherein the measurement report includes an indicator of a number of the selected one or more beams included in the report, wherein a payload size of the measurement report is based on the indicator.

15. The one or more NTCRM of claim 10, wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the TRP to: encode one or more synchronization signal blocks (SSBs) for transmission for the beam measurement report, wherein the one or more SSBs have a first beamwidth; encode, for transmission after receipt of the measurement report, one or more channel state information (CSI)- reference signals (RSs) that are within the first beam and have a second beamwidth that is less than the first beamwidth; and receive a CSI-RS measurement report from the UE based on the one or more CSI-RSs.

16. The one or more NTCRM of claim 15, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further to cause the TRP to activate a first CSI-RS of the one or more CSI-RSs based on the CSI-RS measurement report.

17. The one or more NTCRM of any one of claims 10 to 16, wherein to apply the first beam includes to transmit a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), transmit a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), receive a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), or receive a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) using the first beam.

18. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM) having instructions, stored thereon, that when executed by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) cause the UE to: estimate a block error rate (BLER) of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) based on one or more measurements of respective demodulation reference signals (DM-RSs) of the PDCCH; determine that the BLER is greater than a BLER threshold; identify a candidate synchronization signal (SS) / physical broadcast channel (PBCH) beam; and encode a message, for transmission to a next generation Node B (gNB) based on the determination that the BLER is greater than the BLER threshold, to indicate the identified candidate SS/PBCH beam.

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19. The one or more NTCRM of claim 18, wherein the message is transmitted based on a number of estimated BLERs of the PDCCH being greater than the BLER threshold, wherein the number is two or more.

20. The one or more NTCRM of claim 18, wherein the message is a physical random access channel (PRACH) message.

21. The one or more NTCRM of claim 20, wherein the candidate SS/PBCH beam is indicated by transmission of the PRACH message on a PRACH resource that is associated with the candidate SS/PBCH beam.

22. The one or more NTCRM of claim 18, wherein the message is a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

23. The one or more NTCRM of claim 22, wherein the MAC CE is included in a message 3 (Msg 3) of a random access procedure.

24. The one or more NTCRM of any one of claims 18 to 23, wherein the determination that the BLER is greater than the BLER threshold corresponds to the BLER being greater than the BLER threshold over a defined time window.