Layer 1 (L1) and layer (L2) signaling of cell change and / or beam change

Abstract

Systems and techniques for performing wireless communications are disclosed. For example, a method for wireless communication at a network entity (e.g., a base station or a portion thereof) can include selecting a special cell (SpCell) from one or more candidate cells for communication with a user equipment (UE); and sending an indication of the SpCell to the UE (User Equipment). In another example, a method for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) may include receiving an indication of a special cell (SpCell) from a network entity; and in response to the indication, communicating with the SpCell.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communications. In some implementations, examples of signaling for cell change and / or beam change, such as layer 1 (L1) and / or layer 2 (L2) signaling for cell change and / or beam change, are described. Background Art

[0002] Wireless communication systems are deployed to provide a variety of telecommunication services including telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and the like. Wireless communication systems have evolved over several generations, including first generation analog wireless telephone service (1G), second generation (2G) digital wireless telephone service (including transitional 2.5G networks), third generation (3G) high-speed data wireless service with Internet capabilities, fourth generation (4G) services (e.g., Long Term Evolution (LTE), WiMax), and fifth generation (5G) services (e.g., New Radio (NR)). There are many different types of wireless communication systems in use today, including cellular systems and personal communications service (PCS) systems. Examples of known cellular systems include the cellular analog Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), and digital cellular systems based on code division multiple access (CDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), and the like. Summary of the invention

[0003] The following presents a simplified summary of the invention related to one or more aspects disclosed herein. Therefore, the following summary of the invention should neither be considered as an exhaustive overview related to all conceived aspects, nor should it be considered to identify key or decisive elements related to all conceived aspects or to delineate the scope associated with any particular aspect. Therefore, the sole purpose of the following summary of the invention is to present certain concepts related to one or more aspects of the mechanisms disclosed herein in a brief form before the detailed embodiments presented below.

[0004] A system, method, apparatus, and computer-readable medium for performing wireless communications are disclosed. According to at least one example, a method for wireless communications performed at a network entity is provided. The method may include: selecting a special cell (SpCell) from one or more candidate cells for communicating with a user equipment (UE); and sending an indication of the SpCell to the UE.

[0005] In another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is provided, the apparatus comprising: at least one memory including instructions; and at least one processor (e.g., configured in a circuit), the at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to: select a special cell (SpCell) from one or more candidate cells for communicating with a user equipment (UE); and send an indication of the SpCell to the UE.

[0006] In another example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium is provided including at least one instruction stored thereon, which, when executed by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to: select a special cell (SpCell) from one or more candidate cells for communicating with a user equipment (UE); and send an indication of the SpCell to the UE.

[0007] In another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is provided. The apparatus may include: a component for selecting a special cell (SpCell) from one or more candidate cells for communicating with a user equipment (UE); and a component for sending an indication of the SpCell to the UE.

[0008] According to at least one other example, a method for wireless communication performed at a user equipment (UE) is provided. The method may include: receiving an indication of a special cell (SpCell) from a network entity; and communicating with the SpCell in response to the indication.

[0009] In another example, a device for wireless communication is provided, the device comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor (e.g., configured in a circuit), the at least one processor being coupled to the memory and configured to: receive an indication of a special cell (SpCell) from a network entity; and in response to the indication, communicate with the SpCell.

[0010] In another example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium is provided that includes at least one instruction stored thereon, which, when executed by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to: receive an indication of a special cell (SpCell) from a network entity; and, in response to the indication, communicate with the SpCell.

[0011] In another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is provided. The apparatus may include: a component for receiving an indication of a special cell (SpCell) from a network entity; and a component for communicating with the SpCell in response to the indication.

[0012] According to at least one other example, a method for wireless communication performed at a user equipment (UE) is provided. The method may include: receiving a beam indication or activation command from a first special cell (SpCell) via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) or a downlink control element (DCI); and determining a second SpCell for communication in response to the beam indication or activation command.

[0013] In another example, a device for wireless communication is provided, the device comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor (e.g., configured in a circuit), the at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to: receive a beam indication or activation command from a first special cell (SpCell) via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) or a downlink control element (DCI); and determine a second SpCell for communication in response to the beam indication or activation command.

[0014] In another example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium is provided including at least one instruction stored thereon, which, when executed by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to: receive a beam indication or activation command from a first special cell (SpCell) via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) or a downlink control element (DCI); and determine a second SpCell for communication in response to the beam indication or activation command.

[0015] In another example, a device for wireless communication is provided, the device comprising: a component for receiving a beam indication or activation command from a first special cell (SpCell) via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) or a downlink control element (DCI); and a component for determining a second SpCell for communication in response to the beam indication or activation command.

[0016] Aspects of the present invention generally include methods, apparatus, systems, computer program products, non-transitory computer-readable media, user equipment, base stations, wireless communication devices and / or processing systems as fully described herein with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings and description.

[0017] The features and technical advantages of examples according to the present disclosure have been outlined quite extensively above so that the following specific embodiments may be better understood. Additional features and advantages will be described below. The disclosed concepts and specific examples may be easily used as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for achieving the same purpose of the present disclosure. Such equivalent constructions do not depart from the scope of the appended claims. The characteristics of the concepts disclosed herein, both in terms of their organization and method of operation, and the associated advantages will be better understood by considering the following description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Each of the figures in the accompanying drawings is provided for the purpose of illustration and description and not as a definition of limitations to the claims.

[0018] Although various aspects are described in the present disclosure by illustrating some examples, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that such aspects can be implemented in many different arrangements and scenarios. The technology described herein can be implemented using different platform types, devices, systems, shapes, sizes and / or packaging arrangements. For example, some aspects can be implemented via integrated chip implementations or other devices based on non-module components (e.g., end-user devices, vehicles, communication equipment, computing equipment, industrial equipment, retail / shopping equipment, medical equipment and / or artificial intelligence devices). Various aspects can be implemented in chip-level components, modular components, non-modular components, non-chip-level components, device-level components and / or system-level components. The equipment incorporating the various aspects and features described may include additional components and features for implementing and practicing the various aspects claimed and described. For example, the transmission and reception of wireless signals may include one or more components (e.g., hardware components, including antennas, radio frequency (RF) chains, power amplifiers, modulators, buffers, processors, interleavers, adders and / or summers) for analog and digital purposes. The various aspects described herein are intended to be practiced in various devices, components, systems, distributed arrangements and / or end-user devices of various sizes, shapes and configurations.

[0019] Other objects and advantages associated with the various aspects disclosed herein will be apparent to those skilled in the art based on the drawings and detailed description. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0020] The accompanying drawings are presented to aid in describing various aspects of the present disclosure and are provided solely for illustration and not limitation of the aspects.

[0021] Figure 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a wireless communication network according to some examples;

[0022] Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating a design of a base station and a user equipment (UE) device according to some examples, which enables sending and processing of signals exchanged between the UE and the base station;

[0023] Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a decomposed base station according to some examples;

[0024] Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating components of user equipment according to some examples;

[0025] Figure 5 illustrates an example of a single primary serving cell (PCell) change without carrier aggregation according to some examples;

[0026] Figure 6 illustrates examples of PCell change and secondary serving cell (SCell) change with carrier aggregation according to some examples;

[0027] Figure 7 Examples of cell group based selection according to some examples are illustrated;

[0028] Figure 8 illustrates examples of pre-configured candidate cells for L1 / L2 based special cell (SpCell) change according to some examples;

[0029] Fig. 9 Another example of pre-configured candidate cells for L1 / L2 based SpCell selection according to some examples is illustrated;

[0030] Fig.10 Examples of SpCell selection according to some examples are illustrated;

[0031] Fig.11 Another example of SpCell selection according to some examples is illustrated;

[0032] Fig.12 Another example of SpCell selection according to some examples is illustrated;

[0033] Fig.13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a time slot boundary of an application time determined by a time slot boundary of an old cell according to some examples;

[0034] Fig.14 is a diagram illustrating an example of a slot boundary of an application time determined by a slot boundary of a new cell according to some examples;

[0035] Fig.15 is a diagram illustrating an example of a cell change and confirmation based on beam indication according to some examples;

[0036] Fig.16 is a diagram illustrating examples of different octets in a medium access control (MAC) control element according to some examples;

[0037] Fig.17 is a diagram illustrating an example of a case where the same cell identifier or identification (ID) space is used for both a candidate cell change and a cell change for channel assignment according to some examples;

[0038] Fig.18 is a diagram illustrating an example of using separate cell ID spaces for candidate cell change and cell change for channel assignment according to some examples;

[0039] Fig.19 is a diagram illustrating an example of a unified transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state activation / deactivation MAC control element according to some examples;

[0040] Fig. 20 is a diagram illustrating an example of a cell change and confirmation based on beam indication according to some examples;

[0041] Fig.21 is a diagram illustrating an example of activating / deactivating a MAC control element according to some examples of unified TCI states;

[0042] Fig. 22 is a diagram illustrating an example of a case where the same cell ID space is used for both a candidate cell change and a cell change for channel assignment according to some examples;

[0043] Fig.23 is a diagram illustrating an example of activating / deactivating a MAC control element according to some examples of unified TCI states;

[0044] Fig.24 is a diagram illustrating an example of a case where separate cell ID spaces are used for both candidate cell changes and cell changes for channel assignments according to some examples;

[0045] Fig.25 is a diagram illustrating an example of pseudo code for cross-carrier scheduling configuration according to some examples;

[0046] Fig.26 is a diagram illustrating an example of a downlink (DL) bandwidth part (BWP) field in a MAC control element according to some examples;

[0047] Fig. 27 is a diagram illustrating an example of updating downlink control information (DCI) according to TCI in an old SpCell according to some examples;

[0048] Fig.28 is a diagram illustrating an example of a case where separate cell ID spaces are used for both candidate cell changes and cell changes for channel assignments according to some examples;

[0049] Fig.29 is a diagram illustrating an example of simultaneous scheduling plus SpCell switching according to some examples;

[0050] Fig.30 is a diagram illustrating an example of cells for channel assignment according to some examples;

[0051] Fig.31 is a diagram illustrating an example of a cell group change in channel assignment according to some examples;

[0052] Fig.32 is a diagram illustrating an example of a cell change command application time according to some examples;

[0053] Fig.33 is a diagram illustrating examples of options for application time based on a new cell slot boundary or an old cell slot boundary according to some examples; and

[0054] Fig.34 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a computing system according to some examples. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0055] For illustrative purposes, certain aspects of the present disclosure are provided below. Without departing from the scope of the present disclosure, alternative aspects may be designed. Additionally, well-known elements of the present disclosure will not be described in detail or will be omitted to avoid making the relevant details of the present disclosure difficult to understand. Some aspects described herein may be applied independently, and some of them may be applied in combination, which is obvious to those skilled in the art. In the following description, specific details are set forth for explanation purposes to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of the application. However, it is apparent that various aspects may be implemented without these specific details. Each drawing and description is not intended to be restrictive.

[0056] The following description provides only example aspects and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the present disclosure. Instead, the following description of the example aspects will provide a description that can be used to implement the example aspects to those skilled in the art. It should be understood that various changes may be made to the function and arrangement of the elements without departing from the scope of the present application as set forth in the appended claims.

[0057] Wireless communication networks are deployed to provide various communication services, such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, any combination thereof, or other communication services. Wireless communication networks may support both access links and side links for communication between wireless devices. An access link may refer to any communication link between a client device (e.g., user equipment (UE), station (STA), or other client device) and a base station (e.g., 3GPP gNB for 5G / NR, 3GPP eNB for 4G / LTE, Wi-Fi access point (AP), or other base station). For example, an access link may support uplink signaling, downlink signaling, connection procedures, etc. An example of an access link is a Uu link or interface (also referred to as NR-Uu) between a 3GPP gNB and a UE.

[0058] As described in more detail below, processes (also referred to as methods) and computer-readable media (collectively, "systems and techniques") are described herein for cell change and / or beam change signaling, such as cell change and / or beam change layer 1 (L1) and / or layer 2 (L2) signaling. Alternatively or additionally, in some aspects, these systems and techniques may provide timing advance (TA) and / or beam management (BM) for one or more deactivated serving cells.

[0059] Additional aspects of the disclosure are described in more detail below.

[0060] As used herein, the terms "user equipment" (UE) and "network entity" are not intended to be exclusive to or otherwise limited to any particular radio access technology (RAT), unless otherwise specified. In general, a UE may be any wireless communication device (e.g., a mobile phone, a router, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, and / or a tracking device, etc.), a wearable device (e.g., a smart watch, smart glasses, a wearable ring, and / or an extended reality (XR) device (such as a virtual reality (VR) headset, an augmented reality (AR) headset or glasses, or a mixed reality (MR) headset)), a vehicle (e.g., a car, a motorcycle, a bicycle, etc.), an aircraft (e.g., an airplane, a jet, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAE) or drone, a helicopter, an airship, a glider, etc.), and / or an Internet of Things (IoT) device, etc., for a user to communicate on a wireless communication network. A UE may be mobile or may be stationary (e.g., at certain times) and may communicate with a radio access network (RAN). As used herein, the term "UE" may be interchangeably referred to as an "access terminal" or "AT," a "client device," a "wireless device," a "subscriber device," a "subscriber terminal," a "subscriber station," a "user terminal" or "UT," a "mobile device," a "mobile terminal," a "mobile station," or variations thereof. In general, a UE may communicate with a core network via a RAN, and through the core network, the UE may connect to external networks such as the Internet and to other UEs. Of course, other mechanisms for connecting to the core network and / or the Internet are also possible for the UE, such as through a wired access network, a wireless local area network (WLAN) network (e.g., based on IEEE 802.11 communication standards, etc.), and the like.

[0061] The network entity may be implemented in a converged or monolithic base station architecture, or alternatively, in a disaggregated base station architecture, and may include one or more of a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), a near real-time (Near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC), or a non-real-time (Non-RT) RIC. A base station (e.g., with a converged / monolithic base station architecture or a disaggregated base station architecture) may operate according to one of several RATs communicating with a UE (depending on the network in which it is deployed), and may alternatively be referred to as an access point (AP), a network node, a Node B (NB), an evolved Node B (eNB), a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), a new radio (NR) Node B (also referred to as a gNB or gNode B), etc. A base station may be primarily used to support wireless access for UEs, including supporting data, voice, and / or signaling connections for the supported UEs. In some systems, a base station may provide edge node signaling functionality, while in other systems, a base station may provide additional control and / or network management functionality. The communication link by which a UE can transmit signals to a base station is called an uplink (UL) channel (e.g., a reverse traffic channel, a reverse control channel, an access channel, etc.). The communication link by which a base station can transmit signals to a UE is called a downlink (DL) or forward link channel (e.g., a paging channel, a control channel, a broadcast channel, a forward traffic channel, etc.). As used herein, the term traffic channel (TCH) may refer to an uplink, a reverse or downlink, and / or a forward traffic channel.

[0062] The term "network entity" or "base station" (e.g., having a clustered / monolithic base station architecture or a decomposed base station architecture) may refer to a single physical transmit receive point (TRP) or multiple physical TRPs that may or may not be co-located. For example, where the term "network entity" or "base station" refers to a single physical TRP, the physical TRP may be a base station antenna corresponding to a cell (or several cell sectors) of the base station. Where the term "network entity" or "base station" refers to multiple co-located physical TRPs, these physical TRPs may be antenna arrays of the base station (e.g., as in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system or where the base station employs beamforming). Where the term "base station" refers to multiple non-co-located physical TRPs, the physical TRP may be a distributed antenna system (DAS) (a network of spatially separated antennas connected to a common source via a transmission medium) or a remote radio head (RRH) (a remote base station connected to a serving base station). Alternatively, the non-co-located physical TRPs may be a serving base station that receives measurement reports from a UE and a neighboring base station whose reference radio frequency (RF) signal (or "reference signal" for short) the UE is measuring. Because as used herein, a TRP is the point through which a base station transmits and receives wireless signals, references to transmitting from or receiving at a base station should be understood to refer to the specific TRP of a base station.

[0063] In some specific implementations of supporting UE positioning, a network entity or base station may not support wireless access for the UE (e.g., may not support data, voice, and / or signaling connections for the UE), but may instead send a reference signal to be measured by the UE to the UE and / or may receive and measure a signal sent by the UE. Such a base station may be referred to as a positioning beacon (e.g., in the case of sending a signal to the UE) and / or as a position measurement unit (e.g., in the case of receiving and measuring a signal from the UE).

[0064] RF signals include electromagnetic waves of a given frequency that transmit information through the space between a transmitter and a receiver. As used herein, a transmitter may transmit a single "RF signal" or multiple "RF signals" to a receiver. However, due to the propagation characteristics of RF signals through multipath channels, a receiver may receive multiple "RF signals" corresponding to each transmitted RF signal. The same transmitted RF signal on different paths between a transmitter and a receiver may be referred to as a "multipath" RF signal. As used herein, an RF signal may also be referred to as a "wireless signal" or simply a "signal" where it is clear from the context that the term "signal" refers to a wireless signal or an RF signal.

[0065] Various aspects of the systems and techniques described herein will be discussed below with respect to the accompanying drawings. According to various aspects, Figure 1 An example of a wireless communication system 100 is illustrated. The wireless communication system 100, which may also be referred to as a wireless wide area network (WWAN), may include various base stations 102 and various UEs 104. In some aspects, the base stations 102 may also be referred to as "network entities" or "network nodes". One or more of the base stations 102 may be implemented in an aggregated or monolithic base station architecture. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the base stations 102 may be implemented in a decomposed base station architecture and may include one or more of a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), a near real-time (near RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC), or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC. The base stations 102 may include macro cell base stations (high power cellular base stations) and / or small cell base stations (low power cellular base stations). On the one hand, the macro cell base station may include an eNB and / or an ng-eNB (where the wireless communication system 100 corresponds to a long term evolution (LTE) network) or a gNB (where the wireless communication system 100 corresponds to an NR network) or a combination of both, and the small cell base station may include a femto cell, a pico cell, a micro cell, etc.

[0066] The base stations 102 may collectively form a RAN and interface with a core network 170 (e.g., an evolved packet core (EPC) or a 5G core (5GC)) through a backhaul link 122, and interface to one or more location servers 172 (which may be part of the core network 170 or may be external to the core network 170) through the core network 170. Among other functions, the base stations 102 may perform functions related to one or more of the following: delivering user data, radio channel encryption and decryption, integrity protection, header compression, mobility control functions (e.g., handover, dual connectivity), inter-cell interference coordination, connection establishment and release, load balancing, distribution of non-access stratum (NAS) messages, NAS node selection, synchronization, RAN sharing, multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS), subscriber and equipment tracking, RAN information management (RIM), paging, positioning, and delivery of warning messages. The base stations 102 may communicate with each other directly or indirectly (e.g., through the EPC or 5GC) through a backhaul link 134 (which may be wired and / or wireless).

[0067] Base station 102 can communicate wirelessly with UE 104. Each of base stations 102 can provide communication coverage for a corresponding geographic coverage area 110. In one aspect, base station 102 in each coverage area 110 can support one or more cells. A "cell" is a logical communication entity for communicating with a base station (e.g., on a certain frequency resource, referred to as a carrier frequency, component carrier, carrier, frequency band, etc.), and can be associated with an identifier (e.g., a physical cell identity or identifier (PCI), a virtual cell identifier (VCI), a cell global identifier (CGI)) to distinguish cells operating via the same or different carrier frequencies. In some cases, different cells may be configured according to different protocol types (e.g., machine type communication (MTC), narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) or other protocol types) that can provide access to different types of UEs. Because a cell is supported by a specific base station, the term "cell" may refer to either or both of the logical communication entity and the base station supporting it, depending on the context. In addition, because a TRP is typically a physical transmission point of a cell, the terms "cell" and "TRP" may be used interchangeably. In some cases, the term “cell” may also refer to a geographic coverage area (eg, a sector) of a base station, as long as a carrier frequency can be detected and used for communications within some portion of the geographic coverage area 110 .

[0068] Although the geographic coverage areas 110 of neighboring macrocell base stations 102 may partially overlap (e.g., in a handover area), some of the geographic coverage areas 110 may substantially overlap with the larger geographic coverage area 110. For example, a small cell base station 102' may have a coverage area 110' that substantially overlaps with the coverage areas 110 of one or more macrocell base stations 102. A network that includes both small cell base stations and macrocell base stations may be referred to as a heterogeneous network. A heterogeneous network may also include a home eNB (HeNB), which may provide services to a restricted group called a closed subscriber group (CSG).

[0069] The communication link 120 between the base station 102 and the UE 104 may include uplink (also known as reverse link) transmissions from the UE 104 to the base station 102 and / or downlink (also known as forward link) transmissions from the base station 102 to the UE 104. The communication link 120 may use MIMO antenna technology, including spatial multiplexing, beamforming, and / or transmit diversity. The communication link 120 may be over one or more carrier frequencies. The allocation of carriers may be asymmetric for the downlink and uplink (e.g., more or fewer carriers may be allocated to the downlink than to the uplink).

[0070] The wireless communication system 100 may further include a WLAN AP 150 in communication with a WLAN station (STA) 152 via a communication link 154 in an unlicensed spectrum (e.g., 5 gigahertz (GHz)). When communicating in the unlicensed spectrum, the WLAN STA 152 and / or the WLAN AP 150 may perform a clear channel assessment (CCA) or a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure before communicating to determine whether the channel is available. In some examples, the wireless communication system 100 may include a device (e.g., UE, etc.) that communicates with one or more UEs 104, base stations 102, APs 150, etc. using an ultra-wideband (UWB) spectrum. The UWB spectrum may range from 3.1 GHz to 10.5 GHz.

[0071] The small cell base station 102' can operate in licensed and / or unlicensed spectrum. When operating in the unlicensed spectrum, the small cell base station 102' can adopt LTE or NR technology and use the same 5GHz unlicensed spectrum used by the WLAN AP 150. The small cell base station 102' using LTE and / or 5G in the unlicensed spectrum can boost the coverage of the access network and / or increase the capacity of the access network. NR in the unlicensed spectrum can be referred to as NR-U. LTE in the unlicensed spectrum can be referred to as LTE-U, Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) or MulteFire.

[0072] The wireless communication system 100 may also include a millimeter wave (mmW) base station 180, which may operate at mmW frequencies and / or near mmW frequencies to communicate with UE 182. The mmW base station 180 may be implemented in an aggregated or monolithic base station architecture, or alternatively, in a decomposed base station architecture (e.g., including one or more of a CU, DU, RU, near RT RIC, or non-RT RIC). Extremely high frequency (EHF) is part of the RF in the electromagnetic spectrum. EHF has a range of 30 GHz to 300 GHz, with a wavelength between 1 mm and 10 mm. The radio waves in this band may be referred to as millimeter waves. Near mmW may extend downward to a frequency of 3 GHz, with a wavelength of 100 mm. The super high frequency (SHF) band extends between 3 GHz and 30 GHz, and is also referred to as centimeter waves. Communications using mmW and / or near mmW radio frequency bands have high path loss and a relatively short range. The mmW base station 180 and the UE 182 may utilize beamforming (transmit and / or receive) on the mmW communication link 184 to compensate for the extremely high path loss and short range. In addition, it should be understood that in alternative configurations, one or more base stations 102 may also transmit using mmW or near-mmW and beamforming. Therefore, it should be understood that the foregoing illustrations are merely examples and should not be construed as limiting the various aspects disclosed herein.

[0073] In some aspects related to 5G, the spectrum in which a wireless network node or entity (e.g., base station 102 / 180, UE 104 / 182) operates is divided into multiple frequency ranges: FR1 (from 450 megahertz (MHz) to 6000 MHz), FR2 (from 24250 MHz to 52600 MHz), FR3 (above 52600 MHz), and FR4 (between FR1 and FR2). In a multi-carrier system (such as 5G), one of the carrier frequencies is referred to as a "primary carrier" or "anchor carrier" or "primary serving cell" or "PCell", and the remaining carrier frequencies are referred to as "secondary carriers" or "secondary serving cells" or "SCells". In carrier aggregation (CA), the anchor carrier is a carrier operating on the primary frequency (e.g., FR1) used by the UE 104 / 182 and the cell in which the UE 104 / 182 performs an initial radio resource control (RRC) connection establishment procedure or initiates an RRC connection re-establishment procedure. The primary carrier carries all common control channels as well as UE-specific control channels and can be a carrier in a licensed frequency (however, this is not always the case). A secondary carrier is a carrier operating on a second frequency (e.g., FR2), which can be configured and can be used to provide additional radio resources once an RRC connection is established between the UE 104 and the anchor carrier. In some cases, the secondary carrier may be a carrier in an unlicensed frequency. The secondary carrier may contain only necessary signaling information and signals, for example, since the primary uplink carrier and the primary downlink carrier are typically UE-specific, those signaling information and signals specific to the UE may not be present in the secondary carrier. This means that different UEs 104 / 182 in a cell may have different downlink primary carriers. This also holds true for the uplink primary carrier. The network is able to change the primary carrier of any UE 104 / 182 at any time. This is done, for example, to balance the load on different carriers. Since a "serving cell" (whether PCell or SCell) corresponds to a carrier frequency or component carrier that some base stations are using for communication, the terms "cell", "serving cell", "component carrier", "carrier frequency", etc. may be used interchangeably.

[0074] For example, still refer to Figure 1, one of the frequencies used by the macrocell base station 102 may be an anchor carrier (or "PCell"), and the other frequencies used by the macrocell base station 102 and / or the mmW base station 180 may be secondary carriers ("SCells"). In carrier aggregation, the base station 102 and / or the UE 104 may use a spectrum of up to Y MHz (e.g., 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, 20 MHz, 100 MHz) bandwidth per carrier, with up to a total of Yx MHz (x component carriers) in each direction for transmission. The component carriers may be adjacent to each other or may not be adjacent to each other in the spectrum. The allocation of carriers may be asymmetric with respect to the downlink and uplink (e.g., more or fewer carriers may be allocated to the downlink compared to the uplink). The simultaneous transmission and / or reception of multiple carriers enables the UE 104 / 182 to significantly increase its data transmission and / or reception rate. For example, two 20 MHz aggregated carriers in a multi-carrier system would theoretically double the data rate (e.g., 40 MHz) compared to the data rate obtained with a single 20 MHz carrier.

[0075] In order to operate on multiple carrier frequencies, the base station 102 and / or the UE 104 may be equipped with multiple receivers and / or transmitters. For example, the UE 104 may have two receivers, namely "receiver 1" and "receiver 2", where "receiver 1" is a multi-band receiver that can be tuned to band (e.g., carrier frequency) "X" or band "Y", and "receiver 2" is a single-band receiver that can be tuned to only band "Z". In this example, if the UE 104 is being served in band "X", the band "X" will be referred to as the PCell or active carrier frequency, and "receiver 1" will need to tune from band "X" to band "Y" (SCell) to measure band "Y" (and vice versa). In contrast, regardless of whether the UE 104 is being served in band "X" or band "Y", due to the separate "receiver 2", the UE 104 can measure band "Z" without interrupting the service on band "X" or band "Y".

[0076] The wireless communication system 100 may further include a UE 164, which may communicate with the macrocell base station 102 over the communication link 120 and / or communicate with the mmW base station 180 over the mmW communication link 184. For example, the macrocell base station 102 may support a PCell and one or more SCells for the UE 164, and the mmW base station 180 may support one or more SCells for the UE 164.

[0077] The wireless communication system 100 may also include one or more UEs, such as UE 190, which are indirectly connected to one or more communication networks via one or more device-to-device (D2D) peer-to-peer (P2P) links (referred to as “side links”). Figure 1 In the example of FIG. 1 , UE 190 has a D2D P2P link 192 with one of UEs 104 connected to one of base stations 102 (e.g., UE 190 can indirectly obtain cellular connectivity through the D2D P2P link), and has a D2D P2P link 194 with WLAN STA 152 connected to WLAN AP 150 (UE 190 can indirectly obtain WLAN-based Internet connectivity through the D2D P2P link). In an example, D2D P2P links 192 and 194 can use any well-known D2D RAT (such as LTE Direct (LTE-D), WiFi Direct (WiFi-D), etc.) to support.

[0078] Figure 2 A block diagram of a design of a base station 102 and a UE 104 is shown that enables sending and processing of signals exchanged between the UE and the base station according to some aspects of the present disclosure. Design 200 includes components of the base station 102 and the UE 104, which may be Figure 1 1. A base station in base station 102 and a UE in UE 104. Base station 102 may be equipped with T antennas 234a through 234t, and UE 104 may be equipped with R antennas 252a through 252r, where in general T≥1 and R≥1.

[0079] At the base station 102, the transmit processor 220 may receive data for one or more UEs from the data source 212, select one or more modulation and coding schemes (MCS) for each UE based at least in part on a channel quality indicator (CQI) received from the UE, process (e.g., encode and modulate) the data for each UE based at least in part on the MCS selected for the UE, and provide data symbols for all UEs. The transmit processor 220 may also process system information (e.g., for semi-static resource partitioning information (SRPI), etc.) and control information (e.g., CQI requests, grants, upper layer signaling, etc.), and provide overhead symbols and control symbols. The transmit processor 220 may also generate reference symbols for reference signals (e.g., cell-specific reference signals (CRS)) and synchronization signals (e.g., primary synchronization signals (PSS) and secondary synchronization signals (SSS)). The transmit (TX) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) processor 230 may perform spatial processing (e.g., pre-decoding) on ​​data symbols, control symbols, overhead symbols, and / or reference symbols (if applicable), and may provide T output symbol streams to T modulators (MODs) 232a to 232t. The modulators 232a to 232t are shown as combined modulator-demodulators (MOD-DEMODs). In some cases, the modulator and demodulator may be separate components. Each modulator in the modulators 232a to 232t may process a corresponding output symbol stream (e.g., for an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme, etc.) to obtain an output sample stream. Each modulator in the modulators 232a to 232t may further process (e.g., convert to analog, amplify, filter, and up-convert) the output sample stream to obtain a downlink signal. T downlink signals may be sent from the modulators 232a to 232t via T antennas 234a to 234t, respectively. According to certain aspects described in greater detail below, position encoding may be utilized to generate a synchronization signal to convey additional information.

[0080] At UE 104, antennas 252a to 252r may receive downlink signals from base station 102 and / or other base stations and may provide received signals to demodulators (DEMOD) 254a to 254r, respectively. Demodulators 254a to 254r are shown as combined modulator-demodulators (MOD-DEMOD). In some cases, the modulator and demodulator may be separate components. Each demodulator in demodulators 254a to 254r may adjust (e.g., filter, amplify, down-convert and digitize) received signals to obtain input samples. Each demodulator in demodulators 254a to 254r may further process input samples (e.g., for OFDM, etc.) to obtain received symbols. MIMO detector 256 may obtain received symbols from all R demodulators 254a to 254r, perform MIMO detection (if applicable) on received symbols, and provide detected symbols. The receive processor 258 may process (e.g., demodulate and decode) the detected symbols, provide decoded data for the UE 104 to a data sink 260, and provide decoded control information and system information to a controller / processor 280. The channel processor may determine a reference signal received power (RSRP), a received signal strength indicator (RSSI), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), a channel quality indicator (CQI), etc.

[0081] On the uplink, at the UE 104, a transmit processor 264 may receive and process data from a data source 262 and control information (e.g., for reports including RSRP, RSSI, RSRQ, CQI, etc.) from a controller / processor 280. The transmit processor 264 may also generate reference symbols for one or more reference signals (e.g., based at least in part on a beta value or set of beta values ​​associated with the one or more reference signals). The symbols from the transmit processor 264 may be precoded by the TX-MIMO processor 266 (if applicable), further processed by the modulators 254a through 254r (e.g., for DFT-s-OFDM, CP-OFDM, etc.), and transmitted to the base station 102. At the base station 102, uplink signals from the UE 104 and other UEs may be received by antennas 234a to 234t, processed by demodulators 232a to 232t, detected by a MIMO detector 236 (if applicable), and further processed by a receive processor 238 to obtain decoded data and control information transmitted by the UE 104. The receive processor 238 may provide the decoded data to a data sink 239 and the decoded control information to a controller (processor) 240. The base station 102 may include a communication unit 244 and communicate with the network controller 231 via the communication unit 244. The network controller 231 may include a communication unit 294, a controller / processor 290, and a memory 292.

[0082] In some aspects, one or more components of the UE 104 may be included in a housing. The controller 240 of the base station 102, the controller / processor 280 of the UE 104, and / or Figure 2 Any other component of may perform one or more techniques associated with implicit UCI β value determination for NR.

[0083] Memories 242 and 282 may store data and program codes for base station 102 and UE 104, respectively. A scheduler 246 may schedule UEs for data transmission on the downlink, uplink, and / or sidelink.

[0084] In some aspects, the deployment of a communication system such as a 5G New Radio (NR) system can be arranged with various components or constituent parts in a variety of ways. In a 5G NR system or network, a network node, a network entity, a mobility element of a network, a radio access network (RAN) node, a core network node, a network element, or a network equipment (such as a base station (BS) or one or more units (or one or more components) performing base station functions) can be implemented in an aggregated or decomposed architecture. For example, a BS (such as a Node B (NB), an evolved NB (eNB), an NR BS, a 5G NB, an access point (AP), a transmit receive point (TRP), or a cell, etc.) can be implemented as an aggregated base station (also referred to as an independent BS or a monolithic BS) or a decomposed base station.

[0085] A converged base station may be configured to utilize a radio protocol stack physically or logically integrated within a single RAN node. A decomposed base station may be configured to utilize a protocol stack physically or logically distributed between two or more units, such as one or more central or centralized units (CUs), one or more distributed units (DUs), or one or more radio units (RUs). In some aspects, a CU may be implemented within a RAN node, and one or more DUs may be co-located with the CU, or alternatively, may be geographically or virtually distributed in one or more other RAN nodes. A DU may be implemented to communicate with one or more RUs. Each of a CU, a DU, and a RU may also be implemented as a virtual unit, for example, a virtual central unit (VCU), a virtual distributed unit (VDU), or a virtual radio unit (VRU).

[0086] Base station type operations or network designs may take into account the aggregated nature of base station functions. For example, a disaggregated base station may be utilized in an integrated access backhaul (IAB) network, an open radio access network (O-RAN (network configurations such as those initiated by the O-RAN Alliance)), or a virtualized radio access network (vRAN, also known as a cloud radio access network (C-RAN)). Decomposition may include distributing functions across two or more units at various physical locations, as well as virtually distributing the functions of at least one unit, which may enable flexibility in network design. Various units of a disaggregated base station or disaggregated RAN architecture may be configured for wired or wireless communication with at least one other unit.

[0087] Figure 3 A diagram illustrating an example disaggregated base station 300 architecture is shown. The disaggregated base station 300 architecture may include one or more central units (CUs) 310 that may communicate directly with a core network 320 via a backhaul link, or indirectly with the core network 320 through one or more disaggregated base station units, such as a near real-time (near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC) 325 via an E2 link, or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC 315 associated with a service management and orchestration (SMO) framework 305, or both. The CU 310 may communicate with one or more distributed units (DUs) 330 via respective midhaul links, such as an F1 interface. The DU 330 may communicate with one or more radio units (RUs) 340 via respective fronthaul links. The RU 340 may communicate with respective UEs 104 via one or more radio frequency (RF) access links. In some implementations, a UE 104 may be served simultaneously by multiple RUs 340.

[0088] Each of the units (e.g., CU 310, DU 330, RU 340, and near-RT RIC 325, non-RT RIC 315, and SMO framework 305) may include or be coupled to one or more interfaces configured to receive or send signals, data, or information (collectively referred to as signals) via a wired or wireless transmission medium. Each of the units or an associated processor or controller that provides instructions to the communication interface of these units may be configured to communicate with one or more of the other units via a transmission medium. For example, these units may include a wired interface configured to receive or send signals to one or more of the other units via a wired transmission medium. Additionally, these units may include a wireless interface that may include a receiver, transmitter, or transceiver (such as a radio frequency (RF) transceiver) that is configured to receive or send signals or both to one or more of the other units on a wireless transmission medium.

[0089] In some aspects, CU 310 may host one or more higher layer control functions. Such control functions may include radio resource control (RRC), packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), service data adaptation protocol (SDAP), etc. Each control function may be implemented using an interface configured to communicate signals with other control functions hosted by CU 310. CU310 may be configured to handle user plane functions (e.g., central unit-user plane (CU-UP)), control plane functions (e.g., central unit-control plane (CU-CP)), or a combination thereof. In some specific implementations, CU 310 may be logically split into one or more CU-UP units and one or more CU-CP units. When implemented in an O-RAN configuration, the CU-UP unit may communicate bidirectionally with the CU-CP unit via an interface (such as an E1 interface). As needed, CU 310 may be implemented to communicate with DU 330 for network control and signaling.

[0090] DU 330 may correspond to a logical unit that includes one or more base station functions for controlling the operation of one or more RU 340. In some aspects, DU 330 may host one or more of a radio link control (RLC) layer, a medium access control (MAC) layer, and one or more high physical (PHY) layers (such as modules for forward error correction (FEC) encoding and decoding, scrambling, modulation and demodulation, etc.) at least in part according to a functional split such as defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). In some aspects, DU 330 may also host one or more low PHY layers. Each layer (or module) may be implemented using an interface that is configured to communicate signals with other layers (and modules) hosted by DU 330 or with control functions hosted by CU 310.

[0091] The lower layer functions may be implemented by one or more RUs 340. In some deployments, the RU 340 controlled by the DU 330 may correspond to a logical node that hosts RF processing functions or low PHY layer functions (such as performing fast Fourier transform (FFT), inverse FFT (iFFT), digital beamforming, physical random access channel (PRACH) extraction and filtering, etc.), or both, based at least in part on functional splitting (such as lower layer functional splitting). In such an architecture, the RU 340 may be implemented to handle over-the-air (OTA) communications with one or more UEs 104. In some specific implementations, real-time and non-real-time aspects of control plane and user plane communications with the RU 340 may be controlled by the corresponding DU 330. In some scenarios, this configuration may enable the implementation of the DU 330 and the CU 310 in a cloud-based RAN architecture (such as a vRAN architecture).

[0092] The SMO framework 305 may be configured to support RAN deployment and configuration of non-virtualized network elements and virtualized network elements. For non-virtualized network elements, the SMO framework 305 may be configured to support the deployment of dedicated physical resources for RAN coverage requirements, which may be managed via an operation and maintenance interface (such as an O1 interface). For virtualized network elements, the SMO framework 305 may be configured to interact with a cloud computing platform (such as an open cloud (O-Cloud) 390) to perform network element lifecycle management (such as instantiating virtualized network elements) via a cloud computing platform interface (such as an O2 interface). Such virtualized network elements may include, but are not limited to, CU 310, DU 330, RU 340, and near-RT RIC 325. In some specific implementations, the SMO framework 305 may communicate with hardware aspects of the 4G RAN (such as an open eNB (O-eNB) 311) via the O1 interface. Additionally, in some specific implementations, the SMO framework 305 may communicate directly with one or more RUs 340 via the O1 interface. The SMO framework 305 may also include a non-RT RIC 315 configured to support the functionality of the SMO framework 305 .

[0093] The non-RT RIC 315 may be configured to include logic functions that enable non-real-time control and optimization of RAN elements and resources, artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI / ML) workflows including model training and updating, or policy-based guidance of applications / features in the near-RT RIC 325. The non-RT RIC 315 may be coupled to or in communication with the near-RT RIC 325 (such as via an A1 interface). The near-RT RIC 325 may be configured to include logic functions that enable near-real-time control and optimization of RAN elements and resources via data collection and actions through an interface (such as via an E2 interface) that connects one or more CUs 310, one or more DUs 330, or both, and the O-eNB with the near-RT RIC 325.

[0094] In some implementations, in order to generate an AI / ML model to be deployed in the near-RT RIC 325, the non-RT RIC 315 may receive parameters or external enrichment information from an external server. Such information may be utilized by the near-RT RIC 325 and may be received from a non-network data source or from a network function at the SMO framework 305 or the non-RT RIC 315. In some examples, the non-RT RIC 315 or the near-RT RIC 325 may be configured to adjust RAN behavior or performance. For example, the non-RT RIC 315 may monitor long-term trends and patterns of performance and employ AI / ML models to perform corrective actions through the SMO framework 305 (such as via reconfiguration of O1) or via the creation of RAN management policies (such as A1 policies).

[0095] Figure 4 An example of a computing system 470 of a wireless device 407 is illustrated. The wireless device 407 may include a client device such as a UE (e.g., UE 104, UE 152, UE 190) or other type of device that can be used by an end user (e.g., a station (STA) configured to communicate using a Wi-Fi interface). For example, the wireless device 407 may include a mobile phone, a router, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a tracking device, a wearable device (e.g., a smart watch, glasses, an extended reality (XR) device (such as a virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR) device), etc.), an Internet of Things (IoT) device, a vehicle, an aircraft, and / or another device configured to communicate via a wireless communication network. The computing system 470 includes software and hardware components that can be electrically coupled or communicatively coupled via a bus 489 (or can communicate in other ways, as the case may be). For example, the computing system 470 includes one or more processors 484. One or more processors 484 may include one or more CPUs, ASICs, FPGAs, APs, GPUs, VPUs, NSPs, microcontrollers, dedicated hardware, any combination thereof, and / or other processing devices or systems. One or more processors 484 may use a bus 489 to communicate between cores and / or with one or more memory devices 486.

[0096] The computing system 470 may also include one or more memory devices 486, one or more digital signal processors (DSPs) 482, one or more SIMs 474, one or more modems 476, one or more wireless transceivers 478, an antenna 487, one or more input devices 472 (e.g., a camera, a mouse, a keyboard, a touch-sensitive screen, a touchpad, a keypad, a microphone, etc.), and one or more output devices 480 (e.g., a display, a speaker, a printer, etc.).

[0097] In some aspects, the computing system 470 may include one or more RF interfaces configured to send and / or receive radio frequency (RF) signals. In some examples, the RF interface may include components such as a modem 476, a wireless transceiver 478, and / or an antenna 487. One or more wireless transceivers 478 may send and receive wireless signals (e.g., signals 488) from one or more other devices via antenna 487, such as other wireless devices, network devices (e.g., base stations such as eNBs and / or gNBs, Wi-Fi access points (APs) such as routers, range extenders, etc.), cloud networks, etc. In some examples, the computing system 470 may include multiple antennas or antenna arrays that can facilitate simultaneous transmission and reception functions. Antenna 487 may be an omnidirectional antenna so that radio frequency (RF) signals can be received from all directions and transmitted in all directions. Wireless signals 488 may be sent via a wireless network. The wireless network may be any wireless network, such as a cellular or telecommunications network (e.g., 3G, 4G, 5G, etc.), a wireless local area network (e.g., a WiFi network), a Bluetooth™ network, and / or other networks.

[0098] In some examples, wireless signals 488 may be transmitted directly to other wireless devices using sidelink communications (e.g., using a PC5 interface, using a DSRC interface, etc.). Wireless transceiver 478 may be configured to transmit RF signals via antenna 487 for performing sidelink communications according to one or more transmit power parameters that may be associated with one or more regulatory modes. Wireless transceiver 478 may also be configured to receive sidelink communication signals having different signal parameters from other wireless devices.

[0099] In some examples, one or more wireless transceivers 478 may include an RF front end that includes one or more components such as an amplifier, a mixer for down-converting a signal (also referred to as a signal multiplier), a frequency synthesizer (also referred to as an oscillator) that provides a signal to the mixer, a baseband filter, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), one or more power amplifiers, and other components. The RF front end may generally handle the selection of wireless signals 488 and the conversion of the wireless signals to baseband frequencies or intermediate frequencies, and may convert the RF signals to the digital domain.

[0100] In some cases, computing system 470 may include a coding-decoding device (or CODEC) configured to encode and / or decode data transmitted and / or received using one or more wireless transceivers 478. In some cases, computing system 470 may include an encryption-decryption device or component configured to encrypt and / or decrypt data transmitted and / or received by one or more wireless transceivers 478 (e.g., according to the AES and / or DES standards).

[0101] One or more SIMs 474 may each securely store an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number and associated keys assigned to a user of the wireless device 407. The IMSI and keys may be used to identify and authenticate a subscriber when accessing a network provided by a network service provider or operator associated with the one or more SIMs 474. One or more modems 476 may modulate one or more signals to encode information for transmission using one or more wireless transceivers 478. One or more modems 476 may also demodulate signals received by one or more wireless transceivers 478 in order to decode the transmitted information. In some examples, one or more modems 476 may include a Wi-Fi modem, a 4G (or LTE) modem, a 5G (or NR) modem, and / or other types of modems. One or more modems 476 and one or more wireless transceivers 478 may be used to communicate data for one or more SIMs 474.

[0102] The computing system 470 may also include (and / or be in communication with) one or more non-transitory machine-readable storage media or storage devices (e.g., one or more memory devices 486), which may include, but are not limited to, local and / or network accessible storage devices, disk drives, drive arrays, optical storage devices, solid-state storage devices such as RAM and / or ROM, which may be programmable, flash-updatable, etc. Such storage devices may be configured to implement any suitable data storage, including, but not limited to, various file systems, database structures, etc.

[0103] In various aspects, the functionality may be stored as one or more computer program products (e.g., instructions or code) in the memory device 486 and executed by the one or more processors 484 and / or the one or more DSPs 482. The computing system 470 may also include software elements (e.g., located within the one or more memory devices 486) including, for example, an operating system, device drivers, executable libraries, and / or other code, such as one or more applications, which may include computer programs that implement the functionality provided by the various aspects and / or may be designed to implement methods and / or configure systems, as described herein.

[0104] As previously noted, systems and techniques for signaling of cell changes and / or beam changes are described herein. For example, systems and techniques may provide layer 1 (L1) and / or layer 2 (L2) signaling of cell changes and / or beam changes. Alternatively or additionally, in some aspects, these systems and techniques may provide timing advance (TA) and / or beam management (BM) for one or more deactivated serving cells.

[0105] In some networks, unified TCI may be used to indicate a common TCI state for multiple channels, multiple RSs, or one channel and one RS. For example, a network may support different types of unified TCI, such as type 1 (wherein a joint TCI state indicates a common beam for at least one downlink channel and / or downlink RS in addition to at least one uplink channel and / or uplink RS), type 2 (wherein a downlink TCI state indicates a common beam for more than one downlink channel and / or downlink RS), and / or type 3 (wherein a common TCI state indicates a common beam for more than one uplink channel and / or uplink RS).

[0106] For at least 3GPP Release 18 (R18) L1 / L2 based mobility, L1 / L2 signaling for serving cell change will be specified. For example, to specify mechanisms and procedures for L1 / L2 based inter-cell mobility for mobility latency reduction, the following issues may be addressed: configuration and maintenance of multiple candidate cells to allow rapid application of configuration for candidate cells [RAN2, RAN3]; dynamic switching mechanism among candidate serving cells (including SpCell and SCell) for potential applicable scenarios based on L1 / L2 signaling [RAN2, RAN1]; L1 enhancements for inter-cell beam management (including L1 measurements and reporting) and beam indication [RAN1, RAN2] (Note 1: Early RAN2 involvement is necessary, including the possibility of further clarifying the interaction between this bullet and the previous bullet); timing advance management [RAN1, RAN2]; and CU-DU interface signaling to support L1 / L2 mobility (if required) [RAN3].

[0107] The systems and techniques described herein can at least address the dynamic switching mechanism among candidate serving cells (including SpCells and SCells) for potential applicable scenarios based on L1 / L2 signaling and L1 enhancement for beam indication.

[0108] The term SpCell refers to a special cell. In some cases, such as for dual connectivity operations, the term special cell (SpCell) may refer to a primary cell (PCell) of a primary cell group (MCG) or a PSCell of a secondary cell group (SCG), respectively, depending on whether the MAC entity is associated with an MCG or an SCG. Otherwise, the term special cell may refer to a PCell. A special cell may support physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission and contention-based random access, and is always activated in some cases.

[0109] In some cases, regarding the pre-configured candidate cells for L1 / L2-based cell change, a set of candidate cells are configured as serving cells within a cell group at least for SpCell reselection. The first option (denoted as Option 1) and the second option (denoted as Option 2) are as follows (the difference between Option 1 and Option 2 is shown with text between brackets, such as "<difference>"):

[0110] Option 1: A subset of configured serving cells is dedicated as candidate cells

[0111] Only one candidate cell is selected as SpCell at a given time, and <the remaining candidate cells not selected as SpCells are not used for data and control communications>

[0112] Each serving cell configured in the cell group but not in the candidate cell subset may be activated or deactivated as an SCell for data and / or control communications.

[0113] Option 2: Any serving cell or a subset of serving cells configured in a cell group can be a candidate cell

[0114] Dedicated cell handover signaling selects candidate cells as new SpCell

[0115] The selected candidate cell was previously activated in preparation for data and / or control communication, such as an activated SCell, or was activated or deactivated before selection, such as a deactivated SCell.

[0116] In order to save overhead, some serving cell configurations for SpCell functions may be valid only when the candidate cell is selected as SpCell, for example, SSB, RACH (or PRACH), paging, SI configuration

[0117] <If not selected as SpCell, each serving cell including the candidate cells configured in the cell group may be activated or deactivated as an SCell for data and control communications>

[0118] For both option 1 and option 2, the activated SCells that are not selected as the new SpCell after selection may have the following behavior: these activated SCells are implicitly deactivated after the SpCell change and may be reactivated later after potential RRC reconfiguration; or these activated SCells remain activated after the SpCell change.

[0119] In some examples, in the case of carrier aggregation, separate cell signaling for PCell changes and / or SCell changes may be used to implement separate cell selection. In some aspects, PCell selection based on beam indication may be performed. In some cases, SCell selection may be based on traditional protocols and / or new L1 / L2 signaling, as further discussed herein. In some instances, a single PCell (e.g., without carrier aggregation and / or dual connectivity) may be selected from a preconfigured set of candidate PCells. In some examples, a PCell change may include switching roles between a PCell and a SCell from a preconfigured set of candidate PCells.

[0120] Figure 5 An example of a single PCell change without carrier aggregation is illustrated.In some aspects, the UE may switch from an old PCell to a new PCell from among a pre-configured set of candidate PCells.

[0121] Figure 6 Examples of separate PCell changes and SCell changes in carrier aggregation are illustrated. In some examples, the old SCell may be changed to a new PCell. In some cases, the old PCell may be changed to a new SCell. In some examples, the new SCell may be implicitly deactivated after the SpCell change and may be reactivated later after a potential RRC reconfiguration; or the new SCell may remain activated after the SpCell change.

[0122] Figure 7 An example of cell group based selection in which SpCells and SCells may be switched together in the case of carrier aggregation is illustrated. In some aspects, the cell group switching signaling may be based on, for example, Figure 6 In some examples, the UE may switch from an old cell group to a new cell group, such as Figure 7 exemplified.

[0123] Figure 8 Examples of pre-configured candidate cells for L1 / L2 based SpCell changes are illustrated. In some examples, Figure 8 This may correspond to Option 1 described above, in which a subset of serving cells is dedicated as candidate cells for SpCell selection (e.g., candidate Pcells in an information element (IE) such as CellGroupConfig, including candidate component carriers (CC1) to candidate CC N). In some cases, only one candidate cell may be selected as SpCell at a given time, and one or more remaining candidate cells that are not selected may not be used for data and control communications.

[0124] Fig. 9 Another example of pre-configured candidate cells for L1 / L2-based SpCell selection is illustrated. Fig. 9 As illustrated, in the case of a single serving cell without carrier aggregation or dual connectivity, a single PCell may be configured.

[0125] Fig.10 An example of SpCell selection is shown in which the non-selected cells are not used for data and control communications. In some aspects, among the candidate SpCells, only the selected SpCell may have an activated Transmit Configuration Indicator (TCI) state.

[0126] Fig.11 Another example of SpCell selection is shown, in which the unselected cells are not used for data and control communications. In some cases, among the candidate SpCells, both the selected and unselected SpCells may have an activated TCI state. In some examples, the unselected SpCells are not available for data / control.

[0127] Fig.12 An example of SpCell selection is shown in which unselected cells can be used for data and control communications. For example, among the configured component carriers (CCs) for carrier aggregation, a group of component carriers can also be candidate cells for SpCell selection (e.g., CC1 to N). In some aspects, Fig.12 The example illustrated is the same as Fig.10 or Fig.11 The difference between the illustrated examples is that candidate cells that are not selected as SpCells can be used for data and control communications (e.g., as activated SCells). Fig.12 The illustrated examples may include carrier aggregation. In some aspects related to a single serving cell, the carrier aggregation may be virtually implemented by activating only the SpCell while keeping all SCells deactivated.

[0128] In some aspects, L1 / L2 signaling may be applied to indicate a cell change (e.g., a SpCell change), which may include two options. The first option (referred to as Option A) may include a cell switching command based on beam indication, wherein the beam indication signaling may provide not only a beam indication but also a cell change to a new cell. The beam indication signaling may provide a cell ID for the cell change and apply the indicated beam. For example, according to Option A, the switch to the new cell may be implicitly indicated by a MAC control element (MAC-CE) or downlink control information (DCI) (e.g., received by the UE via a PDCCH), which indicates to the UE the use of at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state per direction configured for the new cell (e.g., at least one TCI state for the downlink (DL) and / or at least one TCI state for the uplink (UL)). In some cases, this technique may be applicable to option 1 noted above (a subset of configured serving cells is dedicated as candidate cells), where the new cell is not used for data / control communications prior to the handover (e.g., the new cell is not activated as an SCell prior to the cell change). In some examples, a MAC-CE or DCI may be transmitted from the old cell prior to the cell change. In some cases, a beam indication based on a layer 2 MAC-CE may be used to indicate the use of at least one TCI state (e.g., DL and / or UL) configured for each direction of the new cell, where the MAC-CE may activate a single TCI code point mapped to the at least one TCI state for each direction of the new cell. In some examples, a beam indication based on a layer 1 DCI may be used to indicate the use of at least one TCI state (e.g., DL / UL) configured for each direction of the new cell, where the DCI (e.g., of DCI format 1_1 or 1_2) may select a TCI code point mapped to the at least one TCI state for each direction. In some examples, at least one TCI state per direction includes a joint TCI state, a pair of DL TCI and UL TCI states, a single DL TCI state, a single UL TCI state, or other configurations. In response to receiving the beam indication signaling, the UE may perform a cell handover or a cell change for the indicated cell and also apply a beam indication for the indicated cell.

[0129] A second option for L1 / L2 signaling for indicating a cell change, referred to as Option B, may include a dedicated cell handover command. For example, according to Option B, a handover to a new cell may be signaled by a dedicated MAC-CE or DCI that includes at least an identifier (ID) of the new cell (e.g., a physical cell identity or identifier (PCI) or a serving cell ID). In some cases, the PCI may be represented as PhysCellId. In some cases, this technique may be applicable to Option 1 as noted above (a subset of configured serving cells is dedicated as a candidate cell), where the new cell is not used for data and control communications prior to the handover (e.g., the new cell is not activated as an SCell). In some aspects, this technique may be applicable to Option 2 as noted above (any serving cell or subset of serving cells configured in a cell group may be active and may be a candidate cell), where the new cell was previously available for data and control communications (e.g., the new cell is an activated SCell). In some examples, the dedicated cell switching command (dedicated MAC-CE or DCI) may include other operating parameters for the new cell, such as beam indication, timing advance (TA) command, power control (PC) parameter indication, active DL and UL bandwidth part (BWP) indication. In one example, a single TCI (e.g., only a single TCI) per direction (e.g., one TCI per DL and one TCI per UL) may be indicated for the new cell (e.g., enabling only a single TRP (sTRP) operation for the new cell at the beginning after the cell change). In another example, multiple TCIs per direction (per DL / UL) may be indicated for the new cell (e.g., enabling multiple TRP (mTRP) operations for the new cell at the beginning after the cell change). In some examples, the same dedicated cell switching command (dedicated MAC-CE or DCI) may indicate a new SpCell and / or multiple SCells, each cell is identified by its serving cell ID and is indicated for the role of the cell (e.g., as a SpCell or as a SCell), where each Scell ​​may be activated or deactivated. In one example, a common TCI state ID may be signaled for multiple new cells (including new SpCells and new SCells). In another example, each new cell including new SpCells and new SCells may be signaled with a TCI state ID. In some cases, when DCI is used as a dedicated cell switching command for cell change in Option B, the DCI may or may not schedule DL / UL assignments (e.g., PDSCH and / or PUSCH). In some aspects, the UE may provide dedicated feedback (e.g., ACK / NACK) as an acknowledgment of signaling for receiving DCI without DL / UL assignments.

[0130] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, an application time for each new cell may be specified. In some examples, the application time may refer to the time from which the UE receives an indication of switching or changing a cell and the time when the UE implements the cell switching or change. In one example, such as if the new cell is signaled via MAC-CE as cell change signaling, the application time may be the number of X milliseconds (ms) from the end of the UL time slot carrying feedback (e.g., ACK) for MAC-CE. In another example, such as if the new cell is signaled via DCI as cell change signaling, at least two options may be provided. In the first option (if the new cell is signaled via DCI), the application time may be the start of the first time slot after Xms or X symbols from the end of the feedback (e.g., ACK) for DCI. According to the first option, in the case of X symbols, the subcarrier spacing (SCS) may be the SCS of the active DL or UL BWP of the new cell, the minimum (or maximum SCS) of the active DL and UL BWP of the new cell, or other SCS. In the first option (if the new cell is signaled via DCI), the application time may be the start of the first time slot after X ms or X symbols from the DCI. According to the second option, in the case of X symbols, the SCS may be the SCS of the active DL BWP of the signaling cell, the SCS of the active DL or UL BWP of the new cell, the active DL and UL BWP of the new cell, and the minimum (or maximum SCS) or other SCS among the active DL and UL BWP of the signaling cell. In some cases, the signaling cell may point to the cell to which the UE sends the DCI. In one or more of the above examples, X (e.g., X ms, X symbols, etc.) may be different depending on whether the new cell has been previously activated. In some examples, in the case of X symbols, X may be configured per SCS and subject to UE capabilities. In some examples, in the case of multiple new cells, a common application time may be defined (e.g., as the longest application time among all multiple new cells).

[0131] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, in the case where the receive (Rx) timing is greater than the length of the cyclic prefix (CP) or different TA values ​​are applied to the old cell and the new cell, various options can be used to determine the time slot boundary of the application time. According to the first option, the time slot boundary of the application time can be determined by the time slot boundary of the new cell, and any transmission and / or reception (Tx / Rx) on the old cell will be taken into account. Fig.13is a diagram illustrating an example of a time slot boundary of an application time determined by a time slot boundary of a new cell. In one example, any Tx / Rx on an old cell may be discarded if the application time based on the time slot boundary of the new cell is exceeded. In another example, any Tx / Rx on an old cell may be prioritized as long as the application time based on the time slot boundary of the old cell is not exceeded. According to a second option, the time slot boundary of the application time may be determined by the time slot boundary of the old cell, and any Tx / Rx on the new cell will be considered. Fig.14 is a diagram illustrating an example of a time slot boundary of an application time determined by a time slot boundary of an old cell. In one example, any Tx / Rx on a new cell may be discarded if it is before the application time based on the time slot boundary of the old cell. In one example, any Tx / Rx on a new cell may be prioritized as long as it is not before the application time based on the time slot boundary of the new cell.

[0132] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, such as to reduce tracking reference signal (TRS) and beam refinement latency after a cell handover or cell change, signaling (e.g., MAC-CE or DCI) indicating a new cell (e.g., as a new SpCell or SCell) may also trigger or activate one or more aperiodic (AP) and / or semi-persistent (SP) reference signals, which may include a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) for a tracking reference signal (TRS), an aperiodic and / or semi-persistent CSI-RS in a CSI-RS resource set with a repetition parameter set to "on" (e.g., for beam refinement), or an aperiodic (AP) or semi-persistent (SP) CSI-RS for beam reporting or for CSI reporting. In some cases, the signaling (e.g., MAC-CE or DCI) may indicate the ID of the AP or SP CSI-RS resource or resource set to be triggered or activated. In some cases, the scheduling offset from the end of the MAC-CE or DCI (or from the end of feedback associated with the MAC-CE or DCI (such as ACK)) to the start of the AP / SP CSI-RS can be RRC configured. In some examples, if the AP or SP CSI-RS does not have an explicitly signaled TCI state, the TCI state can be implicitly determined as the joint TCI or DL ​​TCI indicated for the new cell in the signaling of the new cell handover command.

[0133] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, such as to save beam training delay after serving cell switching or serving cell change, the network may indicate that two CSI-RS resources or two CSI-RS resource sets configured for the serving cell and the neighboring cell are linked in a resource manner so that the linked two CSI-RS resources indicate that the UE applies the same receive beam. In an illustrative example, CSI-RS#1 configured for the new serving cell is linked to CSI-RS#3 configured for the old serving cell, and the network indicates the cell change to the new serving cell with a new TCI having CSI-RS#1 as QCL type D. Based on the linking, the new TCI having CSI-RS#1 as QCL type D corresponds to the same UE Rx beam indicated by the old TCI having CSI-RS#3 as QCL type D. In some cases, the linking RRC parameter may be two TCI states or TCI state sets configured for the serving cell and the neighboring cell, rather than CSI-RS resources or resource sets.

[0134] Additionally or alternatively, as noted above, systems and techniques can provide timing advance (TA) and / or beam management (BM) for one or more serving cells not used for data and control communications (eg, deactivated cells).

[0135] In some aspects, the TA may be measured and signaled to the UE for a configured serving cell that is not used for data and control communications (e.g., a deactivated SCell), which may be a candidate cell for selection as a new SpCell in L1 / L2-based mobility (e.g., using L1 / L2-based signaling as described above). To speed up cell switching, a random access (RACH) transmission may be sent, and the TA command may be updated for a configured serving cell that is not used for data and control communications (e.g., a deactivated SCell).

[0136] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, radio link monitoring (RLM) and / or beam failure detection (BFD) operations may be performed for a configured serving cell that is not used for data and control communications (e.g., a deactivated SCell), which may be a candidate cell for a new SpCell in L1 / L2-based mobility.

[0137] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, in L1 / L2-based inter-cell mobility, the UE may be pre-configured or pre-indicated with beams of different channels / RSs for a configured serving cell (e.g., a deactivated SCell) that is not used for data and control communications, which may be a candidate cell for a new SpCell in L1 / L2-based mobility. In some cases, the pre-indicated / configured beam may be implicitly applied after selecting to use a candidate cell (e.g., as a new SpCell) without separate beam indication signaling.

[0138] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, such as to reduce TRS tracking latency after a cell handover or cell change, the MAC-CE may activate a TCI state configured for a candidate cell that has not yet been selected for use. In some cases, a MAC-CE may be transmitted from a currently used cell (or old cell) with an applied cell ID as an expected candidate cell (or new cell). The MAC-CE may be transmitted before a cell handover or cell change. In some examples, the activated TCI for each candidate cell that is not used for data and control communications may be counted in the UE capabilities based on the maximum number of active TCIs per component carrier (CC) or cell and across CCs or cells in the same frequency band, and in some cases, the candidate cell that is not used for data and control communications is counted by treating it as a used serving cell for UE capability counting purposes.

[0139] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, to reduce beam refinement latency after cell switching, the DCI may trigger an aperiodic (AP) CSI-RS resource set with a repetition parameter set to "on", which is configured for a candidate cell that has not yet been selected for use. In some cases, a DCI with a carrier indicator field (CIF) may be transmitted from the current serving cell (or old cell), which indicates an expected unused candidate cell (or new cell). In some examples, each CSI-RS resource in the set has a TCI state configured for an unused candidate cell.

[0140] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, various assumptions may be made for pre-configured candidate cells as follows. According to a first assumption (referred to as "Assumption 1"), a subset of configured serving cells is dedicated as candidate cells for SpCell selection. According to Assumption 1, each serving cell configured in a cell group but not in a subset of candidate cells may be activated or deactivated as an SCell for data and / or control transmission.

[0141] According to the second assumption (referred to as "Assumption 2"), any serving cell or subset of serving cells configured in a cell group for carrier aggregation (CA) operation may be a candidate cell for SpCell selection. In some cases, according to Assumption 2, dedicated cell handover signaling selects a candidate cell as the new SpCell. In some examples, prior to selection, the selected candidate cell may be activated or deactivated (e.g., as a deactivated SCell). In some examples, prior to selection, the selected candidate cell must have been previously activated and ready for data / control transmission (e.g., as a conventionally activated SCell). In some examples, the selected candidate cell may be an SCell that was previously in a dormant bandwidth part (BWP), which may be reported for P / SP CSI. In some cases, according to Assumption 2, in order to save overhead, some serving cell configurations for SpCell functions may be valid only when the candidate cell is selected as a SpCell (e.g., SSB, RACH, paging, SI configuration, etc.).

[0142] For both Assumptions 1 and 2, an activated SCell that is not a new SpCell after selection may have the following behavior:

[0143] Assumption 1: These activated SCells are implicitly deactivated after the SpCell change and may be reactivated later after a potential RRC reconfiguration.

[0144] Assumption 2: These activated SCells remain activated after the SpCell changes.

[0145] In some aspects, in view of one or more of assumptions 1 and 2 above, L1 / L2 signaling for a used cell change (e.g., SpCell change) may be based on a beam indication and / or a beam activation command. When it is assumed that the unselected candidate cells are not used for data and / or control transmission and only the selected candidate cells have an activated transmission configuration indicator (TCI), the switch to the new SpCell may be indicated by activating at least one TCI state configured for the new cell by MAC-CE. The at least one TCI state for each direction may include a joint DL / UL TCI state, a pair of separate DL and UL TCI states (e.g., a single separate DL TCI state or a single separate UL TCI state). Fig.15 These features are shown.

[0146] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, the signaling of the cell change may be based on Fig.16The existing unified TCI activation MAC-CE is shown. In an example case, if the cell ID of the candidate SpCell shares the same serving cell ID space as the SpCell plus SCell in CA, for example, 0-31. The existing unified TCI activation MAC-CE can be reused to indicate the SpCell change. In the MAC-CE, if the serving cell ID is the candidate SpCell, the fields of serving cell ID, DL / UL BWP ID, TCI code point are used as the new SpCell ID, the corresponding active DL / UL BWP ID, and the TCI code point to be used for the new SpCell ID after the SpCell change, respectively. Fig.17 The field Pi indicates whether the i-th TCI code point is a single TCI or a pair of TCIs (i=0...8).

[0147] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, if the cell ID of the candidate SpCell has a separate serving cell ID space from the SpCell plus SCell in CA (e.g., the candidate SpCell ID is from 0-9, while the serving cell ID for CA is from 0-31), the new SpCell may have an old SpCell ID, e.g., ID 0 for PCell, such as Fig.18 As shown. Furthermore, in this scenario, if a candidate cell ID is signaled for TCI activation, this candidate cell is a new SpCell and there are several options. One option includes signaling that the candidate cell ID of the candidate SpCell may reuse the field of the serving cell ID. In this case, a separate indicator may be used (e.g., by using a field such as Fig.19 1) to signal whether the serving cell ID field carries a candidate cell ID or a regular serving cell ID in CA. In another option, the system may use a dedicated new field (e.g., using reserved bits such as Fig.19 The bold "R" bits in octet 2 of the 4-bit field ("4-bit" in bold) are used to signal the candidate cell ID of the candidate SpCell. These reserved bits are all 0s when not used. The presence of the candidate cell ID can be implied by a non-zero value of a dedicated field, or explicitly indicated by a separate indicator (e.g., by using reserved bits).

[0148] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects according to one or more of assumptions 1 and 2 above, under the assumption that the unselected candidate cell is not used for data and / or control transmission and both the selected candidate cell and the unselected candidate cell may have activated TCI, the handover to the new cell may be indicated by a MAC-CE or DCI indicating that the UE uses at least one TCI state configured for the new cell. In addition, the at least one TCI state for the new cell may be indicated by different options. A first option may be that the MAC-CE activates a single TCI code point mapped to the at least one TCI state. In some cases, this option assumes that one (e.g., only one) candidate cell has a single activated TCI code point and that other candidate cells have multiple TCI code points or no TCI code points. A second option may be that the DCI selects a TCI code point mapped to the at least one TCI state from among multiple activated TCI code points, such as Fig. 20 shown.

[0149] For MAC-CE based indication of the used TCI, such as the first option above (involving MAC-CE activation of a single TCI codepoint mapped to the at least one TCI state), the clarification / change depends on scenario 1 or 2 as defined above. Fig.17 The case is the same as for some of the above assumptions except for the part in brackets <*>: if the serving cell ID is a candidate SpCell <with a single activated TCI code point>, the fields of serving cell ID, DL / UL BWP ID, TCI code point are used as the new SpCell ID, the corresponding active DL / UL BWP ID, and the TCI code point to be used for the new SpCell ID after the SpCell change, respectively. This is Fig.21 and Fig. 22 Shown in.

[0150] For the above relative Fig.18 In addition to signaling (e.g., in the serving cell ID field or as with Fig. 20 In addition to the candidate cell ID in the dedicated field in the second scenario associated with the assumption of the new SpCell ID, the new clarification is that if the candidate cell ID has a single activated TCI code point, then the candidate cell ID is the new SpCell (reference Fig.23 and Fig.24 ).

[0151] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, for TCI indication based on DCI, for example, clarification / changes for indicating a new SpCell are described below. For the case where the same cell ID space is used, a TCI update DCI in format 1_1 or 1_2 may be reused without or without the same DL assignment as in Release 17 (R17). For example, if a candidate SpCell is indicated, the existing carrier indicator field in the DCI may be reused to indicate the new SpCell. In addition, each candidate cell should have a corresponding carrier indicator field (CIF) code point configured per scheduling cell, such as Fig.25 Highlighted in .

[0152] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, for the case where the same cell ID space is used, a TCI update DCI in format 1_1 or 1_2 with no or no same DL assignment as in R17 is reused by the following clarification. The TCI code point field in the DCI indicates the TCI to be used for the new SpCell. The DL BWP field in the DCI indicates the DL and UL BWPs associated with the indicated TCI code point at the time of activation of the DL BWP field for this cell, and the associated DL and UL BWPs are used as the active BWPs for the new SpCell, as Fig.26 and Fig. 27 The case of using the same cell ID space may not allow DCI to schedule DL / UL assignments, because the CIF field is used to indicate a new SpCell, and the TCI for the new SpCell is most likely to be applied after the ACK for the DCI.

[0153] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, for the case where a separate cell ID space is used, there are several options for signaling the candidate cell ID of the new SpCell in the TCI update DCI. In one option, the signaling of the candidate cell ID may reuse the CIF field in the DCI. A separate indicator (e.g., by using a reserved bit in the DCI) may be used to notify whether the CIF carries a candidate cell ID or a CA cell ID. There may be a reserved bit in the R17 TCI update DCI without a DL assignment, and one bit may be reserved for such a purpose. The TCI code point field indicates the TCI to be used for the new SpCell. On the other hand, the DL BWP field indicates the DL and UL BWPs associated with the indicated TCI code point when the DL BWP field is activated for this SpCell, and the associated DL and UL BWPs are used as the active BWPs for the new SpCell. Fig.28 This feature is shown.

[0154] Additionally or alternatively, in reference to Fig.29In some other aspects of the present invention, another option includes the signaling of the candidate cell ID using a new field in the DCI. In this option, the signaling that the candidate cell ID is not carried in the new field can be signaled by a special value of the new field (e.g., all 0s) or by a separate identifier in the DCI. Additional new fields may also be introduced to indicate TCI, active DL / UL BWP, timing advance (TA) commands, and / or other operating parameters for the new SpCell. The new field can use the R17 TCI without DL assignment to update the reserved bits in the DCI. The new field requires the R17 TCI with DL assignment to update the additional DCI payload in the DCI. However, the additional DCI payload allows the DCI to schedule DL / UL assignments to another cell (e.g., an old SpCell or SCell) while indicating the new SpCell.

[0155] For the above, in one of the cases according to one or more of the above assumptions 1 and 2 (where the cell ID of the candidate SpCell shares the same service cell ID space as the SpCell plus SCell in CA, e.g., 0-31), the question is whether the service cell ID for the new PCell should remain at 0 as in the tradition. One option is that the service cell ID of the new PCell does not need to remain at 0. For example, if the candidate PCell is selected as the new PCell, the service cell ID of the selected candidate PCell may be used as the service cell ID of the new PCell. Another option is that the service cell ID of the new PCell remains at 0. Yet another option is that if the candidate PCell is selected as the new PCell, in this case, the service cell ID of the candidate PCell selected for the new PCell and the ID of the old PCell are exchanged without separate signaling, so that the service cell ID of the PCell is always 0. As another option, each service cell including the candidate PCell has an initial non-zero service cell ID, e.g., 1-31. When the candidate PCell is selected as the new PCell, its service cell ID is overwritten by 0. When the old PCell is not selected as the new PCell, it has its initial non-zero serving cell ID.

[0156] Additionally or alternatively, in reference to Fig.30In some other aspects of the present invention, there are several cases assuming that the candidate SpCell (if not selected as the SpCell) can also be used as, for example, the active SCell. In the first case, if the newly selected SpCell was previously an activated SCell, a new indicator may be added to the TCI activation MAC-CE or the TCI update DCI to indicate whether the serving cell signaled in the serving cell ID field of the MAC-CE or in the CIF field of the DCI is selected as the new SpCell or remains as the SCell. For the TCI update DCI, if the DCI does not have a DL assignment, the new bit may reuse one or more bits reserved in the R17 TCI update DCI, such as frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA), virtual resource block (VRB) to physical resource block (PRB) mapping, rate matching indicator, zero power (ZP) CSI-reference signal (RS) triggering, HARQ ID, etc. If the DCI has a DL assignment, the new bit may be added as an additional DCI payload. For the TCI activation MAC-CE, the new bit may reuse any reserved bit in the R17 unified TCI activation MAC-CE.

[0157] For the second case, if the newly selected SpCell was previously a deactivated SCell, a new indicator may be added to the existing SCell activation MAC-CE to indicate whether the activated SCell is selected as a new SpCell or remains as an SCell.

[0158] For the assumption that each service cell for CA can be selected as a new SpCell, the question is whether the service cell ID for the new PCell should be kept as 0 as in the tradition. One option is that the service cell ID of the PCell does not need to be kept as 0. For example, if the SCell is selected as the new PCell, the service cell ID of the SCell can be used as the service cell ID of the PCell. Another option is that the service cell ID of the PCell still remains as 0. Yet another option is that if the SCell is selected as the new PCell, the service cell IDs of the SCell and the old PCell are implicitly exchanged so that the service cell ID of the PCell is always 0. In yet another option, each service cell has an initial non-zero service cell ID, for example, 1-31. When a service cell is selected as a new PCell, its service cell ID is overwritten with 0. When the old PCell is not selected as the new PCell, it will use its initial non-zero service cell ID.

[0159] Additionally or alternatively, in reference to Fig.31In some other aspects of the present invention, there is another assumption (referred to as Assumption 3) in which there is a L1 / L2 based cell group (CG) change. In one case according to Assumption 3, if only one CG is allowed to have an activated TCI among all candidate CGs, then as in Fig.15 The beam-indicated SpCell change based on the associated proposal can be reused by the following clarification. The CG associated with the candidate SpCell indicated by the latest TCI activation MAC-CE is implicitly selected as the new CG. In another case according to assumption 3, if only one CG is allowed to have a used TCI among all candidate CGs (multiple candidate CGs may have activated TCIs), as in Fig. 20 The beam-indicated SpCell change based on the associated proposal can be reused by the following clarification: The CG associated with the candidate SpCell indicated by the latest TCI update DCI is implicitly selected as the new CG.

[0160] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects of dedicated signaling regarding cell changes and / or beam changes, a switch to a new cell may be signaled by a dedicated MAC-CE or DCI that includes at least the ID of the new cell (e.g., PCI or serving cell ID). The dedicated MAC-CE or DCI may include other operating parameters for the new cell, including beam indication, TA, PC parameters, active DL and UL BWP. The same new cell switching command may indicate a new SpCell and / or multiple activated or deactivated SCells, each cell being identified by its serving cell ID and indicated as a role for the cell, such as SpCell or SCell. In the case of DCI, the DCI may or may not schedule DL / UL assignments. For DCIs without DL / UL assignments, a dedicated ACK / NACK should be introduced.

[0161] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects related to the TCI / cell status of the old cell after the new cell selection, after the application time of the new SpCell, the SpCell functions are moved to the new SpCell, including RACH, system information (SI), radio resource management (RRM), paging, radio link monitoring (RLM), and the TCI / cell status of the old SpCell may have the following options. In the first option, the active TCI of the old SpCell and / or the old SpCell itself is implicitly deactivated. In the second option, the active TCI of the old SpCell and / or the old SpCell itself may still be implicitly activated, for example, the old SpCell may be, for example, in conjunction with Fig.30is implicitly downgraded to an activated SCell under the assumption of association. For example, if the total number of active TCIs is within the UE capabilities (including two TCIs for the old SpCell and the new SpCell), all active TCIs remain activated. Otherwise, prioritization rules can be introduced to determine which subset of active TCIs of the old SpCell can remain activated, for example based on the order of configured TCI IDs or the order in the TCI activation MAC-CE. In another option, the TCI / cell activation status of the old SpCell is explicitly indicated. For example, the behavior of options related to deactivation or options related to maintaining activation can be RRC configured or dynamically indicated, for example via a cell change command. Note that according to some aspects, in the case of a CG-based change (with Fig.31 In the case of associated assumptions), the (de)activation behavior of the old SpCell, for example determined by one of the above options, can be extended to all cells in the old CG.

[0162] Additionally or alternatively, in some other aspects, in another proposal related to the relationship between the R17 inter-cell features and the R18 inter-cell features. The operational relationship between the R17 inter-cell features and the R18 inter-cell features may have the following options. If, for example, mobility based on R18 serving cell changes is enabled / configured for SpCell changes, the first option may be that the R17 inter-cell features should not be enabled / configured for cells associated with the selected SpCell. Another option is that the R17 inter-cell features may be enabled / configured for cells associated with the selected SpCell. This may depend on UE capabilities and / or gNB indications. Note that the cells associated with the selected SpCell may include the selected SpCell, any candidate SpCell, any cell in the same cell group as the selected SpCell, and any CC that shares the same frequency band with the selected SpCell. The above R17 inter-cell features include inter-cell BM and / or inter-cell mTRP.

[0163] Fig.32 An example motivation for this aspect is that the L1 / L2 serving cell change command application time, for example, for SpCell change may depend on certain factors, such as DCI versus MAC-CE, previously activated new PCell versus previously deactivated new PCell, new single cell versus new CG, any combination thereof, and / or other factors.

[0164] Another proposal related to the L1 / L2 cell change command application time may include that the application time for each new cell should be specified. In one case, if the new cell is signaled via MAC-CE, the application time may be X milliseconds (ms) from the end of the UL slot carrying the ACK for the MAC-CE. In another case, if the new cell is signaled via DCI, one option is that the application time may be the start of the first slot after X ms or X symbols from the end of the UL transmission carrying the ACK for the DCI. In the case of X symbols, the SCS and the first slot may be determined based on the SCS of the active DL or UL BWP of the new cell or the minimum / maximum SCS of the active DL and UL BWP of the new cell. Another option is that the application time may be the start of the first slot after X ms or X symbols from the end of the DCI. In the case of X symbols, the SCS and the first slot may be determined based on the SCS of the active DL BWP of the signaling cell, the SCS of the active DL or UL BWP of the new cell, or the active DL and UL BWP of the new cell and the minimum / maximum SCS of the active DL and UL BWP of the signaling cell.

[0165] For more than two cases, X may be different, depending on whether the new cell has been previously activated, or whether TCI has been previously activated. In the case of X symbols, X may be configured per SCS and is common, X per SCS may be configured according to DL / UL BWP, if the active DL and UL BWP of the new cell have the same SCS, then X per SCS should be the same (e.g., common X per SCS) or may be different (e.g., common X per DL SCS), and the common X per UL SCS and the configured X per SCS should further be subject to UE capabilities, for example, should not be less than the value indicated by the UE capabilities.

[0166] In the case of multiple new cells, for example in a new CG, a first option may be that each new cell has its own application time. A second option may be that all new cells have a common application time, for example as the longest application time of all new cells.

[0167] In case the reception timing is greater than CP or different TAs for the old and new cells, the time slot boundary of the application time is one of several options. The first option is that the time is determined by the time slot boundary of the new cell, and any transmission / reception on the old cell will be. Another option related to this first option is that if the application time based on the time slot boundary of the new cell is exceeded, the old cell will be an error case that is discarded. Another option related to this first option is that as long as the application time based on the time slot boundary of the old cell is not exceeded, the old cell will be prioritized. The second option is that the application time is determined by the time slot boundary of the old cell, and any transmission / reception on the new cell will be an error case or discarded if it is before the application time based on the time slot boundary of the old cell, or any transmission / reception on the new cell will be prioritized as long as it is not before the application time based on the time slot boundary of the new cell. See reference to the above proposal. Fig.33 .

[0168] Another proposal relates to cell switching latency reduction via beam management triggered by a cell switching command. In order to reduce TRS tracking and beam refinement latency after cell switching, the MAC-CE or DCI indicating the new cell, SpCell or SCell may also trigger / activate the AP / SP CSI-RS for tracking reference signals, the AP / SP CSI-RS in a CSI-RS resource set with duplication turned on, or the AP / SP CSI-RS for beam / CSI reporting. The MAC-CE or DCI may indicate the ID of the AP / SP CSI-RS resource or resource set. The scheduling offset from the end of the MAC-CE / DCI or its ACK to the start of the AP / SP CSI-RS may be RRC configurable.

[0169] If the AP / SP CSI-RS does not have an explicitly signaled TCI state, the TCI state may be implicitly determined as the indicated joint or separate DL TCI for the new cell in the new cell handover command. If the AP / SP CSI-RS has explicitly signaled the TCI state: (1) if the TCI state is a DL-applicable TCI state, such as a DL-only or joint DL / UL TCI state, the TCI state may be additionally applied to other DL channels / RS, such as PDCCH, PDSCH, CSI-RS; or (2) if the TCI state is a DL and UL-applicable TCI state, such as a joint DL / UL TCI state, the TCI state may be additionally applied to other DL and UL channels / RS, such as PDCCH, PDSCH, CSI-RS, PUCCH, PUSCH, SRS, PRACH.

[0170] Yet another proposal relates to cell switching latency reduction via linkage for known QCL. For example, to save beam training latency after serving cell switching, the NW may indicate that two CSI-RS resources or two CSI-RS resource sets configured for a serving cell and a neighboring cell are linked in a resource manner such that the linked two CSI-RS resources indicate the same UE Rx beam. For example, assume that CSI-RS#1 configured for a new serving cell is linked to CSI-RS#3 configured for an old serving cell, and the NW indicates a cell change to the new serving cell with a new TCI having CSI-RS#1 as QCL type D. Based on the linkage, the new TCI having CSI-RS#1 as QCL type D corresponds to the same UE Rx beam indicated by the old TCI having CSI-RS#3 as QCL type D. Based on the NW specific implementation, CSI-RS#3 configured for the old serving cell may be sent via the same actual gNB Tx beam as CSI-RS#1 configured for the new serving cell. The linked RRC parameters may be two TCI states or TCI state sets configured for the serving cell and the neighboring cell, instead of CSI-RS resources or resource sets.

[0171] Another proposal relates to cell switching latency reduction via TA / BM for deactivated serving cells. TA may be measured and signaled to the UE for configured serving cells that are not activated for data / control (e.g., deactivated SCells), which may be candidate cells for new SpCells in L1 / L2 based mobility. In R17, RACH cannot be sent on deactivated SCells. To speed up cell switching, RACH may be sent and TA commands may be updated for configured serving cells that are not activated for data / control (e.g., deactivated SCells).

[0172] Another proposal also relates to cell switching latency reduction via TA / BM for deactivated serving cells. BFD / RLM may be performed for a configured serving cell (e.g., a deactivated SCell) that is not activated for data / control, which may be a candidate cell for a new SpCell in L1 / L2 based mobility.

[0173] Another proposal further relates to cell switching latency reduction via TA / BM for deactivated serving cells. In L1 / L2 based inter-cell mobility, the UE may be pre-configured or pre-indicated with beams of different channels / RS for a configured serving cell (e.g., a deactivated SCell) that is not activated for data / control, which may be a candidate cell for a new SpCell in L1 / L2 based mobility. After the candidate cell is selected for use (e.g., as a new SpCell), the pre-indicated / configured beams will be implicitly applied.

[0174] Another proposal further relates to cell switching latency reduction via TA / BM for deactivated serving cells. In order to reduce TRS tracking latency after cell switching, the MAC-CE may activate the TCI state configured for candidate cells that have not yet been selected for use. The MAC-CE may be transmitted from the currently used cell with the applied cell ID as the expected candidate cell.

[0175] The activated TCI per unused candidate cell shall be counted in the UE capabilities based on the maximum number of active TCIs per CC and across CCs in the same frequency band by treating the unused candidate cell as one used serving cell for UE capability counting purposes.

[0176] Another proposal further relates to cell switching latency reduction via TA / BM for deactivated serving cells. In order to reduce beam refinement latency after cell switching, MAC-CE / DCI may activate / trigger a repeated set of SP / AP CSI-RS resources that are configured for candidate cells that have not yet been selected for use. A DCI may be transmitted from the current serving cell with a CIF indicating an expected unused candidate cell. Each CSI-RS resource in the set has a TCI state configured for an unused candidate cell.

[0177] In some examples, the processes described herein may be performed by a computing device or apparatus (e.g., a UE, a network entity, etc.). In one example, the processes described herein may be performed by a computing device or apparatus (e.g., a UE, a network entity, etc.). Figure 4 In another example, the process described herein may be performed by a wireless communication device having a UE 407, a mobile device and / or other UE or device. Fig.34 For example, a computing device having the computing system 3400 shown in FIG. Fig.34 The computing architecture of the wireless communication device (eg, Figure 4 UE 407 and / or other UEs or devices) may include components of the UE and may implement the operations of the processes described herein.

[0178] In some cases, a computing device or apparatus may include various components, such as one or more input devices, one or more output devices, one or more processors, one or more microprocessors, one or more microcomputers, one or more cameras, one or more sensors, and / or other components configured to perform the steps of the processes described herein. In some examples, a computing device may include a display, one or more network interfaces configured to communicate and / or receive data, any combination thereof, and / or other components. The one or more network interfaces may be configured to communicate and / or receive wired and / or wireless data, including data in accordance with 3G, 4G, 5G, and / or other cellular standards, data in accordance with WiFi (802.11x), data in accordance with Bluetooth TM Standard data, data according to the Internet Protocol (IP) standard and / or other types of data.

[0179] Components of a computing device may be implemented in circuits. For example, a component may include and / or may be implemented using electronic circuits or other electronic hardware, which may include one or more programmable electronic circuits (e.g., microprocessors, graphics processing units (GPUs), digital signal processors (DSPs), central processing units (CPUs), and / or other suitable electronic circuits), and / or may include and / or may be implemented using computer software, firmware, or any combination thereof for performing the various operations described herein.

[0180] The processes described herein may be described or illustrated as a logic flow diagram, the operations of which represent a sequence of operations that may be implemented in hardware, computer instructions, or a combination thereof. In the context of computer instructions, each operation represents a computer-executable instruction stored on one or more computer-readable storage media that, when executed by one or more processors, performs the described operations. In general, computer-executable instructions include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform specific functions or implement specific data types. The order in which the operations are described is not intended to be construed as a limitation, and any number of the described operations may be combined in any order and / or in parallel to implement the process.

[0181] In addition, the processes described herein may be performed under the control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions, and may be implemented as code (e.g., executable instructions, one or more computer programs, or one or more applications) that is executed together on one or more processors, implemented by hardware, or a combination of the above. As noted above, the code may be stored on a computer-readable or machine-readable storage medium, for example, in the form of a computer program that includes multiple instructions that can be executed by one or more processors. The computer-readable or machine-readable storage medium may be non-transitory.

[0182] Fig.34 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system for implementing certain aspects of the present technology. Specifically, Fig.34 An example of a computing system 3400 is illustrated, which may be any computing device, for example, constituting an internal computing system, a remote computing system, a camera, or any components thereof, wherein the components of the system communicate with each other using a connection 3405. The connection 3405 may be a physical connection using a bus, or a direct connection into the processor 3410, such as in a chipset architecture. The connection 3405 may also be a virtual connection, a networked connection, or a logical connection.

[0183] In some aspects, computing system 3400 is a distributed system in which the functionality described in the present disclosure may be distributed within a data center, multiple data centers, a peer-to-peer network, etc. In some aspects, one or more of the described system components represent a number of such components that each perform some or all of the functionality for which the component is described. In some aspects, a component may be a physical device or a virtual device.

[0184] The example system 3400 includes at least one processing unit (CPU or processor) 3410 and connections 3405 that communicatively couple various system components including system memory 3415, such as read-only memory (ROM) 3420 and random access memory (RAM) 3425, to the processor 3410. The computing system 3400 may include a cache 3412 of high-speed memory directly connected to, in close proximity to, or integrated as part of the processor 3410.

[0185] Processor 3410 may include any general purpose processor and hardware or software services such as services 3432, 3434, and 3436 stored in storage device 3430 configured to control processor 3410, as well as a dedicated processor where software instructions are incorporated into the actual processor design. Processor 3410 may essentially be a completely independent computing system containing multiple cores or processors, buses, memory controllers, caches, etc. Multi-core processors may be symmetric or asymmetric.

[0186] To enable user interaction, the computing system 3400 includes an input device 3445 that can represent any number of input mechanisms, such as a microphone for voice, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphical input, a keyboard, a mouse, motion input, voice, etc. The computing system 3400 may also include an output device 3435 that can be one or more of a plurality of output mechanisms. In some examples, a multimodal system may enable a user to provide multiple types of input / output to communicate with the computing system 3400.

[0187] The computing system 3400 may include a communication interface 3440, which may generally govern and manage user input and system output. The communication interface may perform or facilitate receiving and / or sending wired or wireless communications using wired and / or wireless transceivers, including using audio jacks / plugs, microphone jacks / plugs, Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports / plugs, Apple TM Lightning TM Ports / plugs, Ethernet ports / plugs, Fiber optic ports / plugs, Dedicated wired ports / plugs, 3G, 4G, 5G and / or other cellular data network wireless signal delivery, Bluetooth TM Wireless signal transmission, Bluetooth TM Low Energy (BLE) wireless signal transmission, IBEACON TM Wireless signaling, radio frequency identification (RFID) wireless signaling, near field communication (NFC) wireless signaling, dedicated short range communication (DSRC) wireless signaling, 802.11 Wi-Fi wireless signaling, wireless local area network (WLAN) signaling, visible light communication (VLC), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), infrared (IR) communication wireless signaling, public switched telephone network (PSTN) signaling, integrated services digital network (ISDN) signaling, ad hoc network signaling, radio wave signaling, microwave signaling, infrared signaling, visible light signaling, ultraviolet light signaling, wireless signaling along the electromagnetic spectrum, or some combination thereof. The communication interface 3440 may also include one or more global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers or transceivers for determining the location of the computing system 3400 based on receiving one or more signals from one or more satellites associated with one or more GNSS systems. GNSS systems include, but are not limited to, the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), and Europe's Galileo GNSS. There is no restriction to operating on any particular hardware arrangement, and thus the base features herein may be easily substituted for improved hardware or firmware arrangements as they are developed.

[0188] The storage device 3430 may be a non-volatile and / or non-transitory and / or computer-readable memory device and may be a hard disk or other type of computer-readable medium that can store data accessible by a computer, such as a magnetic cassette, a flash memory card, a solid-state memory device, a digital versatile disk, a cassette, a floppy disk, a floppy disk, a hard disk, a magnetic tape, a magnetic stripe / magnetic stripe, any other magnetic storage medium, flash memory, a memristor memory, any other solid-state memory, a compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM) optical disk, a rewritable compact disk (CD) optical disk, a digital video disk (DVD) optical disk, a Blu-ray disc (BDD) optical disk, a holographic optical disk, another optical medium, a secure digital (SD) card, a micro secure digital (microSD) card, a Memory Card, or a memory card. card, a smart card chip, an EMV chip, a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, a mini / micro / nano / pico SIM card, another integrated circuit (IC) chip / card, a random access memory (RAM), a static RAM (SRAM), a dynamic RAM (DRAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a programmable read-only memory (PROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a flash EPROM (FLASH EPROM), a cache memory (e.g., a layer 1 (L1) cache, a layer 2 (L2) cache, a layer 3 (L3) cache, a layer 4 (L4) cache, a layer 5 (L5) cache, other (L#) cache), a resistive random access memory (RRAM / ReRAM), a phase change memory (PCM), a spin transfer torque RAM (STT-RAM), another memory chip or box, and / or a combination thereof.

[0189] Storage device 3430 may include software services, servers, services, etc., which, when the code defining such software is executed by processor 3410, causes the system to perform functions. In some aspects, hardware services that perform specific functions may include software components for performing functions stored in a computer-readable medium connected to necessary hardware components (such as processor 3410, connector 3405, output device 3435, etc.). The term "computer-readable medium" includes, but is not limited to, portable or non-portable storage devices, optical storage devices, and various other media capable of storing, containing or carrying instructions and / or data. Computer-readable media may include non-transient media in which data may be stored and does not include carrier waves and / or transient electronic signals propagated wirelessly or via wired connections. Examples of non-transient media may include, but are not limited to, disks or tapes, optical storage media (such as compact disks (CDs) or digital versatile disks (DVDs)), flash memory, memory, or memory devices. Computer readable media may store thereon code and / or machine executable instructions, which may represent a procedure, function, subprogram, program, routine, subroutine, module, software package, category, or any combination of instructions, data structures, or program statements. A code segment may be coupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by transmitting and / or receiving information, data, independent variables, parameters, or memory contents. Information, independent variables, parameters, data, etc. may be transmitted, forwarded, or sent via any suitable means, including memory sharing, message passing, token passing, network sending, etc.

[0190] Specific details are provided in the above description to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects and examples provided herein, but those skilled in the art will recognize that the application is not limited thereto. Thus, although the exemplary aspects of the present application have been described in detail herein, it is to be understood that various inventive concepts can be implemented and adopted in various other ways, and the appended claims are not intended to be interpreted as including these variations, unless limited by the prior art. The various features and aspects of the above-mentioned applications can be used individually or in combination. In addition, without departing from the broader scope of this specification, the various aspects can be used in any number of environments and applications beyond the environment and application described herein. Therefore, the description and the accompanying drawings should be considered as illustrative rather than restrictive. For the purpose of illustration, each method is described in a specific order. It should be appreciated that, in alternative aspects, each method can be performed in a different order than described.

[0191] For clarity of explanation, in some instances, the present technology may be presented as including separate functional blocks, which include devices, device components, steps or routines in the method embodied in software or a combination of hardware and software. Additional components other than those components shown in the drawings and / or described herein may be used. For example, circuits, systems, networks, processes and other components may be shown as components in block diagram form to avoid confusing these aspects in unnecessary details. In other instances, known circuits, processes, algorithms, structures and techniques may be shown without unnecessary details to avoid confusing various aspects.

[0192] In addition, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the various exemplary logic blocks, modules, circuits and algorithmic steps described in conjunction with the various aspects disclosed herein can be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software or a combination of the two. In order to clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various exemplary components, frames, modules, circuits and steps have been generally described in terms of their functions. Whether such functions are implemented as hardware or software depends on the specific application and the design constraints proposed to the entire system. Those skilled in the art can implement the described functions in different ways for each specific application, but such specific implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present disclosure.

[0193] Various aspects may be described above as a process or method, which is depicted as a flow chart, a flow diagram, a data flow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flow chart may describe an operation as a sequential process, many operations in the operation may be performed in parallel or concurrently. In addition, the order of the operations may be rearranged. The process is terminated when the operation of the process is completed, but the process may have additional steps not included in the accompanying drawings. The process may correspond to a method, a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. When a process corresponds to a function, the termination of the process may correspond to the function returning to the caller function or the main function.

[0194] The processes and methods according to the above examples can be implemented using stored computer executable instructions or otherwise available computer executable instructions from computer readable media. Such instructions may include, for example, instructions and data that enable or otherwise configure a general-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, or a processing device to perform a certain function or function group. Parts of the computer resources used can be accessed through a network. Computer executable instructions can be, for example, binary, intermediate format instructions such as assembly language, firmware, source code. Examples of computer readable media that can be used to store instructions, information used, and / or information created during the method according to the described examples include disks or optical disks, flash memories, USB devices with non-volatile memory, networked storage devices, etc.

[0195] In some aspects, computer readable storage devices, media, and memories may include wired or wireless signals containing bit streams, etc. However, when referred to, non-transitory computer readable storage media specifically excludes media such as power consumption, carrier signals, electromagnetic waves, and signals themselves.

[0196] Those skilled in the art will appreciate that information and signals may be represented using any of a variety of different techniques and methods. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be mentioned throughout the above description may be represented by voltage, current, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or magnetic particles, optical fields or optical particles, or any combination thereof in some cases, depending in part on the specific application, in part on the desired design, in part on the corresponding technology, etc.

[0197] The various illustrative logic blocks, modules, and circuits described in conjunction with the various aspects disclosed herein may be implemented or executed using hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description language, or any combination thereof, and may be implemented in any of a variety of form factors. When implemented in software, firmware, middleware, or microcode, program code or code segments (e.g., computer program products) for performing the necessary tasks may be stored in a computer-readable or machine-readable medium. The processor may perform the necessary tasks. Examples of form factors include: laptops, smartphones, mobile phones, tablet devices, or other small form factor personal computers, personal digital assistants, rack-mounted devices, stand-alone devices, and the like. The functions described herein may also be embodied in peripheral devices or add-in cards. By way of further example, such functions may also be implemented on circuit boards in different chips or different processes executed on a single device.

[0198] Instructions, media for communicating such instructions, computing resources for executing them, and other structures for supporting such computing resources are example means for providing the functionality described in this disclosure.

[0199] The technology described herein may also be implemented in electronic hardware, computer software, firmware, or any combination thereof. Such technology may be implemented in any of a variety of devices, such as general-purpose computers, wireless communication device mobile phones, or integrated circuit devices with multiple uses, including applications in wireless communication device mobile phones and other devices. Any features described as modules or components may be implemented together in an integrated logic device or separately as discrete but interoperable logic devices. If implemented in software, the technology may be implemented at least in part by a computer-readable data storage medium including a program code, which includes instructions for executing one or more of the above methods, algorithms, and / or operations when executed. A computer-readable data storage medium may form part of a computer program product, which may include packaging materials. A computer-readable medium may include a memory or data storage medium, such as a random access memory (RAM) (such as a synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM)), a read-only memory (ROM), a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a flash memory, a magnetic or optical data storage medium, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the techniques may be implemented at least in part by a computer-readable communication medium that carries or communicates program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed, read, and / or executed by a computer, such as a propagated signal or wave.

[0200] The program code may be executed by a processor, which may include one or more processors, such as one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), general-purpose microprocessors, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable logic arrays (FPGAs), or other equivalent integrated or discrete logic circuits. Such processors may be configured to perform any of the techniques described in this disclosure. A general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor; however, in an alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. The processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, such as a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, multiple microprocessors, one or more microprocessors combined with a DSP core, or any other such configuration. Therefore, the term "processor" as used herein may refer to any of the aforementioned structures, any combination of the aforementioned structures, or any other structure or device suitable for implementing the techniques described herein.

[0201] One of ordinary skill in the art will understand that the less than ("<") and greater than (">") symbols or terms used herein may be replaced by less than or equal to ("≤") and greater than or equal to ("≥") symbols, respectively, without departing from the scope of this specification.

[0202] Where a component is described as being “configured to” perform certain operations, such configuration may be achieved, for example, by designing electronic circuits or other hardware to perform the operations, by programming programmable electronic circuits (e.g., a microprocessor or other suitable electronic circuits) to perform the operations, or any combination thereof.

[0203] The phrases “coupled to” or “communicatively coupled to” refer to any component being physically connected directly or indirectly to another component, and / or any component being in communication with another component directly or indirectly (e.g., connected to the other component via a wired or wireless connection and / or other suitable communication interface).

[0204] Claim language or other language reciting "at least one of" a set and / or "one or more of" a set indicates that one member of the set or multiple members of the set (in any combination) satisfies the claim. For example, claim language reciting "at least one of A and B" or "at least one of A or B" means A, B, or A and B. In another example, claim language reciting "at least one of A, B, and C" or "at least one of A, B, or C" means A, B, C, or A and B, or A and C, or B and C, or any repetition is information or data (e.g., A and A, B and B, C and C, A and A and B, etc.), or any other ordering, repetition, or combination of A, B, and C. The language "at least one of" a set and / or "one or more of" a set does not limit the set to the items listed in the set. For example, claim language stating "at least one of A and B" or "at least one of A or B" may mean A, B, or A and B, and may additionally include items not listed in the set of A and B.

[0205] Illustrative aspects of the present disclosure include:

[0206] Aspect 1. A device for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory, the at least one memory comprising instructions; and at least one processor, the at least one processor being coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: select a special cell (SpCell) from one or more candidate cells for communicating with a user equipment (UE); and send an indication of the SpCell to the UE.

[0207] Aspect 2. An apparatus according to aspect 1, wherein the one or more candidate cells correspond to a subset of serving cells configured to communicate with the UE.

[0208] Aspect 3. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 2, wherein the one or more candidate cells correspond to one or more serving cells included in at least one cell group associated with the UE.

[0209] Aspect 4. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 3, wherein the indication corresponds to a beam indication, and wherein the beam indication includes at least one of a layer 1 (L1) downlink control information (DCI) beam indication and a layer 2 (L2) medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) beam indication.

[0210] Aspect 5. An apparatus according to aspect 4, wherein the beam indication includes a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) code point corresponding to at least one of a first TCI state for an uplink direction and a second TCI state for a downlink direction.

[0211] Aspect 6. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 1 to 5, wherein the indication corresponds to a cell handover command.

[0212] Aspect 7. The apparatus according to aspect 6, wherein the cell switching command is signaled using at least one of MAC-CE and DCI.

[0213] Aspect 8. An apparatus according to aspect 7, wherein the DCI includes at least one of a downlink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and an uplink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0214] Aspect 9. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 6 to 8, wherein the cell switching command includes an identifier corresponding to the SpCell.

[0215] Aspect 10. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 6 to 9, wherein the cell switching command comprises one or more identifiers corresponding to one or more secondary cells.

[0216] Aspect 11. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 10, wherein the cell switching command includes at least one of a beam indication, a timing advance (TA) value, a power control parameter, a downlink bandwidth part (BWP), and an uplink BWP.

[0217] Aspect 12. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 6 to 11, wherein the cell switching command includes one or more transmission configuration indicators (TCIs) corresponding to one or more transmission reception points (TRPs) associated with the SpCell.

[0218] Aspect 13. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 6 to 12, wherein the cell switching command includes at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) corresponding to the SpCell and at least one of one or more secondary cells (SCells).

[0219] Aspect 14. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 13, wherein the indication includes an application time for the UE to switch to the SpCell.

[0220] Aspect 15. The apparatus according to aspect 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold time from the end of an uplink time slot including an acknowledgement (ACK) of the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a MAC-CE.

[0221] Aspect 16. The apparatus of aspect 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot occurring a threshold time after an ACK for the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI.

[0222] Aspect 17. The apparatus according to aspect 16, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

[0223] Aspect 18. An apparatus according to Aspect 17, wherein a subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is at least one of a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a second SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to a minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fourth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, and a sixth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell.

[0224] Aspect 19. The apparatus of aspect 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot occurring a threshold time from the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI.

[0225] Aspect 20. The apparatus according to aspect 19, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

[0226] Aspect 21. An apparatus according to Aspect 20, wherein a subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is at least one of a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a second SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a fourth SCS value corresponding to a minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a sixth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a seventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, an eighth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a ninth SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a tenth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the apparatus, and an eleventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the apparatus.

[0227] Aspect 22. The apparatus according to aspect 14, wherein the application time is based on an activation state of the SpCell.

[0228] Aspect 23. The apparatus of aspect 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a capability of the UE.

[0229] Aspect 24. The apparatus of aspect 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a subcarrier spacing (SCS).

[0230] Aspect 25. The apparatus according to aspect 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a common application time for the UE to switch to multiple new cells.

[0231] Aspect 26. An apparatus according to aspect 25, wherein the common application time is based on a maximum time for the UE to switch to at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

[0232] Aspect 27. An apparatus according to aspect 14, wherein the time slot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell, wherein the first time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell is different from a second time slot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell.

[0233] Aspect 28. The apparatus according to aspect 27, wherein the UE is configured to discard communications occurring after the time slot boundary.

[0234] Aspect 29. The apparatus according to aspect 27, wherein the UE is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second time slot timing.

[0235] Aspect 30. An apparatus according to Aspect 14, wherein the time slot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first time slot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell, wherein the first time slot timing corresponding to the previous serving cell is different from a second time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell.

[0236] Aspect 31. An apparatus according to aspect 30, wherein the UE is configured to discard communications occurring after the time slot boundary.

[0237] Aspect 32. An apparatus according to aspect 30, wherein the UE is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second time slot timing.

[0238] Aspect 33. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 32, wherein the indication configures the UE to perform one or more measurements associated with the SpCell.

[0239] Aspect 34. An apparatus according to Aspect 33, wherein the one or more measurements include at least one of an aperiodic (AP) channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) measurement, a semi-persistent (SP) CSI-RS measurement, an AP tracking resource signal (TRS) measurement, and an SP TRS measurement.

[0240] Aspect 35. The apparatus of aspect 34, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SP CSI-RS measurement correspond to a CSI-RS resource set with repetition enabled.

[0241] Aspect 36. The apparatus of aspect 34, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SP CSI-RS measurement correspond to at least one of a beam report and a CSI report.

[0242] Aspect 37. The apparatus according to aspect 34, wherein the indication comprises an identifier of a CSI-RS resource set.

[0243] Aspect 38. The device according to any one of Aspects 33 to 37 further includes: using radio resource control (RRC) to configure a scheduling offset corresponding to the start of the one or more measurements, wherein the scheduling offset is relative to the end of the indication and at least one of an acknowledgment (ACK) corresponding to the indication.

[0244] Aspect 39. The apparatus according to any one of aspects 33 to 38 further includes: determining a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state corresponding to the CSI-RS, wherein the indication includes the TCI state.

[0245] Aspect 40. An apparatus according to aspect 39, wherein the TCI state corresponds to a downlink TCI associated with the SpCell.

[0246] Aspect 41. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 40 further includes: sending a first resource identifier corresponding to a first resource associated with the SpCell and a second resource identifier corresponding to a second resource associated with a neighboring cell, wherein the first resource and the second resource share one or more downlink resources.

[0247] Aspect 42. The apparatus according to aspect 41, wherein the first resource and the second resource correspond to CSI-RS.

[0248] Aspect 43. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 42 further includes: sending one or more linked radio resource control (RRC) parameters to the UE, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters are associated with the SpCell and at least one neighboring cell.

[0249] Aspect 44. An apparatus according to aspect 43, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters include at least one of one or more transmit configuration indicator (TCI) states and one or more TCI state sets.

[0250] Aspect 45. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 44 further includes: determining a timing advance (TA) parameter associated with a deactivated secondary cell that is part of the one or more candidate cells; and sending the TA parameter to the UE.

[0251] Aspect 46. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 45 further includes: sending beam configuration information corresponding to at least a portion of the one or more candidate cells to the UE.

[0252] Aspect 47. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 46 further includes: sending an instruction to the UE to activate a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

[0253] Clause 48. The apparatus of Clause 47, wherein the instruction corresponds to a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

[0254] Aspect 49. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 48 further includes: sending an instruction to the UE to activate a repetition-enabled aperiodic CSI-RS resource set for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

[0255] Aspect 50. The apparatus of aspect 49, wherein the instruction corresponds to downlink control information (DCI).

[0256] Aspect 51. The apparatus according to aspect 50, wherein the DCI includes a carrier indicator field (CIF) identifying the at least one candidate cell.

[0257] Aspect 52. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 1 to 51, wherein the apparatus is configured as a network entity.

[0258] Aspect 53. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory, the at least one memory comprising instructions; and at least one processor, the at least one processor being configured to: receive an indication of a special cell (SpCell) from a network entity; and in response to the indication, communicate with the SpCell.

[0259] Aspect 54. An apparatus according to Aspect 53, wherein the indication corresponds to a beam indication, and wherein the beam indication includes at least one of a layer 1 (L1) downlink control information (DCI) beam indication and a layer 2 (L2) medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) beam indication.

[0260] Aspect 55. An apparatus according to aspect 54, wherein the beam indication includes a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) code point corresponding to at least one of a first TCI state for an uplink direction and a second TCI state for a downlink direction.

[0261] Aspect 56. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 53 to 55, wherein the indication corresponds to a cell handover command.

[0262] Aspect 57. The apparatus according to aspect 56, wherein the cell switching command is signaled using at least one of MAC-CE and DCI.

[0263] Aspect 58. An apparatus according to aspect 57, wherein the DCI includes at least one of a downlink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and an uplink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0264] Aspect 59. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 56 to 58, wherein the cell switching command includes an identifier corresponding to the SpCell.

[0265] Aspect 60. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 56 to 59, wherein the cell handover command comprises one or more identifiers corresponding to one or more secondary cells.

[0266] Aspect 61. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 56 to 60, wherein the cell switching command includes at least one of a beam indication, a timing advance (TA) value, a power control parameter, a downlink bandwidth part (BWP), and an uplink BWP.

[0267] Aspect 62. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 56 to 61, wherein the cell switching command includes one or more transmit configuration indicators (TCIs) corresponding to one or more transmit reception points (TRPs) associated with the SpCell.

[0268] Aspect 63. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 56 to 62, wherein the cell switching command includes at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) corresponding to at least one of the SpCell and one or more secondary cells (SCells).

[0269] Aspect 64. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 63, wherein the indication comprises an application time at which the apparatus switches to the SpCell.

[0270] Aspect 65. The apparatus of aspect 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold time from the end of an uplink timeslot including an acknowledgement (ACK) of the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a MAC-CE.

[0271] Aspect 66. An apparatus according to any one of Aspect 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot occurring a threshold time after an ACK for the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI.

[0272] Aspect 67. The apparatus according to aspect 66, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

[0273] Aspect 68. An apparatus according to Aspect 67, wherein a subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is at least one of a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a second SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to a minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fourth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, and a sixth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell.

[0274] Aspect 69. The apparatus of aspect 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot occurring a threshold time from the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI.

[0275] Aspect 70. The apparatus according to aspect 69, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

[0276] Aspect 71. An apparatus according to Aspect 70, wherein a subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is at least one of a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a second SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a fourth SCS value corresponding to a minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a sixth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a seventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, an eighth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a ninth SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a tenth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the apparatus, and an eleventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the apparatus.

[0277] Aspect 72. An apparatus according to Aspect 64, wherein the application time is based on an activation state of the SpCell.

[0278] Aspect 73. An apparatus according to aspect 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a capability of the apparatus.

[0279] Aspect 74. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 73, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a subcarrier spacing (SCS).

[0280] Aspect 75. The apparatus according to aspect 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a common application time for the apparatus to switch to a plurality of new cells.

[0281] Aspect 76. The apparatus according to aspect 75, wherein the common application time is based on a longest time for the apparatus to switch to at least one candidate cell from one or more candidate cells.

[0282] Aspect 77. An apparatus according to Aspect 64, wherein the time slot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell, wherein the first time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell is different from a second time slot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell.

[0283] Aspect 78. The apparatus according to aspect 77, wherein the apparatus is configured to discard communications occurring after the time slot boundary.

[0284] Aspect 79. An apparatus according to aspect 77, wherein the apparatus is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second time slot timing.

[0285] Aspect 80. An apparatus according to Aspect 64, wherein the time slot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first time slot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell, wherein the first time slot timing corresponding to the previous serving cell is different from a second time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell.

[0286] Aspect 81. The apparatus according to aspect 80, wherein the apparatus is configured to discard communications occurring after the time slot boundary.

[0287] Aspect 82. The apparatus according to aspect 80, wherein the apparatus is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second time slot timing.

[0288] Aspect 83. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 82, wherein the indication configures the apparatus to perform one or more measurements associated with the SpCell.

[0289] Aspect 84. An apparatus according to Aspect 83, wherein the one or more measurements include at least one of an aperiodic (AP) channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) measurement, a semi-persistent (SP) CSI-RS measurement, an AP tracking resource signal (TRS) measurement, and an SP TRS measurement.

[0290] Aspect 85. The apparatus of aspect 84, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SP CSI-RS measurement correspond to a repetition-enabled CSI-RS resource set.

[0291] Aspect 86. The apparatus of aspect 84, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SP CSI-RS measurement correspond to at least one of a beam report and a CSI report.

[0292] Aspect 87. The apparatus of aspect 84, wherein the indication comprises an identifier of a CSI-RS resource set.

[0293] Aspect 88. The device according to any one of Aspects 83 to 87 further includes: receiving a scheduling offset corresponding to the start time of the one or more measurements via radio resource control (RRC), wherein the scheduling offset is relative to the end of the indication and at least one of an acknowledgment (ACK) corresponding to the indication.

[0294] Aspect 89. The apparatus according to any one of aspects 83 to 88 further includes: receiving a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state corresponding to the CSI-RS associated with the one or more measurements.

[0295] Aspect 90. An apparatus according to aspect 89, wherein the TCI state corresponds to a downlink TCI associated with the SpCell.

[0296] Aspect 91. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 90, further comprising: receiving a first resource identifier corresponding to a first resource associated with the SpCell and a second resource identifier corresponding to a second resource associated with a neighboring cell, wherein the first resource and the second resource share one or more downlink resources.

[0297] Aspect 92. The apparatus according to aspect 91, wherein the first resource and the second resource correspond to CSI-RS.

[0298] Aspect 93. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 92 further includes: receiving one or more linked radio resource control (RRC) parameters, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters are associated with the SpCell and at least one neighboring cell.

[0299] Aspect 94. The apparatus according to aspect 93, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters include at least one of one or more transmit configuration indicator (TCI) states and one or more TCI state sets.

[0300] Aspect 95. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 94 further includes: receiving a timing advance (TA) parameter associated with a deactivated secondary cell that is part of one or more candidate cells; and sending a random access channel (RACH) message to the deactivated secondary cell based on the TA parameter.

[0301] Aspect 96. The apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 95 further includes: receiving a message identifying one or more deactivated secondary cells; and performing at least one of beam failure detection and radio link monitoring using at least one deactivated secondary cell from the one or more deactivated secondary cells.

[0302] Aspect 97. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 53 to 96, further comprising: receiving beam configuration information corresponding to one or more candidate cells.

[0303] Aspect 98. The apparatus according to Aspect 97 further includes: sending a signal to the SpCell based on the beam configuration information.

[0304] Aspect 99. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 53 to 98, further comprising: receiving an instruction to activate a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

[0305] Clause 100. The apparatus of clause 99, wherein the instruction corresponds to a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

[0306] Aspect 101. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 53 to 100, further comprising: receiving an instruction to activate a repetition-enabled aperiodic CSI-RS resource set for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

[0307] Aspect 102. The apparatus according to aspect 101, wherein the instruction corresponds to downlink control information (DCI).

[0308] Aspect 103. The apparatus according to aspect 102, wherein the DCI comprises a carrier indicator field (CIF) identifying the at least one candidate cell.

[0309] Aspect 104. An apparatus according to any one of aspects 53 to 103, wherein the apparatus is configured as a user equipment (UE).

[0310] Aspect 105. A method of wireless communications at a network entity, the method comprising the operations of any one of aspects 1 to 52.

[0311] Aspect 106. A method of wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), the method comprising the operations according to any one of aspects 53 to 104.

[0312] Aspect 107. Provided is a non-transitory computer-readable medium of a network entity comprising at least one instruction stored thereon, wherein the at least one instruction, when executed by one or more processors, enables the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of Aspects 1 to 52.

[0313] Aspect 108. Provided is a non-transitory computer-readable medium of a user equipment (UE) comprising at least one instruction stored thereon, wherein the at least one instruction, when executed by one or more processors, is capable of causing the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of Aspects 53 to 104.

[0314] Aspect 109. An apparatus for wireless communications, comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any one of aspects 1 to 52.

[0315] Aspect 110. An apparatus for wireless communications, comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any one of aspects 53 to 104.

[0316] Aspect 111. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory, the at least one memory comprising instructions; and at least one processor, the at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: receive a beam indication or activation command from a first special cell (SpCell) via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) or a downlink control element (DCI); and determine a second SpCell for communication in response to the beam indication or activation command.

[0317] Aspect 112. The apparatus according to aspect 111, wherein the second SpCell is implied by the MAC-CE activating at least one transmit configuration indicator (TCI) state configured for the second SpCell based on the MAC-CE.

[0318] Aspect 113. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 or 112, wherein the second SpCell is implied by the MAC-CE or the DCI indicating to the apparatus based on the MAC-CE or the DCI to use at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state configured for the second SpCell.

[0319] Aspect 114. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 113, wherein the beam indication or activation command includes an indicator, which is added to a sending configuration indicator (TCI) activation MAC-CE or a TCI update downlink control information (DCI) to indicate whether the serving cell indicated by the serving cell identifier (ID) field of the MAC-CE or indicated in the carrier indicator field (CIF) of the DCI is selected as the second SpCell or maintained as the serving cell.

[0320] Aspect 115. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 114, wherein the beam indication or activation command includes a transmit configuration indicator (TCI) activation MAC-CE indicating a cell group associated with the second SpCell, and wherein the cell group associated with the second SpCell is implicitly selected as a new cell group.

[0321] Aspect 116. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 115, wherein the beam indication or activation command comprises a PCI or a serving cell ID.

[0322] Aspect 117. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 116, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: transfer one or more functions of the first SpCell to the second SpCell.

[0323] Aspect 118. An apparatus according to aspect 117, wherein the one or more functions of the first SpCell include at least one of RACH, SI, RRM, paging or RLMS.

[0324] Aspect 119. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 or 118, wherein a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state or a cell state of the first SpCell when starting to communicate with the second SpCell includes at least one of the following: an active TCI of at least one of the first SpCell or the second SpCell is implicitly deactivated; an active CTI of at least one of the first SpCell or the second SpCell is implicitly activated; or a TCI activation state or a cell activation state of the first SpCell is explicitly indicated.

[0325] Aspect 120. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 119, wherein mobility settings based on serving cell change are enabled for a cell associated with the second SpCell, and wherein inter-cell features are not enabled or configured for the cell associated with the second SpCell, or the inter-cell features are enabled for the cell associated with the second SpCell.

[0326] Aspect 121. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 120, wherein the second SpCell is signaled via the MAC-CE, and wherein the application time of the second SpCell is a setup time from the end of an uplink timeslot carrying an acknowledgment (ACK) for the MAC-CE.

[0327] Aspect 122. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 121, wherein the second SpCell is signaled via the DCI, and wherein the application time of the second SpCell is one of: the start of the first time slot after a set time or a certain number of symbols from the end of an uplink transmission carrying an acknowledgment (ACK) for the DCI, or the start of the first time slot after the set time or the number of symbols from the end of the DCI.

[0328] Aspect 123. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 122, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: activate a non-periodic or semi-persistent channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or a tracking reference signal (TRS), turn on a non-periodic or semi-persistent CSI-RS in a repeated CSI-RS resource set, or a non-periodic or semi-persistent CSI-RS for a beam or CSI report.

[0329] Aspect 124. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 123, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: receive a first channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource or resource set configured for a serving cell and a second CSI-RS resource or resource set configured for a neighboring cell, wherein the first CSI-RS resource or resource set and the second CSI-RS resource or resource set are linked in a resource manner to indicate that the same user equipment receives a beam.

[0330] Aspect 125. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 124, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: receive a measured and signaled timing advance (TA) for a configured serving cell that is not activated for data or control, wherein the configured serving cell is a candidate cell for the second SpCell.

[0331] Aspect 126. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 125, wherein at least one of beam failure detection (BFD) or radio link monitoring (RLM) is performed for a configured service cell that is not activated for data or control, wherein the configured service cell is a candidate cell for the second SpCell.

[0332] Aspect 127. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 126, wherein the apparatus is pre-configured or pre-indicated using one or more beams of different channels or reference signals for a configured service cell that is not activated for data or control, wherein the configured service cell is a candidate cell for the second SpCell.

[0333] Aspect 128. According to an apparatus described in any one of Aspects 111 to 127, in order to reduce the tracking reference signal (TRS) tracking delay, after the apparatus starts communicating with the second SpCell, the MAC-CE activates a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state configured for candidate cells that are not selected for use.

[0334] Aspect 129. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 111 to 128, wherein, in order to reduce the tracking reference signal (TRS) tracking delay, after the apparatus starts communicating with the second SpCell, the MAC-CE or DCI activates or triggers a set of repeated non-periodic or semi-persistent channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources of a candidate cell that is configured to be not selected for use.

[0335] Aspect 130. A method of wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), the method comprising the operations of any one of claims 111 to 129.

[0336] Aspect 131. Provided is a non-transitory computer-readable medium of a network entity comprising at least one instruction stored thereon, wherein the at least one instruction, when executed by one or more processors, enables the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of claims 111 to 129.

[0337] Aspect 132. An apparatus for wireless communications, comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any one of claims 111 to 129.

Claims

1. A device for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory, the at least one memory comprising instructions; and at least one processor configured to execute the instructions and cause the apparatus to: selecting a special cell (SpCell) from one or more candidate cells for communicating with a user equipment (UE); and Send an indication of the SpCell to the UE.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more candidate cells correspond to a subset of serving cells configured to communicate with the UE. 3 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more candidate cells correspond to one or more serving cells included in at least one cell group associated with the UE.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the indication corresponds to a beam indication, and wherein the beam indication comprises at least one of a layer 1 (L1) downlink control information (DCI) beam indication and a layer 2 (L2) medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) beam indication.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the beam indication comprises a transmit configuration indicator (TCI) code point corresponding to at least one of a first TCI state for an uplink direction and a second TCI state for a downlink direction. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the indication corresponds to a cell handover command. 7 . The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the cell switching command is signaled using at least one of MAC-CE and DCI.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the DCI comprises at least one of a downlink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and an uplink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the cell switching command comprises an identifier corresponding to the SpCell.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the cell handover command comprises one or more identifiers corresponding to one or more secondary cells.

11. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the cell switching command comprises at least one of a beam indication, a timing advance (TA) value, a power control parameter, a downlink bandwidth part (BWP), and an uplink BWP.

12. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the cell switching command comprises one or more transmit configuration indicators (TCIs) corresponding to one or more transmit reception points (TRPs) associated with the SpCell.

13. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the cell switching command comprises at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) corresponding to at least one of the SpCell and one or more secondary cells (SCells).

14. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the indication comprises an application time for the UE to switch to the SpCell.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold time from the end of an uplink timeslot that includes an acknowledgement (ACK) of the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a MAC-CE.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot that occurs a threshold time after an ACK for the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

18. An apparatus according to claim 17, wherein a subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is at least one of a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a second SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to a minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fourth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, and a sixth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell.

19. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot occurring a threshold time from the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein a subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is at least one of a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a second SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a fourth SCS value corresponding to a minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a sixth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a seventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, an eighth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a ninth SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a tenth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the apparatus, and an eleventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the apparatus.

22. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the application time is based on an activation state of the SpCell.

23. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a capability of the UE.

24. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a subcarrier spacing (SCS).

25. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the application time corresponds to a common application time for the UE to switch to a plurality of new cells.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the common application time is based on a maximum time for the UE to switch to at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

27. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein a timeslot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first timeslot timing corresponding to the SpCell, wherein the first timeslot timing corresponding to the SpCell is different from a second timeslot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell.

28. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein the UE is configured to discard communications occurring after the timeslot boundary.

29. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein the UE is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second time slot timing.

30. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein a timeslot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first timeslot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell, wherein the first timeslot timing corresponding to the previous serving cell is different from a second timeslot timing corresponding to the SpCell.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the UE is configured to discard communications occurring after the timeslot boundary.

32. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the UE is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second slot timing.

33. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the indication configures the UE to perform one or more measurements associated with the SpCell.

34. An apparatus according to claim 33, wherein the one or more measurements include at least one of an aperiodic (AP) channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) measurement, a semi-persistent (SP) CSI-RS measurement, an AP tracking resource signal (TRS) measurement, and an SPTRS measurement.

35. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SPCSI-RS measurement correspond to a CSI-RS resource set with repetition enabled.

36. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SPCSI-RS measurement correspond to at least one of a beam report and a CSI report.

37. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the indication comprises an identifier of a CSI-RS resource set.

38. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A scheduling offset corresponding to a start of the one or more measurements is configured using radio resource control (RRC), wherein the scheduling offset is relative to at least one of an end of the indication and an acknowledgment (ACK) corresponding to the indication.

39. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state corresponding to a CSI-RS is determined, wherein the indication includes the TCI state.

40. The apparatus of claim 39, wherein the TCI state corresponds to a downlink TCI associated with the SpCell.

41. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A first resource identifier corresponding to a first resource associated with the SpCell and a second resource identifier corresponding to a second resource associated with a neighboring cell are transmitted, wherein the first resource and the second resource share one or more downlink resources.

42. The apparatus of claim 41, wherein the first resource and the second resource correspond to CSI-RS.

43. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: One or more linked radio resource control (RRC) parameters are sent to the UE, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters are associated with the SpCell and at least one neighboring cell.

44. The apparatus of claim 43, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters include at least one of one or more transmit configuration indicator (TCI) states and one or more TCI state sets.

45. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: determining a timing advance (TA) parameter associated with a deactivated secondary cell that is part of the one or more candidate cells; and Sending the TA parameter to the UE.

46. ​​The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: Send beam configuration information corresponding to at least a portion of the one or more candidate cells to the UE.

47. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: An instruction is sent to the UE to activate a transmit configuration indicator (TCI) state for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

48. The apparatus of claim 47, wherein the instruction corresponds to a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

49. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: An instruction is sent to the UE to activate a repetition-enabled aperiodic CSI-RS resource set for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

50. The apparatus of claim 49, wherein the instruction corresponds to downlink control information (DCI).

51. The apparatus of claim 50, wherein the DCI comprises a carrier indicator field (CIF) identifying the at least one candidate cell.

52. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is configured as a network entity.

53. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory, the at least one memory comprising instructions; and at least one processor configured to execute the instructions and cause the apparatus to: receiving an indication of a special cell (SpCell) from a network entity; and In response to the indication, communicating with the SpCell.

54. An apparatus according to claim 53, wherein the indication corresponds to a beam indication, and wherein the beam indication includes at least one of a layer 1 (L1) downlink control information (DCI) beam indication and a layer 2 (L2) medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) beam indication.

55. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein the beam indication comprises a transmit configuration indicator (TCI) code point corresponding to at least one of a first TCI state for an uplink direction and a second TCI state for a downlink direction.

56. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the indication corresponds to a cell handover command.

57. The apparatus of claim 56, wherein the cell switching command is signaled using at least one of MAC-CE and DCI.

58. The apparatus of claim 57, wherein the DCI comprises at least one of a downlink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and an uplink scheduling assignment corresponding to a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

59. The apparatus of claim 56, wherein the cell switching command comprises an identifier corresponding to the SpCell.

60. The apparatus of claim 56, wherein the cell handover command comprises one or more identifiers corresponding to one or more secondary cells.

61. The apparatus of claim 56, wherein the cell switching command comprises at least one of a beam indication, a timing advance (TA) value, a power control parameter, a downlink bandwidth part (BWP), and an uplink BWP.

62. The apparatus of claim 56, wherein the cell switching command comprises one or more transmit configuration indicators (TCIs) corresponding to one or more transmit reception points (TRPs) associated with the SpCell.

63. The apparatus of claim 56, wherein the cell switching command comprises at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) corresponding to at least one of the SpCell and one or more secondary cells (SCells).

64. The device of claim 53, wherein the indication comprises an application time at which the device switches to the SpCell.

65. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold time from the end of an uplink timeslot that includes an acknowledgment (ACK) of the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a MAC-CE.

66. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot occurring a threshold time after an ACK for the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI.

67. The apparatus of claim 66, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

68. An apparatus according to claim 67, wherein a subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is at least one of a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a second SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to a minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fourth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, and a sixth SCS value corresponding to a maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell.

69. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a time slot occurring a threshold time from the indication, wherein the indication corresponds to a DCI.

70. The apparatus of claim 69, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols.

71. The apparatus of claim 70, wherein the subcarrier spacing (SCS) parameter included in the indication is a first SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the apparatus, a second SCS value corresponding to an active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a third SCS value corresponding to an active uplink BWP of the SpCell, and a a fourth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, a fifth SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the SpCell, The SCS value corresponds to the minimum active uplink BWP associated with the SpCell. At least one of a sixth SCS value of SCS, a seventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the SpCell, an eighth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the device, a ninth SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active downlink BWP of the device, a tenth SCS value corresponding to the minimum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the device, and an eleventh SCS value corresponding to the maximum SCS associated with the active uplink BWP of the device.

72. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the application time is based on an activation state of the SpCell.

73. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a capability of the apparatus.

74. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a threshold number of symbols, and wherein the threshold number of symbols is based on a subcarrier spacing (SCS).

75. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the application time corresponds to a common application time for the apparatus to switch to a plurality of new cells.

76. The apparatus of claim 75, wherein the common application time is based on a longest time for the apparatus to switch to at least one candidate cell from one or more candidate cells.

77. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein a time slot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell, wherein the first time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell is different from a second time slot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell.

78. The apparatus of claim 77, wherein the apparatus is configured to discard communications occurring after the time slot boundary.

79. The apparatus of claim 77, wherein the apparatus is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second time slot timing.

80. The apparatus of claim 64, wherein the time slot boundary corresponding to the application time is based on a first time slot timing corresponding to a previous serving cell, wherein the first time slot timing corresponding to the previous serving cell is different from a second time slot timing corresponding to the SpCell.

81. The apparatus of claim 80, wherein the apparatus is configured to discard communications occurring after the time slot boundary.

82. The apparatus of claim 80, wherein the apparatus is configured to process communications occurring before expiration of the application time based on the second time slot timing.

83. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the indication configures the apparatus to perform one or more measurements associated with the SpCell.

84. An apparatus according to claim 83, wherein the one or more measurements include at least one of an aperiodic (AP) channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) measurement, a semi-persistent (SP) CSI-RS measurement, an AP tracking resource signal (TRS) measurement, and an SPTRS measurement.

85. The apparatus of claim 84, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SPCSI-RS measurement correspond to a CSI-RS resource set with repetition enabled.

86. The apparatus of claim 84, wherein the AP CSI-RS measurement and the SPCSI-RS measurement correspond to at least one of a beam report and a CSI report.

87. The apparatus of claim 84, wherein the indication comprises an identifier of a CSI-RS resource set.

88. The apparatus of claim 83, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A scheduling offset corresponding to a start time of the one or more measurements is received via a radio resource control (RRC), wherein the scheduling offset is relative to at least one of an end of the indication and an acknowledgment (ACK) corresponding to the indication.

89. The apparatus of claim 83, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A transmit configuration indicator (TCI) state corresponding to a CSI-RS associated with the one or more measurements is received.

90. The apparatus of claim 89, wherein the TCI state corresponds to a downlink TCI associated with the SpCell.

91. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A first resource identifier corresponding to a first resource associated with the SpCell and a second resource identifier corresponding to a second resource associated with a neighboring cell are received, wherein the first resource and the second resource share one or more downlink resources.

92. The apparatus of claim 91, wherein the first resource and the second resource correspond to CSI-RS.

93. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: One or more linked radio resource control (RRC) parameters are received, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters are associated with the SpCell and at least one neighboring cell.

94. The apparatus of claim 93, wherein the one or more linked RRC parameters include at least one of one or more transmit configuration indicator (TCI) states and one or more TCI state sets.

95. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: receiving a timing advance (TA) parameter associated with a deactivated secondary cell that is part of the one or more candidate cells; and A random access channel (RACH) message is sent to the deactivated secondary cell based on the TA parameter.

96. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: receiving a message identifying one or more deactivated secondary cells; and At least one of beam failure detection and radio link monitoring is performed with at least one deactivated secondary cell from the one or more deactivated secondary cells.

97. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: Beam configuration information corresponding to one or more candidate cells is received.

98. The apparatus of claim 97, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A signal is sent to the SpCell based on the beam configuration information.

99. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: An instruction is received to activate a transmit configuration indicator (TCI) state for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

100. The apparatus of claim 99, wherein the instruction corresponds to a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).

101. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: An instruction is received to activate a repetition-enabled aperiodic CSI-RS resource set for at least one candidate cell from the one or more candidate cells.

102. The apparatus of claim 101, wherein the instruction corresponds to downlink control information (DCI).

103. The apparatus of claim 102, wherein the DCI comprises a carrier indicator field (CIF) identifying the at least one candidate cell.

104. The apparatus of claim 53, wherein the apparatus is configured as a user equipment (UE).

105. A method of wireless communications at a network entity, the method comprising the operations of any one of claims 1 to 52.

106. A method of wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), the method comprising the operations of any one of claims 53 to 104.

107. Provided is a non-transitory computer-readable medium of a network entity comprising at least one instruction stored thereon, the at least one instruction, when executed by one or more processors, enabling the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of claims 1 to 52.

108. A non-transitory computer-readable medium of a user equipment (UE) is provided comprising at least one instruction stored thereon, the at least one instruction, when executed by one or more processors, enabling the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of claims 53 to 104.

109. An apparatus for wireless communications, comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any one of claims 1 to 52.

110. An apparatus for wireless communications, comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any of claims 53 to 104.

111. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: receiving a beam indication or activation command from a first special cell (SpCell) via a medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) or a downlink control element (DCI); and In response to the beam indication or activation command, a second SpCell for communication is determined.

112. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the second SpCell is implied by the MAC-CE activating at least one transmit configuration indicator (TCI) state configured for the second SpCell based on the MAC-CE activating.

113. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the second SpCell is implied by the MAC-CE or the DCI indicating to the apparatus based on the MAC-CE or the DCI to use at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state configured to the second SpCell.

114. An apparatus according to claim 111, wherein the beam indication or activation command includes an indicator, which is added to a transmit configuration indicator (TCI) activation MAC-CE or a TCI update downlink control information (DCI) to indicate whether the serving cell indicated by a serving cell identifier (ID) field of the MAC-CE or indicated in a carrier indicator field (CIF) of the DCI is selected as the second SpCell or maintained as the serving cell.

115. An apparatus according to claim 111, wherein the beam indication or activation command includes a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) activation MAC-CE indicating a cell group associated with the second SpCell, and wherein the cell group associated with the second SpCell is implicitly selected as a new cell group.

116. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the beam indication or activation command comprises a PCI or a serving cell ID.

117. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: One or more functions of the first SpCell are transferred to the second SpCell.

118. The apparatus of claim 117, wherein the one or more functions of the first SpCell include at least one of RACH, SI, RRM, paging, or RLMS.

119. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein a Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state or a cell state of the first SpCell when starting to communicate with the second SpCell comprises at least one of the following: An active TCI of at least one of the first SpcCell or the second SpCell is implicitly deactivated; The active CTI of at least one of the first SpCell or the second SpCell is implicitly activated; or The TCI activation state or cell activation state of the first SpCell is explicitly indicated.

120. An apparatus according to claim 111, wherein mobility settings based on serving cell change are enabled for cells associated with the second SpCell, and wherein inter-cell features are not enabled or configured for cells associated with the second SpCell, or the inter-cell features are enabled for the cells associated with the second SpCell.

121. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the second SpCell is signaled via the MAC-CE, and wherein an application time of the second SpCell is a setup time from an end of an uplink timeslot carrying an acknowledgment (ACK) for the MAC-CE.

122. An apparatus according to claim 111, wherein the second SpCell is signaled via the DCI, and wherein the application time of the second SpCell is one of the following: at the beginning of the first time slot after a set time or a certain number of symbols from the end of the uplink transmission carrying an acknowledgment (ACK) for the DCI, or at the beginning of the first time slot after the set time or the number of symbols from the end of the DCI.

123. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: Activate an aperiodic or semi-persistent channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or tracking reference signal (TRS), an aperiodic or semi-persistent CSI-RS in a CSI-RS resource set with repetition turned on, or an aperiodic or semi-persistent CSI-RS for a beam or CSI report.

124. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A first channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource or resource set configured for a serving cell and a second CSI-RS resource or resource set configured for a neighboring cell are received, wherein the first CSI-RS resource or resource set and the second CSI-RS resource or resource set are linked in a resource manner to indicate a same user equipment receive beam.

125. The apparatus of claim 111, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: A measured and signaled timing advance (TA) is received for a configured serving cell that is not activated for data or control, wherein the configured serving cell is a candidate cell for the second SpCell.

126. An apparatus according to claim 111, wherein at least one of beam failure detection (BFD) or radio link monitoring (RLM) is performed for a configured serving cell that is not activated for data or control, wherein the configured serving cell is a candidate cell for the second SpCell.

127. An apparatus according to claim 111, wherein the apparatus is pre-configured or pre-indicated using one or more beams of different channels or reference signals for a configured service cell that is not activated for data or control, wherein the configured service cell is a candidate cell for the second SpCell.

128. According to the device of claim 111, in order to reduce the tracking reference signal (TRS) tracking delay, after the device starts to communicate with the second SpCell, the MAC-CE activates the transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state configured for the candidate cell that is not selected for use.

129. An apparatus according to claim 111, wherein, in order to reduce the tracking reference signal (TRS) tracking delay, after the apparatus starts communicating with the second SpCell, the MAC-CE or DCI activates or triggers a set of repeated non-periodic or semi-persistent channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources that are turned on for a candidate cell that is configured to be not selected for use.

130. A method of wireless communications at a user equipment (UE), the method comprising the operations of any one of claims 111 to 129.

131. A non-transitory computer-readable medium of a network entity comprising at least one instruction stored thereon, wherein the at least one instruction, when executed by one or more processors, enables the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of claims 111 to 129.

132. An apparatus for wireless communications, comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any one of claims 111 to 129.

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