Method, apparatus and computer program product

Abstract

The invention relates to a method, an apparatus and a computer program product. According to some examples, there is provided an apparatus for a user equipment, the apparatus comprising means for obtaining, from a network access node, a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams, wherein the low power synchronization signal is associated with one or more beam tracking signals; estimating a respective receive power and / or receive quality associated with the first beam and one or more other beams based on the obtained low power synchronization signal and one or more beam tracking signals; and selecting a beam from the first beam and one or more other beams based on the estimated respective received power and / or reception quality.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application relates to performing beam selection at a user equipment. Background Art

[0002] A communication system can be considered as a facility that enables communication sessions between two or more entities (such as user terminals, base stations, and / or other nodes) by providing a carrier wave between the various entities involved in the communication session. A communication system can be provided, for example, by a communication network and one or more compatible communication devices. A communication session can include, for example, data communications for carrying communications such as voice, video, electronic mail (email), text messaging, multimedia, and / or content data. Non-limiting examples of services provided include two-way or multi-way calls, data communications or multimedia services, and access to data network systems such as the Internet.

[0003] Communication systems and associated devices typically operate according to a given standard or specification that sets out what the various entities associated with the system are allowed to do and how this should be achieved. The communication protocols and / or parameters that will be used for the connection are also typically defined. One example of a communication system is the UTRAN (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service Terrestrial Radio Access Network (e.g., 3G radio)). Other examples of communication systems are the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) radio access technology and the Long Term Evolution (LTE) of the so-called 5G or New Radio (NR) networks. NR is standardized by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Summary of the Invention

[0004] According to a first aspect, a device for a user equipment is provided, which includes a component for: obtaining a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimating the corresponding received power and / or received quality associated with the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and the one or more beam tracking signals; and selecting a beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the estimated corresponding received power and / or received quality.

[0005] The apparatus may further include means for at least one of: performing at least one of receiver gain control, radio resource management measurements, and timing tracking for the network access node on the selected beam; and providing an indication of the selected beam to the network access node.

[0006] The means for selecting a beam may include means for selecting a beam corresponding to a highest reception power among the corresponding reception powers or a beam corresponding to a highest reception quality among the corresponding reception qualities.

[0007] The means for selecting a beam may include means for determining a respective signal-to-noise ratio for each of one or more other beams; and averaging received power of a set of beam-tracking signal receptions across the respective other beams when the respective signal-to-noise ratio for the respective other beams is below a threshold.

[0008] Selecting the beam may include selecting the beam from the first beam and one or more other beams based on the correlation power estimate.

[0009] The apparatus may include a low power radio mode and a primary radio mode, and further include means for using the low power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal for assisting in transitioning from the low power radio mode to the primary radio mode.

[0010] The selection may include selecting a synchronization signal block index based on an estimated received power and / or reception quality of the low-power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal; and wherein the apparatus may also include a component for switching to a beam associated with the selected synchronization signal block index in the primary radio mode.

[0011] The apparatus may further include means for determining a beam tracking signal from the time domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding on-segment of the on-off keying pattern.

[0012] The apparatus may further include means for determining a beam tracking signal from a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is further included in the same frequency range of the different on-segments of the on-off keying pattern.

[0013] The apparatus may further include means for determining a beam tracking signal based on a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding frequency range.

[0014] The device may also include: a component for determining a beam tracking signal at a boundary frequency carrier of the frequency domain representation of the low-power synchronization signal, or a component for determining a beam tracking signal at multiple frequency carriers of the frequency domain representation of the low-power synchronization signal, wherein the multiple frequency carriers occupy the same symbol.

[0015] According to a second aspect, a device for a network access node is provided, comprising components for: providing a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam to a user equipment; and providing one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams to the user equipment, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0016] The apparatus may further include means for receiving, from the user equipment, an indication of a beam selected from the first beam and the one or more other beams.

[0017] The apparatus may further include means for forming a beam tracking signal from the time domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a respective on-segment of the on-off keying pattern.

[0018] The beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam may also be included in the same frequency range of the different on-segments of the on-off keying pattern.

[0019] The apparatus may further include means for forming a beam tracking signal from a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding frequency range.

[0020] According to a third aspect, a device for a user equipment is provided, which includes at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions, which instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device to at least: obtain a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimate the corresponding received power and / or received quality associated with the first beam and one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and the one or more beam tracking signals; and select a beam from the first beam and one or more other beams based on the estimated corresponding received power and / or received quality.

[0021] At least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to at least one of: perform at least one of receiver gain control, radio resource management measurements, and timing tracking for a network access node on the selected beam; and provide an indication of the selected beam to the network access node.

[0022] The at least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to select a beam corresponding to a highest received power among corresponding received powers or a beam corresponding to a highest received quality among corresponding received qualities.

[0023] At least one processor can be configured to cause the device to: determine a corresponding signal-to-noise ratio for each of one or more other beams; and when the corresponding signal-to-noise ratio for the corresponding other beam is below a threshold, average the received power of a set of beam tracking signal receptions across the corresponding other beams.

[0024] The at least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to select a beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the correlation power estimate.

[0025] The apparatus may include a low power radio mode and a primary radio mode, and the at least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to perform: using the low power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal for assisting in transitioning from the low power radio mode to the primary radio mode.

[0026] At least one processor may be configured to cause the device to select a synchronization signal block index based on an estimated received power and / or reception quality of a low-power synchronization signal and a beam tracking signal; and wherein at least one processor may be configured to cause the device to: switch to a beam associated with the selected synchronization signal block index in a primary radio mode.

[0027] The at least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to determine a beam tracking signal based on the time domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding on-segment of the on-off keying pattern.

[0028] At least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to determine a beam tracking signal based on a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is further included within a same frequency range of different on-segments of the on-off keying pattern.

[0029] The at least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to determine a beam tracking signal based on a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding frequency range.

[0030] At least one processor can be configured to cause the device to determine a beam tracking signal at a boundary frequency carrier of a frequency domain representation of a low-power synchronization signal, or to determine a beam tracking signal at multiple frequency carriers of a frequency domain representation of a low-power synchronization signal, wherein the multiple frequency carriers occupy the same symbol.

[0031] According to a fourth aspect, a device for a network access node is provided, which includes at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions, which instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device to at least: provide a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam to a user equipment; and provide one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams to the user equipment, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0032] At least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to: receive, from a user equipment, an indication of a beam selected from the first beam and one or more other beams.

[0033] The at least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to form a beam tracking signal based on the time domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding on-segment of the on-off keying pattern.

[0034] The beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam may also be included in the same frequency range of the different on-segments of the on-off keying pattern.

[0035] The at least one processor may be configured to cause the apparatus to form a beam tracking signal based on the frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included within a corresponding frequency range.

[0036] According to a fifth aspect, a method performed by a user equipment is provided, the method comprising: obtaining a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimating the corresponding received power and / or received quality associated with the first beam and one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and one or more beam tracking signals; and selecting a beam from the first beam and one or more other beams based on the estimated corresponding received power and / or received quality.

[0037] According to a sixth aspect, a method performed by a network access node is provided, the method comprising: providing a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam to a user equipment; and providing one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams to the user equipment, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0038] According to the seventh aspect, a computer-readable medium comprising instructions is provided, which, when executed by an apparatus for a user equipment, causes the apparatus to perform at least the following operations: obtain a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimate the corresponding received power and / or received quality associated with the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and the one or more beam tracking signals; and select a beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the estimated corresponding received power and / or received quality.

[0039] According to an eighth aspect, a computer-readable medium comprising instructions is provided, which, when executed by an apparatus for a network access node, causes the apparatus to perform at least the following operations: provide a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam to a user device; and provide one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams to the user device, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0040] The network access node according to any of the preceding aspects may include at least one of an eNB, a gNB and / or a NodeB.

[0041] The low power synchronization signal and beam tracking signal according to any of the preceding aspects may be modulated onto a waveform having alternating on-off keying segments.

[0042] The waveform may include an on-off keying 1 form and / or an on-off keying 4 form.

[0043] Based on the Manchester coding scheme, there may be switching transitions within at least two symbols of the low-power synchronization signal and / or the beam tracking signal according to any one of the preceding aspects.

[0044] According to one aspect, a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising program instructions is provided, which, when executed by an apparatus, causes the apparatus to at least perform the method according to any one of the preceding aspects.

[0045] In the above, many different embodiments have been described. It should be understood that further embodiments can be provided by combining any two or more of the above embodiments. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0046] Embodiments will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

[0047] Figure 1 shows a representation of a network system according to some example embodiments;

[0048] Figure 2 shows a representation of a control device according to some example embodiments;

[0049] Figure 3 shows a representation of an apparatus according to some example embodiments;

[0050] Figure 4 An example is shown in which a user equipment moves within a coverage area provided by a network access node;

[0051] Figure 5 An example period of a low power synchronization signal burst is shown;

[0052] Figure 6 An example of obtaining a beam tracking signal from a time domain representation of a low power synchronization signal is shown;

[0053] Figure 7 and Figure 8 An example of detecting beam power in the frequency domain is shown;

[0054] Figure 9a Methods according to some examples are shown; and

[0055] Figure 9b Another method according to some examples is shown. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0056] The following describes methods that may be performed with respect to a wake-up signal.

[0057] In more detail, the following describes a method for forming and using a wake-up signal corresponding to a first beam that includes or otherwise indicates beam tracking information related to one or more other beams. The beam tracking information and the wake-up signal can be sent by the same network access node. The beam tracking information can be sent by different beams of the network access node, while the rest of the wake-up signal is sent by the first beam. In other words, during the transmission opportunity allocated for the wake-up signal corresponding to the first beam, transmission is performed by the other beams (e.g., transmission based on the beam tracking information). The transmission by the other beams can be time and / or frequency multiplexed within the wake-up signal transmission opportunity.

[0058] A receiving user equipment (UE) may receive a wake-up signal corresponding to a first beam and determine the relative quality and / or power of one or more other beams based on the beam tracking information included therein. This may be used by the user equipment to select the beam corresponding to the best reception properties (e.g., the highest power and / or quality relative to the other beams). An indication identifying the selected beam may be transmitted back to the network access node. The network access node may use the indicated selected beam to determine whether to use the indicated selected beam (e.g., replacing "first beam" with "selected beam") to send a wake-up signal to the UE. When the network access node determines to use the selected beam to transmit to the UE, the network access node performs the transmission using the selected beam.

[0059] Figure 1 An example communication environment is shown in which example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented. It should be understood that this is merely for illustrating an example communication environment and that the presently described techniques may be used in other communication environment configurations.

[0060] Figure 1 An example communication environment 100 is shown in which example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented.

[0061] In a communication environment 100, multiple communication devices including user devices 110 and 115 (also referred to herein as "terminals" or "terminal devices") and network device 120 (also referred to herein as "network access node") can communicate with each other. Network device 120 can serve a coverage area referred to as cell 125. User device 110 can access a communication network via cell 125. In some example embodiments, both user device 110 and network device 120 can be configured to implement beamforming technology and communicate with each other via multiple beams.

[0062] The term "terminal device" refers to any terminal device that can communicate wirelessly. By way of example and not limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE), subscriber station (SS), portable subscriber station, mobile device, mobile station (MS), or access terminal (AT). The terminal device may include, but is not limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, a voice over IP (VoIP) phone, a wireless local ring phone, a tablet computer, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a portable computer, a desktop computer, an image capture terminal device such as a digital camera, a game terminal device, a music storage and playback device, a vehicle-mounted wireless terminal device, a wireless endpoint, a mobile station, a laptop embedded device (LEE), a laptop mounted device (LME), a USB dongle, a smart device, a wireless customer premises equipment (CPE), a machine type communication (MTC) device, an Internet of Things (IoT) device, a watch or other wearable device, a head mounted display (HMD), a vehicle, a drone, medical equipment and applications (e.g., remote surgery), industrial equipment and applications (e.g., robots and / or other wireless devices operating in the context of an industrial and / or automated process chain), consumer electronic devices, devices operating on a commercial and / or industrial wireless network, etc. The terminal device may also correspond to the mobile terminal (MT) portion of an IAB node (e.g., a relay node). In the following description, the terms “terminal device,” “communication device,” “terminal,” “user apparatus,” “user equipment,” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

[0063] As used herein, the term "network device" is used interchangeably with "network access node" and refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services from it. A network device may refer to a base station (BS) or access point (AP), for example, a Node B (Node B or NB), an evolved Node B (eNode B or eNB), an NR NB (also known as a gNB); a remote radio unit (RRU); a radio head (RH); a remote radio head (RRH); a relay; an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node; a low power node (such as a femto, pico); a non-terrestrial network (NTN) or non-terrestrial network equipment, such as satellite network equipment, low earth orbit (LEO) satellites and geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellites, aircraft network equipment, etc., depending on the terminology and technology applied. In some example embodiments, the radio access network (RAN) split architecture includes a centralized unit (CU) and a distributed unit (DU) at an IAB donor node. The IAB node includes a mobile terminal (IAB-MT) part that is similar to a UE towards a parent node, and a DU part of the IAB node is similar to a base station towards a next-hop IAB node.

[0064] In some examples, the link from network device 120 to user equipment 110 or 115 is called DL, and the link from user equipment 110 or 115 to network device 120 is called UL. Links are also referred to as "channels" in this article. In DL, network device 120 is a Tx device (or transmitter), and user equipment 110 or 115 is an Rx device (or receiver). In UL, user equipment 110 or 115 is a Tx device (or transmitter), and network device 120 is an Rx device (or receiver). The link between user equipment 110 and another user equipment (not shown) is called a side link (SL). In SL, one of the user equipment is a Tx device (or transmitter), and the other of the user equipment is an Rx device (or receiver).

[0065] Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any suitable communication protocol, including, but not limited to, first generation (1G), second generation (2G), third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), fifth generation (5G), sixth generation (6G), etc. cellular communication protocols, wireless local area network communication protocols such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11, etc., and / or any other protocol currently known or developed in the future. In addition, communications may utilize any suitable wireless communication technology, including, but not limited to, code division multiple access (CDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division duplex (FDD), time division duplex (TDD), multiple input multiple output (MIMO), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM), discrete Fourier transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM), and / or any other technology currently known or developed in the future.

[0066] Figure 2 An example of a control apparatus 200 is shown for enabling a network device 120 (such as Figure 1 The control device 200 may include at least one random access memory (RAM) 211a, at least one read-only memory (ROM) 211b, at least one processor 212, 213, and an input / output interface 214. The at least one processor 212, 213 may be coupled to the RAM 211a and the ROM 211b. The at least one processor 212, 213 may be configured to execute appropriate software code 215. The software code 215 may, for example, enable execution of one or more steps to perform one or more aspects of the present invention. The software code 215 may be stored in the ROM 211b. The control device 200 may be interconnected with another control device 200 that controls another function of the network device. In some embodiments, each function of the network device includes a control device 200. In some exemplary embodiments, the device 200 may be implemented at the network device 120 or may be the network device 120.

[0067] Figure 3 An example of a terminal 300 is shown, such as Figure 1 The user equipment 110 and 115 are shown. Terminal 300 can be provided by any device capable of transmitting and receiving radio signals, such as the user equipment described herein. Terminal 300 can provide data communications, such as for bearer communications. The communications can be one or more of voice, electronic mail (email), text messaging, multimedia, data, machine data, etc.

[0068] The terminal 300 may receive signals over the air or radio interface 307 via suitable means for receiving and may transmit signals via suitable means for transmitting radio signals. Figure 3 In FIG, the transceiver arrangement is schematically designated by block 306. The transceiver arrangement 306 may be provided, for example, by a radio component and an associated antenna arrangement. The antenna arrangement may be arranged internally or externally to the mobile device.

[0069] The terminal 300 may be provided with at least one processor 301, at least one memory ROM 302a, at least one RAM 302b and other possible components 303 for use in software and hardware assisted execution of the tasks it is designed to perform, including access to a system (such as that described above with respect to Figure 1 and Figure 2 The network device described herein provides network access and control of communication with other communication devices. At least one processor 301 is coupled to RAM 302b and ROM 302a. The at least one processor 301 may be configured to execute appropriate software code 308. Software code 308 may, for example, enable implementation of one or more aspects of the present invention. Software code 308 may be stored in ROM 302a.

[0070] The processor, memory and other related control devices may be provided on an appropriate circuit board and / or in a chipset. This feature is indicated by reference numeral 304. The device may optionally have a user interface such as a keypad 305, a touch-sensitive screen or touchpad, a combination thereof, or the like. Optionally, one or more of a display, a speaker and a microphone may be provided, depending on the type of device.

[0071] In some exemplary embodiments, the terminal 300 may be an apparatus comprising at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the user equipment 110 , 115 to perform the examples or embodiments described herein.

[0072] Several features have been introduced in 3GPP to reduce device energy consumption and extend battery life, particularly for user equipment.

[0073] One large contributor to UE energy consumption involves the monitoring of downlink channels, such as the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

[0074] To reduce such downlink channel monitoring, a wake-up signal (WUS) based sequence was introduced in 3GPP Release 15 for some machine-type communications, and was extended to include more types of UEs in Release 16.

[0075] According to such a system, a UE may enter a reduced energy radio resource control (RRC) state (e.g., IDLE mode) and monitor the reception of a wake-up signal within at least one predetermined timing window. When no wake-up signal is received within the timing window, the UE maintains its reduced energy RRC state. When a wake-up signal is received during the timing window, the UE monitors the corresponding paging occasion (PO) during subsequent time instances to determine whether to change to a more active RRC state (such as RRC ACTIVE mode). An example of a wake-up signal defined in Release 17 is called a Paging Early Indicator (PEI). It will be understood that other types of signals may provide similar functionality to the wake-up signal. It will also be understood that the mode in which the UE is considered to be receiving in ACTIVE mode is called Main Radio (MR) mode, and the mode in which the UE is considered to be receiving in reduced power mode is called Low Power Radio (LR) mode. These two modes may use completely different receiving devices. As another example, the two modes may utilize at least a portion of the same receiving device (e.g., the LR mode may be performed by only a portion of the receiver architecture used for receiving during MR mode).

[0076] A potential new wake-up signal for Release 19 and above is called a low-power wake-up signal (LP-WUS). There are various areas of development to define this LP-WUS, including the specification of a low-power synchronization signal (LP-SS), which may have a transmission period of Y ms for a low-power wake-up receiver (LP-WUR). LP-SS will also be referred to herein as the wake-up signal synchronization signal.

[0077] The primary purpose of the WUS LP-SS is to serve as a timing reference for waking up receivers. Additionally, waking up receivers can use LP-SS to perform approximate radio resource management measurements. In other words, LP-SS can be used for synchronization and / or radio resource management of the serving cell.

[0078] The wake-up signal can be sent in a variety of forms. Reference is made below to an on-off keying (OOK) wake-up signal and an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based wake-up signal. These are further described below.

[0079] For OFDM-based wake-up signals, the existing OFDM-based New Radio (NR) signal structure can be reused to send the wake-up signal with minimal or no impact on the waveform generation of the base station. For example, the existing 5G Secondary Synchronization Signal (SSS) and other reference signals as well as existing sequences (such as m-sequences and Zadoff-Chu sequences) can be reused to send the wake-up signal. Such sequences have good autocorrelation and cross-correlation properties, making it possible to perform correlation-based detection with desired detection performance in both the time and frequency domains.

[0080] For an OOK-based wake-up signal, an on-off keying (OOK) waveform is a special form of amplitude shift keying in which information is carried by a sequence of ON (e.g., high power level) and OFF (e.g., low power level) signals in an alternating ON-OFF pattern (e.g., an ON-OFF sequence, such as ON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON-OFF, or ON-ON-OFF-OFF-ON-ON-OFF-OFF, or ON-ON-OFF-ON-ON-OFF, etc.). The OOK waveform is attractive for low-power and low-complexity receivers because it can be detected with an envelope detector in the time domain without the need for power-consuming components such as an accurate oscillator and a phase-locked loop (PLL).

[0081] While OOK wake-up signals offer power savings for WUR, they offer reduced coverage compared to OFDM-based signals for the same resource overhead. Therefore, to achieve the target coverage, the system overhead in terms of time-frequency resource consumption is higher than that of OFDM-based wake-up signals. Another consideration is that the OOK waveform needs to be generated using existing base stations while ensuring efficient coexistence with existing OFDM-based transmissions.

[0082] There are two main variations of the OOK waveform generated by an OFDM transmitter: single-bit OOK and multi-bit OOK.

[0083] For single-bit OOK, only one ON / OFF OOK segment is transmitted within an OFDM symbol. The OOK WUS can be generated by transmitting one bit (0 or 1) per OFDM symbol. In this case, the WUS subcarrier has non-zero power to generate a "1" bit, while the WUS subcarrier has zero power to generate a "0" bit. Single-bit OOK generation of the ON / OFF signal is straightforward and has minimal impact on the OFDM transmitter.

[0084] For multi-bit OOK, multiple ON / OFF OOK segments are transmitted within one (eg, within a single) OFDM symbol. Specifically, the OFDM transmitter can generate a time domain signal that is close to a desired OOK waveform.

[0085] In addition, a coordinated design of both OOK and OFDM-based WURs can be considered, where the signal can be received by both OOK-based WURs and OFDM-based WURs. In this case, an OFDM sequence can be additionally modulated on top of the OOK waveform to carry information and provide benefits to devices that support OFDM-based WURs.

[0086] It is currently expected that LP-SS will be based on an on-off keying 1 (OOK-1) waveform and / or an on-off keying 4 (OOK-4) waveform, with or without overlapping orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) sequences.

[0087] On-off keying (OOK) is a well-known modulation that allows low-power receivers to implement (e.g., envelope and / or energy detection). It is a special case of amplitude shift keying (ASK) in which there are only two amplitudes, ON and OFF. When applied to multi-carrier systems such as OFDM, OOK is also called multi-carrier (MC) OOK because the ON and OFF signals usually span multiple subcarriers. OOK-1 is a classic MC-OOK scheme in which M=1 bit is transmitted per OFDM symbol. For OOK-4, the coded bits of each OFDM symbol are mapped to a time domain sequence to produce a time domain signal. Subsequently, the time domain signal is transformed to the frequency domain before being mapped to the OFDM resource grid.

[0088] When the UE switches from using the main radio (MR) mode to using the low power receiver (LR) mode, during the LR mode, the UE will wake up to detect LP-WUS only during the scheduled WUS opportunity. The UE may also occasionally wake up from the low power mode to receive the low power synchronization signal (LP-SS) to maintain timing alignment with the UE of the serving cell. The UE may also use LP-SS reception to perform radio resource management (RRM) measurements (e.g., signal-to-interference ratio, received signal power, etc.) and to determine that the UE is still in the coverage area where the UE can receive WUS in the low power receiver mode.

[0089] Figure 4 4 shows an example of UE 401 moving within the coverage area provided by network access node 402. Figure 4As shown, the network access node 402 is configured to provide eight synchronization signal block (SSB) beams corresponding to corresponding coverage areas (SSB beam 0 to SSB beam 7), each SSB beam being associated with a corresponding LP-SS sequence. An SSB beam can be considered a beam used to broadcast an SSB, or otherwise considered a beam used to provide information for synchronizing UEs to a network access node (such as a gNB). A synchronization signal block is a cell-specific signal sent by a network access node with a known sequence that can be measured by a calibrated measurement receiver. In the current 3GPP specification, each SSB occupies 240 subcarriers in the frequency domain and 4 symbols in the time domain. If SSB beamforming is enabled, each SSB is transmitted on a different spatial beam.

[0090] like Figure 4 As shown in the example of , the UE can move between SSB beams broadcast by the network access node, and the UE will therefore have to change the SSB beam tracked by the UE in order to obtain the strongest (e.g., "best") SSB beam.

[0091] It is assumed that LP-SS is broadcast pseudo-omnidirectionally (e.g., on all SSB beams). It is assumed that LP-SS from different SSB beam directions are broadcast time-multiplexed on the same carrier frequency so that the LR does not have to switch frequencies between them. Therefore, in order to perform beam tracking of LP-SS, the UE needs to estimate the power of LP-SS from different beam directions by receiving multiple LP-SS opportunities originating from different LP-SS beam directions. This is for Figure 4 Examples of Figure 5 Shown.

[0092] Figure 5 Shown is a period of an LP-SS burst 501. Each burst includes eight different LP-SSs, corresponding to SSB beams 0 to 8. Each LP-SS includes a corresponding preamble, payload, and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field.

[0093] In MR mode, tracking the best SSB beam is performed by performing continuous reception of SSB blocks. This continuous reception can be power-consuming. In particular, even when the UE only needs to receive the strongest LP-SS, the UE will still have to periodically monitor the LP-SS opportunities to see if a stronger LP-SS opportunity exists. In the best case, the LP-SS opportunities are temporally adjacent to each other, and the UE does not need to wake up multiple times to monitor. However, even in this best case scenario, the UE is still in reception mode for longer than the duration of the LP-SS opportunity for the serving beam only.

[0094] The following aims to address at least one of the above issues.

[0095] Specifically, it is proposed below to configure an LP-SS signal for a specific SSB beam such that it includes at least a portion of an LP-SS signal corresponding to another SSB beam.

[0096] For example, when a UE receives an LP-SS signal corresponding to a serving beam (where a serving beam can be considered a beam that the UE is currently considering as the best beam and is using for at least one of automatic gain control (AGC), RRM measurement, or timing tracking of the network access node providing the beam), the LP-SS signal corresponding to the serving beam can be formed such that a portion of the LP-SS signal originates from beams other than the serving beam of the network access node. Furthermore, the amount of transmission performed by the serving beam in the LP-SS can be greater than the amount of transmission performed by one or more (including all) other beams of the network access node within the LP-SS.

[0097] A simple OOK modulation scheme allows the receiver to perform symbol detection on the superposed signal without any channel equalization (which does not require coherent detection), but can simply rely on detecting the power difference between ON and OFF symbols in the Manchester coded signal.

[0098] Figures 6 to 8 The following example shows an example where a current LP-SS signal corresponding to a current serving beam is transmitted together with at least a portion of another LP-SS signal corresponding to another beam. The UE can use the power of the received signal to estimate the corresponding power of the associated SSB beam. This can be used by the UE to make decisions when transitioning from LR mode to MR mode, such as whether to switch from the current LP-SS signal to another beam LP-SS signal, and / or to select the "best" SSB beam index.

[0099] Specifically, Figure 6 The example of shows an example of obtaining a beam tracking signal from the time domain representation of the ON symbol signal of the MC-OOK modulated LP-SS signal, while Figure 7 and Figure 8 The example of FIG. 1 shows an example of obtaining a beam tracking signal from a frequency domain representation of ON symbols of an MC-OOK modulated LP-SS signal.

[0100] These are described in more detail below.

[0101] As mentioned above, Figure 6 This example shows how to derive a beam tracking signal from a time-domain representation of the ON symbol of an MC-OOK modulated LP-SS signal. This example can be applied to both sequence-based receivers (i.e., receivers that sample the signal in the time or frequency domain and correlate the samples with the transmitted sequence) and envelope detection (ED)-based receivers (i.e., receivers that detect the signal envelope and signal energy).

[0102] In more detail, Figure 6 Transmission performed in the first transmission opportunity of the serving LP-SS beam of the serving beam is shown. Figure 6 A first portion 601 including bits corresponding only to the serving LP-SS, a second portion 602 including bits corresponding to beams other than the serving beam, and a third portion 603 including bits corresponding only to the serving LP-SS are shown. It should be understood that this is merely an example and that other configurations in time are possible. For example, Figure 6 The signal may include only the first and second parts (but not the third part) in any order. Positioning the beam tracking signal at Figure 6 The end of the signal may be used, for example, to affect AGC and / or filtering of another part of the LP-SS signal.

[0103] exist Figure 6 In this example, it is assumed that some consecutive MC-OOK symbols are reserved for symbols transmitted from other SSB beams. In other words, in Figure 6 In the example shown in Figure 2, the entire LP-SS frequency bandwidth is occupied by the beam tracking signal. Figure 6 It shows how the beam tracking signal is time multiplexed within the serving LP-SS signal.

[0104] During the second portion 602, each non-serving SSB beam transmits a signal used by the LR to track the power of the beam relative to the power of the other beams. These beam tracking signals can be placed in adjacent ON symbols such that the ON symbols are separated by OFF symbols in between. Thus, after Manchester encoding, the resulting sequence may appear to be an alternating sequence of ON and OFF symbols, which will allow the OFF symbols to act as guard times between ON symbols. By configuring the transmission so that at least one OFF symbol between ON symbols can act as a guard time, the ON symbols will not interfere with each other (e.g., due to different propagation delays).

[0105] exist Figure 6 In this example, the LR mode UE can sample the signal and calculate the power in each ON symbol within the beam tracking signal. The LR mode UE can use this sampled power to estimate which SSB beam has the strongest power in the measured LR mode. The LR mode does not require the absolute power levels of these measured beam tracking signals, as the assessment of which beam is best can be determined based on the relative power estimates.

[0106] The signal power in the OFF portion of an (e.g., Manchester-encoded) OOK symbol can be used to estimate the noise contribution associated with the received ON symbol. In other words, the power measured during the OFF symbol can be used to determine how noisy the power estimate in the ON symbol is. When a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is present, the UE may decide to obtain an average power estimate received across multiple LP-SSs. In this case, the average power estimate can be used to determine the SNR and / or make RRM decisions.

[0107] At least one of the received beam-tracking signals may exhibit a different channel fading condition than another of the received beam-tracking signals. The UE may mitigate such channel fading by employing a diversity scheme. Such a diversity scheme may include, for example, switching the UE's receive antenna between each LP-SS reception and / or having the access network node concurrently transmit the LP-SS on two different polarizations on the access network node's transmit antenna.

[0108] Figure 7 The time-domain method is insensitive to frequency offsets because the power is distributed across the entire WUS signal bandwidth of 4.32 MHz (defined using the current specification). Therefore, even if the signal is offset by 100 kHz, this will only cause the receive filter's cutoff frequency to cut off a small portion of the LP-SS signal, so the impact on the total power will be negligible. Furthermore, even if the receive filter cuts off some power, all beam-specific reception will occur, so the relative power between beam receptions will remain comparable.

[0109] Figure 7 and Figure 8 Another example of detecting beam power in the frequency domain is shown. This can be deployed by, for example, a sequence-based receiver.

[0110] In these examples, it is assumed that certain subcarriers within the LP-SS bandwidth of the serving SSB beam (e.g., frequency domain resources corresponding to the LP-SS bandwidth) are reserved for beam tracking signals corresponding to the non-serving SSB beam. In other words, the non-serving SSB beam can use the frequency domain resources corresponding to the serving SSB beam to transmit signals. This is relative to Figure 7 Shown.

[0111] Figure 7 ON symbol time resources and OFF symbol time resources along the x-axis and frequency resources (in the form of physical resource blocks PRBs) along the y-axis are shown.

[0112] Figure 7 The frequency resources of the ON symbol are divided into 12 subcarriers of equal width. The first and last frequency resources in each ON symbol are reserved for use by non-serving beams.

[0113] For example, Figure 7 The first ON symbol in is shown as including beam tracking signal transmission corresponding to the first non-serving beam in the first physical resource block and the twelfth physical resource block and LP-SS transmission corresponding to the serving beam in the second subcarrier to the eleventh subcarrier.

[0114] Just for illustration, Figure 7 The example uses the parameter settings for signal bandwidth, SCS, and LR mode sampling rate from 3GPP TS 38.869. The WUS signal bandwidth in this example is 4.32 MHz, and the SCS is 30 kHz, corresponding to 12 physical resource blocks (PRBs) (144 subcarriers) within the WUS bandwidth. In the illustration, it is assumed that each beam tracking signal is constructed to occupy one PRB.

[0115] also, Figure 7 The second ON symbol in is shown as including beam tracking signal transmission corresponding to the second non-serving beam in the first physical resource block and the twelfth physical resource block and LP-SS transmission corresponding to the serving beam in the second subcarrier to the eleventh subcarrier.

[0116] also, Figure 7 The third ON symbol in is shown as including beam tracking signal transmission corresponding to the third non-serving beam in the first physical resource block and the twelfth physical resource block and LP-SS transmission corresponding to the serving beam in the second subcarrier to the eleventh subcarrier.

[0117] The beam tracking signal can be located at any configured PRB in the OFDM symbol. For example, the beam tracking signal can be located at opposite ends of the PRB of the OFDM symbol (according to Figure 7 ), the beam tracking signal can be located in a more central PRB of OFDM, and / or the beam tracking signal can be located at a single end of OFDM (e.g., the first PRB and the second PRB in OFDM).

[0118] At least a portion of the beam tracking signal may be zero (e.g., not including data) on the subcarriers closest to the serving beam portion to serve as a guard band between the beam tracking signal and the LP-SS transmission. This may allow frequency offsets in an LR mode receiver (e.g., an LR mode receiver may not be accurately tuned to the beam frequency and may be offset from the beam frequency by a frequency offset) to be tolerated without significantly negatively impacting the relative signal strength estimated for each beam.

[0119] In other words, it may be advantageous to configure the signaling to include some unused subcarriers around the resources used for the beam tracking signal of the LP-SS, so that the UE can separate the beam tracking signal from the rest of the LP-SS (or beam tracking signals from other beams) even when there are some frequency errors in reception. The null subcarriers can allow the network access node to increase the power on other subcarriers so that the average energy per resource element (EPRE) is still met. The network access node can also power-boost the transmit power of the LP-SS signal to compensate for the PRBs used for the beam tracking signal.

[0120] Transmitting beam tracking signals at both ends of the LP-SS bandwidth can help reduce the effects of channel fading by, for example, selecting a stronger frequency bin or by averaging the power received in the two frequency bins. Alternatively, instead of transmitting at both ends of the LP-SS signal bandwidth, the network access node can transmit on alternating sides of the LP-SS signal when repeatedly transmitting on a particular beam (e.g., such that the first transmission has the beam tracking signal at the first end of the ON symbol (e.g., the first and second PRBs), and the second transmission has the beam tracking signal at the second end of the ON symbol (e.g., the eleventh and twelfth PRBs).

[0121] Figure 8 Another example of beam tracking signal distribution in the frequency domain is shown.

[0122] exist Figure 8 In the example of , the first ON symbol includes only the beam tracking signal (e.g., the first PRB, the fourth PRB, the seventh PRB, and the tenth PRB are used for the first beam tracking signal, the second PRB, the fifth PRB, the eighth PRB, and the eleventh PRB are used for the second beam tracking signal, and the third PRB, the sixth PRB, the ninth PRB, and the twelfth PRB are used for the third beam tracking signal). In addition, the second ON symbol and the third ON symbol include LP-SS signaling for the serving beam.

[0123] exist Figure 8 In this example, the beam tracking signals are distributed across multiple separate frequency bins (e.g., across multiple separate frequency subcarriers), making the signaling more robust to channel variations. Furthermore, multiple beam tracking signals are shown as being frequency multiplexed within the same ON symbol. With this mapping, the entire ON symbol is allocated for beam tracking signals, so they have no impact on the LP-SS signal itself.

[0124] and Figure 6 Compared to the time domain example, Figure 7 and Figure 8These frequency domain examples are more sensitive to frequency errors because the beam-specific power is constrained to fewer subcarriers. However, 12 subcarriers span 360kHz, so smaller frequency offsets will not have a major impact.

[0125] exist Figures 6 to 8 In all of the above examples, when the LP includes CRC check bits, the beam tracking signals can be ignored and / or removed before processing the LP-SS signals. Since the network access node is unaware of the level of the beam tracking signals at the UE, the access network node cannot know whether the UE interprets the signals as ON symbols or OFF symbols, and therefore these signals are not included in the CRC calculation.

[0126] refer to Figure 9a , which illustrates methods according to some examples. Specifically, Figure 9a A method that may be performed by a UE is shown.

[0127] refer to Figure 9a , at 900, the method includes: obtaining a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0128] At 902, the method includes estimating, based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and one or more beam tracking signals, respective received power and / or received quality associated with a first beam and one or more other beams. For example, the received power may refer to low-power reference signal received power (LP-RSRP), which may be associated with an LP-SS. The LP-RSRP may correspond to the received power of the LP-SS. The received quality may refer to low-power reference signal received quality (LP-RSRQ), which may be associated with the LP-SS. The LP-RSRQ may correspond to the received quality of the LP-SS. The LP-RSRQ may also be associated with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

[0129] At 904 , the method includes selecting a beam from the first beam and one or more other beams based on the estimated respective received powers and / or received qualities.

[0130] refer to Figure 9b , which illustrates another method according to some examples. Specifically, Figure 9b A method that may be performed by a network access node is shown.

[0131] refer to Figure 9b , at 906, the method includes providing a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to the first beam to the user equipment.

[0132] At 908, the method includes providing one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to the one or more other beams to the user equipment, wherein the low power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0133] The presently described approach may be associated with a number of different advantages.

[0134] For example, the presently described method provides a power efficient method that avoids the power consuming beam tracking method used for normal SSB reception by the primary receiver (MR). In other words, the presently described method does not require receiving the entire LP-SS signal from each SSB beam.

[0135] Furthermore, the beam tracking signal of LP-SS allows the UE to frequently track and select the best SSB beam to use without having to receive all LP-SS beam opportunities.

[0136] The frequency-based approach can be used by UEs that sample the signal and support signal processing. This processing can involve fast Fourier transforms, but it can also support simpler and more efficient time-domain correlation in LR mode. This involves additional power consumption, but this additional power consumption can be saved by obtaining the benefits of beam tracking signals, allowing the UE to reduce the occurrence of receiving the full LP-SS signal from the non-serving SSB beam.

[0137] It should be understood that the apparatus may include or be coupled to other units or modules, such as a radio component or radio head, for or for transmitting and / or receiving. Although the apparatus has been described as one entity, different modules and memories may be implemented in one or more physical or logical entities.

[0138] Note that while some embodiments have been described with respect to 5G networks, similar principles may be applied with respect to other networks and communication systems. Thus, while certain embodiments have been described above by way of example with reference to certain example architectures for wireless networks, technologies, and standards, the embodiments may be applied to any other suitable form of communication system in addition to the communication system shown and described herein.

[0139] It is also noted herein that while the above describes example embodiments, there are several variations and modifications which may be made to the disclosed solution without departing from the scope of the present invention.

[0140] As used herein, “at least one of: ” and “at least one of ” and similar expressions, where a list of two or more elements is joined by “and” or “or”, mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all of the elements.

[0141] In general, various embodiments may be implemented in hardware or dedicated circuitry, software, logic, or any combination thereof. Some aspects of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware, while other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software that may be executed by a controller, microprocessor, or other computing device, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Although various aspects of the present disclosure may be shown and described as block diagrams, flow charts, or using some other graphical representation, it is well understood that the blocks, devices, systems, techniques, or methods described herein may be implemented, as non-limiting examples, in hardware, software, firmware, dedicated circuitry or logic, general-purpose hardware or a controller or other computing device, or some combination thereof.

[0142] As used in this application, the term "circuitry" may refer to one or more or all of the following: (a) hardware circuit implementation only (such as implementation in analog and / or digital circuits only) and (b) a combination of hardware circuitry and software such as (where applicable): (c) a combination of analog and / or digital hardware circuitry and software / firmware and (d) any portion of a hardware processor with software (including a digital signal processor), software and memory working together to enable a device such as a mobile phone or server to perform various functions) and (e) Hardware circuit(s) and / or processor(s) (such as microprocessor(s) or a portion of microprocessor(s)) require software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but when not required for operation, the software may not be present.

[0143] This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of the term in this application, including any claims. As another example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or a portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and / or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in a server, cellular network device, or other computing or networking device.

[0144] The embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by computer software that can be executed by a data processor of a mobile device, such as in a processor entity, or by hardware, or by a combination of software and hardware. Computer software or programs (also referred to as program products, including software routines, applets and / or macros) can be stored in any device-readable data storage medium, and they include program instructions for performing specific tasks. A computer program product may include one or more computer executable components that are configured to perform an embodiment when the program is running. The one or more computer executable components may be at least one software code or a portion thereof.

[0145] Also in this regard, it should be noted that any block of the logic flow, such as in the accompanying drawings, may represent program steps, or interconnected logic circuits, blocks and functions, or a combination of program steps and logic circuits, blocks and functions. The software may be stored on physical media such as memory chips or memory blocks implemented within a processor, magnetic media such as hard disks or floppy disks, and optical media such as DVDs and their data variants, CDs. Physical media is non-transitory media.

[0146] The term "non-transitory" as used herein is a limitation of the medium itself (ie, tangible, not a signal), not a limitation on data storage persistence (eg, RAM versus ROM).

[0147] The memory may be of any type suitable for the local technical environment and may be implemented using any suitable data storage technology, such as semiconductor-based memory devices, magnetic memory devices and systems, optical memory devices and systems, fixed memory, and removable memory. As non-limiting examples, the data processor may be of any type suitable for the local technical environment and may include one or more of a general-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, a microprocessor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), an FPGA, a gate-level circuit, and a processor based on a multi-core processor architecture.

[0148] Embodiments of the present disclosure can be practiced in various components such as integrated circuit modules. The design of integrated circuits is a highly automated process. Complex and powerful software tools are available to convert a logic level design into a semiconductor circuit design ready to be etched and formed on a semiconductor substrate.

[0149] The scope of protection sought by various embodiments of the present disclosure is set out in the independent claims. Embodiments and features described in this specification that do not fall within the scope of the independent claims (if any) should be interpreted as examples that help understand the various embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0150] The foregoing description has provided by way of non-limiting examples a complete and informative description of exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. However, various modifications and variations may become apparent to those skilled in the relevant art in view of the foregoing description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the appended claims. Nevertheless, all such and similar modifications of the teachings of this disclosure will still fall within the scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims. Indeed, other embodiments exist including combinations of one or more embodiments with any other embodiments previously discussed.

[0151] In addition, various implementations of the present disclosure may be described with reference to the following clauses, and features thereof may be combined in any reasonable manner.

[0152] Clause 1. A device for a user equipment, the device comprising components for: obtaining a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimating corresponding received power and / or received quality associated with the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and the one or more beam tracking signals; and selecting a beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the estimated corresponding received power and / or the received quality.

[0153] Clause 2. The apparatus according to clause 1 further comprises a component for at least one of: performing at least one of receiver gain control, radio resource management measurements, and timing tracking for the network access node on the selected beam; and providing an indication of the selected beam to the network access node.

[0154] Clause 3. An apparatus according to clause 1 or 2, wherein the means for selecting a beam includes a means for selecting the beam corresponding to the highest received power among the corresponding received powers or the beam corresponding to the highest received quality among the corresponding received qualities.

[0155] Clause 4. An apparatus according to any preceding clause, wherein the means for selecting the beam comprises means for: determining a corresponding signal-to-noise ratio for each of the one or more other beams; and averaging the received power of a set of beam tracking signals received across the corresponding other beams when the corresponding signal-to-noise ratio for the corresponding other beam is below a threshold.

[0156] Clause 5. The apparatus of any preceding clause, wherein said selecting the beam comprises selecting the beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on a correlation power estimate.

[0157] Clause 6. An apparatus according to any preceding clause, wherein the apparatus includes a low power radio mode and a main radio mode, and further includes a component for performing the following: using the low power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal to assist in the transition from the low power radio mode to the main radio mode.

[0158] Clause 7. An apparatus according to clause 6, wherein: the selection comprises selecting a synchronization signal block index based on the estimated received power and / or the reception quality of the low-power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal; and wherein the apparatus further comprises a component for: switching to a beam associated with the selected synchronization signal block index in the main radio mode.

[0159] Clause 8. The apparatus according to any preceding clause further comprises: a component for determining the beam tracking signal based on a time domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding on-segment of the on-off keying mode.

[0160] Item 9. The apparatus according to Item 8 further comprises: a component for determining the beam tracking signal based on the frequency domain representation of the low-power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is also included in the same frequency range of different on-segments of the on-off keying mode.

[0161] Clause 10. The apparatus according to any one of clauses 1 to 7 further comprises: a component for determining the beam tracking signal based on a frequency domain representation of the low-power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a corresponding frequency range.

[0162] Clause 11. The apparatus according to clause 10 further includes: a component for determining the beam tracking signal at a boundary frequency carrier of the frequency domain representation of the low-power synchronization signal, or a component for determining the beam tracking signal at multiple frequency carriers of the frequency domain representation of the low-power synchronization signal, wherein the multiple frequency carriers occupy the same symbol.

[0163] Clause 12. A device for a network access node, the device comprising components for: providing a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam to a user equipment; and providing one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams to the user equipment, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0164] Clause 13. The apparatus of clause 12, further comprising means for receiving, from the user equipment, an indication of a beam selected from the first beam and the one or more other beams.

[0165] Clause 14. The apparatus according to clause 12 or 13 further comprises: a component for forming the beam tracking signal based on the time domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in the corresponding on-segment of the on-off keying mode.

[0166] Clause 15. The apparatus of clause 14, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is further included within a same frequency range of different on-segments of the on-off keying pattern.

[0167] Clause 16. The apparatus of clause 12, further comprising means for forming the beam tracking signal from a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included within a corresponding frequency range.

[0168] Clause 17. An apparatus according to any preceding clause, wherein the network access node comprises at least one of an eNB, a gNB and / or a NodeB.

[0169] Clause 18. The apparatus of any preceding clause, wherein the low power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal are modulated onto a waveform having alternating on-off keying segments.

[0170] Clause 19. The apparatus of clause 18, wherein the waveform comprises an on-off keying 1 form and / or an on-off keying 4 form.

[0171] Clause 20. The apparatus of any of clauses 18 to 19, wherein there is a switching transition within at least two symbols of the low power synchronization signal and / or the beam tracking signal based on a Manchester coding scheme.

[0172] Clause 21. A device for a user equipment, the device comprising at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions, the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, causing the device to at least: obtain a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimate the corresponding received power and / or received quality associated with the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and the one or more beam tracking signals; and select a beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the estimated corresponding received power and / or the received quality.

[0173] Clause 22. A device for a network access node, the device comprising at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions, the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, causing the device to at least: provide a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam to a user device; and provide one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams to the user device, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

[0174] Clause 23. A method performed by a user equipment, the method comprising: obtaining a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams from a network access node, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimating the corresponding received power and / or received quality associated with the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and the one or more beam tracking signals; and selecting a beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the estimated corresponding received power and / or the received quality.

[0175] Clause 24. A method performed by a network access node, the method comprising: providing a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam to a user device; and providing one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams to the user device, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals.

Claims

1. An apparatus for user equipment for communication, the apparatus comprising means for: obtaining, from a network access node, a low-power synchronization signal corresponding to a first beam and one or more beam tracking signals corresponding to one or more other beams, wherein the low-power synchronization signal is associated with the one or more beam tracking signals; estimating respective received powers and / or received qualities associated with the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the obtained low-power synchronization signal and the one or more beam tracking signals; as well as A beam is selected from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on the estimated respective received powers and / or the received qualities.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising means for at least one of: performing at least one of receiver gain control, radio resource management measurements, and timing tracking for the network access node on the selected beam; and An indication of the selected beam is provided to the network access node.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the means for selecting a beam comprises means for selecting the beam corresponding to the highest received power among the corresponding received powers or the beam corresponding to the highest received quality among the corresponding received qualities.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the means for selecting the beam comprises means for: determining a respective signal-to-noise ratio for each of the one or more other beams; and The received powers of a set of beam tracking signal receptions across corresponding other beams are averaged when the corresponding signal-to-noise ratio for the corresponding other beams is below a threshold. 5 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the selecting the beam comprises selecting the beam from the first beam and the one or more other beams based on a correlation power estimate.

6. An apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the apparatus includes a low power radio mode and a main radio mode, and further includes a component for performing the following: using the low power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal to assist in the transition from the low power radio mode to the main radio mode.

7. The device according to claim 6, wherein: The selecting comprises selecting a synchronization signal block index based on the estimated received power and / or the reception quality of the low-power synchronization signal and the beam tracking signal; and wherein the apparatus further comprises means for: Switching to a beam associated with the selected synchronization signal block index in the primary radio mode.

8. The device according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: means for determining the beam tracking signal from a time domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a respective on-segment of an on-off keying pattern.

9. The apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising: means for determining the beam tracking signal from a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is further comprised within a same frequency range of different on-segments of the on-off keying pattern.

10. The device according to any one of claims 1 to 2, further comprising: means for determining the beam tracking signal from a frequency domain representation of the low power synchronization signal, wherein the beam tracking signal corresponding to each beam is included in a respective frequency range.

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