Beam reporting in a beam failure recovery request or a beam failure recovery procedure

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11109256-B2
Application number	US-202016742725-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 14, 2020
Priority date	Jan 28, 2019
Publication date	Aug 31, 2021
Grant date	Aug 31, 2021

Abstract

Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described. Generally, the described techniques provide for efficiently determining when to transmit a beam report indicating a new beam for communicating with a base station after a current beam used for communications with the base station fails. In one example, after detecting beam failure, a user equipment (UE) may compare a quality of each candidate beam available for communicating with a base station to a beam identification threshold, and the UE may perform beam reporting based on the comparisons (e.g., refrain from transmitting a beam report if the quality of each of the candidate beams is lower than the beam identification threshold). In another example, after detecting beam failure, a UE may compare a quality of each candidate beam available for communicating with a base station to a beam detection threshold, and the UE may perform beam reporting based on the comparisons.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising:
detecting a beam failure of a beam used for communicating with a secondary cell;
identifying one or more candidate beams available for communicating with the secondary cell, the one or more candidate beams being different from the failed beam;
comparing a quality of each of the candidate beams to a beam detection threshold in an attempt to identify a new beam for communicating with the secondary cell;
determining that the quality of each of the candidate beams is lower than the detection threshold; and
transmitting a reserved beam index value or a reserved beam quality value in a beam report to indicate that no new beam is identified for communicating with the secondary cell.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein transmitting the reserved beam index value or the reserved beam quality value in the beam report comprises:
transmitting, to a base station, a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) comprising an indication of the beam failure;
receiving an uplink grant from the base station; and
transmitting the reserved beam index value or the reserved beam quality value in the beam report in or after the beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) to the base station based at least in part on the uplink grant, wherein the beam report comprises medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) signaling.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a beam reporting configuration indicating whether the UE should transmit an indication of the quality of a candidate beam of the one or more candidate beams in the beam report.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
determining that the beam reporting configuration indicates that the UE should transmit the indication of the quality of the candidate beam of the one or more candidate beams in the beam report; and
transmitting the indication of the quality of the candidate beam of the one or more candidate beams in the beam report based at least in part on the determining.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detection threshold is based at least in part on a capability of the UE and is different from a beam identification threshold.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
refraining from transmitting a beam report identifying a new beam for communicating with the secondary cell based at least in part on the determining.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting a beam report indicating that no new beam is identified for communicating with the secondary cell and that communications with the secondary cell are unrecoverable.

8. An apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising:
a processor,
memory in electronic communication with the processor; and
instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
detect a beam failure of a beam used for communicating with a secondary cell;
identify one or more candidate beams available for communicating with the secondary cell, the one or more candidate beams being different from the failed beam;
compare a quality of each of the candidate beams to a beam detection threshold in an attempt to identify a new beam for communicating with the secondary cell;
determine that the quality of each of the candidate beams is lower than the detection threshold; and
transmit a reserved beam index value or a reserved beam quality value in a beam report to indicate that no new beam is identified for communicating with the secondary cell.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the instructions to transmit the reserved beam index value or the reserved beam quality value in the beam report are executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
transmit, to a base station, a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) comprising an indication of the beam failure;
receive an uplink grant from the base station; and
transmit the reserved beam index value or the reserved beam quality value in the beam report in or after the beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) to the base station, based at least in part on the uplink grant, wherein the beam report comprises medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) signaling.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
receive a beam reporting configuration indicating whether the UE should transmit an indication of the quality of a candidate beam of the one or more candidate beams in the beam report.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
determine that the beam reporting configuration indicates that the UE should transmit the indication of the quality of the candidate beam of the one or more candidate beams in the beam report; and
transmit the indication of the quality of the candidate beam of the one or more candidate beams in the beam report based at least in part on the determining.

12. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the detection threshold is based at least in part on a capability of the UE and is different from a beam identification threshold.

13. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
refrain from transmitting a beam report identifying a new beam for communicating with the secondary cell based at least in part on the determining.

14. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
transmit a beam report indicating that no new beam is identified for communicating with the secondary cell and that communications with the secondary cell are unrecoverable.

15. An apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising:
means for detecting a beam failure of a beam used for communicating with a secondary cell;
means for identifying one or more candidate beams available for communicating with the secondary cell, the one or more candidate beams being different from the failed beam;
means for comparing a quality of each of the candidate beams to a beam detection threshold in an attempt to identify a new beam for communicating with the secondary cell;
means for determining that the quality of each of the candidate beams is lower than the detection threshold; and
means for transmitting a reserved beam index value or a reserved beam quality value in a beam report to indicate that no new beam is identified for communicating with the secondary cell.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), the code comprising instructions executable by a processor to:
detect a beam failure of a beam used for communicating with a secondary cell;
identify one or more candidate beams available for communicating with the secondary cell, the one or more candidate beams being different from the failed beam;
compare a quality of each of the candidate beams to a beam detection threshold in an attempt to identify a new beam for communicating with the secondary cell;
determine that the quality of each of the candidate beams is lower than the detection threshold; and
transmit a reserved beam index value or a reserved beam quality value in a beam report to indicate that no new beam is identified for communicating with the secondary cell.

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc
• Ualcomm Incorporated

Inventors

• Zhou Yan
• Luo Tao
• Venugopal Kiran
• Bai Tianyang

Classifications

• H04B7/06964

  Re-selection of one or more beams after beam failure · CPC title

• H04W24/08

  Testing, {supervising or monitoring} using real traffic · CPC title

• H04W76/19

  Connection re-establishment · CPC title

• H04W76/15

  Setup of multiple wireless link connections · CPC title

• H04W16/28

  using beam steering · CPC title