Generation Node-B (GNB), user equipment (UE) and methods for handover in new radio (NR) systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11147000-B2
Application number	US-201716473235-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 22, 2017
Priority date	Jan 6, 2017
Publication date	Oct 12, 2021
Grant date	Oct 12, 2021

Abstract

Embodiments of a generation Node-B (gNB), User Equipment (UE) and methods for communication are generally described herein. The gNB may receive, from the UE, a first measurement report that indicates a first signal quality measurement based on new radio synchronization signals (NR-SS). The gNB may determine, based on reception of the first measurement report, a transmission direction for transmission of channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS) for a second RRM measurement at the UE based on the CSI-RS. The gNB may receive, from the UE, a second measurement report that indicates a second signal quality measurement based on the CSI-RS. The gNB may determine, based at least partly on the first and second signal quality measurements, whether to initiate a handover of the UE from a serving cell to a neighbor cell.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising:
memory; and
processing circuitry, configured to:
encode, for transmission, a first control message that indicates a first radio resource management (RRM) measurement at a User Equipment (UE) based on new radio synchronization signals (NR-SS);
decode, from the UE, a first measurement report that indicates a first signal quality measurement based on the NR-SS;
determine, based on reception of the first measurement report, a transmission direction for transmission of channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS) for a second RRM measurement at the UE based on the CSI-RS;
encode, for transmission, a second control message that indicates the second RRM measurement;
encode the CSI-RS for transmission in accordance with the determined transmission direction;
decode, from the UE, a second measurement report that indicates a second signal quality measurement based on the CSI-RS; and
determine, based at least partly on the first and second signal quality measurements, whether to initiate a handover of the UE from a serving cell to a neighbor cell, wherein the handover of the UE from the serving cell to the neighbor cell is initiated when the first signal quality measurement is less than a first threshold and the second signal quality measurement is less than a second threshold; and

wherein the memory is configured to store at least a portion of the first and second control messages.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
the processing circuitry further configured to:
encode, for transmission, a third control message to indicate a third RRM measurement based on CSI-RS from the neighbor cell;
decode a third measurement report from the UE that indicates a third signal quality measurement based on the CSI-RS from the neighbor cell; and
determine whether to initiate the handover further based at least partly on the third signal quality measurement.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2 ,
the processing circuitry further configured to:
determine to initiate the handover if a difference between the third signal quality measurement and the second signal quality measurement is greater than a threshold.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
the processing circuitry further configured to:
encode the NR-SS for transmission in accordance with a first beam-width; and
encode the CSI-RS for transmission in accordance with a second beam-width, wherein the second beam-width is less than the first beam-width.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein:
the first control message includes a predetermined threshold for the first signal quality measurement to trigger a transmission of the measurement report, by the UE.

6. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein:
the first control message indicates a trigger condition for transmission of the first measurement report,
the trigger condition is based on a threshold for the first signal quality measurement, and
the first signal quality measurement is a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ) or a reference signal signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (RS-SINR).

7. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein:
the second control message indicates a trigger condition for transmission of the second measurement report,
the trigger condition is based on a threshold for the second signal quality measurement, and
the second signal quality measurement is a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ) or a reference signal signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (RS-SINR).

8. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
the processing circuitry further configured to:
if the first signal quality measurement is less than or equal to a threshold: determine the transmission direction, encode the second control message for transmission, and encode the CSI-RS for transmission; and
if the first signal quality measurement is greater than the threshold: determine whether to initiate the handover of the UE to the neighbor cell based on the first signal quality measurement.

9. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein:
the NR-SS are configured based on the serving cell, and the CSI-RS are configured for the UE.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
the processing circuitry further configured to:
encode, for transmission, a third control message that indicates a mapping between the CSI-RS and a cell identifier (ID) of the serving cell,

wherein the third control message includes a system information block (SIB), dedicated signaling or a physical layer code.

11. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein:
the first or second signal quality measurement is a signal to noise ratio (SNR).

12. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the base station is arranged to operate in accordance with a New Radio (NR) protocol.

13. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the apparatus further includes a transceiver to transmit the first and second control messages.

14. The apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the processing circuitry includes a baseband processor to encode the first and second control messages.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors to perform operations for communication by a base station, the operations to configure the one or more processors to:
encode, for transmission to a plurality of transmit-receive points (TRPs) of a cell in which the base station operates, one or more control messages that indicate new radio synchronization signals (NR-SS) to be transmitted by the TRPs for radio resource management (RRM) measurements;
decode, from a User Equipment (UE), a measurement report that indicates a plurality of signal quality measurements based on NR-SS and CSI-RS received from the TRPs;
determine, based on the plurality of signal quality measurements, a combined signal quality measurement for the cell in which the base station operates; and
determine, based on the combined signal quality measurement, whether the handover of the UE from the cell to a neighbor cell is initiated when a first signal quality measurement is less than a first threshold and a second signal quality measurement is less than a second threshold.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium according to claim 15 ,
wherein the base station is located at a different location than at least one of the TRPs.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium according to claim 15 ,
the operations to further configure the one or more processors to:
determine to initiate the handover of the UE to the neighbor cell if the combined signal quality measurement is less than a threshold.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium according to claim 15 ,
the operations to further configure the one or more processors to:
decode another measurement report from the UE that indicates a signal quality measurement based on NR-SS received from the neighbor cell; and
determine, based on a comparison of the combined signal quality measurement and the signal quality measurement based on the NR-SS from the neighbor cell, whether to initiate a handover of the UE to the neighbor cell.

19. An apparatus, comprising:
memory; and
processing circuitry, configured to:
decode, from a base station, one or more control messages that indicate:
a first measurement event that occurs if a first signal quality measurement based on re

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Yiu Candy
• Jeong Kyeongin
• Palat Sudeep K
• Burbidge Richard C
• Heo Youn Hyoung

Classifications

• H04W36/0058

  Transmission of hand-off measurement information, e.g. measurement reports · CPC title

• H04W36/0094 Primary

  Definition of hand-off measurement parameters · CPC title

• H04L5/0048

  Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver (allocation of control signalling H04L5/0053; use of control signalling H04L5/0091) · CPC title