[0001] This application claims priority to United States Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 62/399,967, filed September 26, 2016, entitled "BEAM DIVERSITY BASED TRANSMISSION MODE, IN NR." which is incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

[0002] Various embodiments generally may relate to the field of wireless communications.

BACKGROUND

[0003] Mobile communication has evolved significantly from early voice systems to today's highly sophisticated integrated communication platform. The next generation wireless communication system, fifth generation (5G), will provide access to information and sharing of data anywhere, anytime by various users and applications. 5G is expected to be a unified network/system that is targeted to meet vastly different and sometime conflicting performance dimensions and services. Such diverse multi-dimensional requirements are driven by different services and applications. In general, 5G will evolve based on 3 GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced with additional potential technologies to enrich people lives with better, simpler and seamless wireless connectivity solutions. 5G is expected to deliver fast, rich contents and services.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0004] The present disclosure is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:

[0005] FIG. 1 illustrates a circular buffer and redundancy versions for incremental redundancy operation according to some embodiments described herein. [0006] FIG. 2 il lustrates an example of dual transmission scheme for the control and/or data channel according to some embodiments descried herein.

[0007] FIG. 3 illustrates beam-specific redundancy version (RV) for

transmission according to some embodiments described herein.

[0008] FIG. 4 illustrates beam diversity using dual beam transmission according to some embodiments described here.

[0009] FIG. 5 illustrates the starting position in a circular buffer for rate- matching for transmission for aligned beams according to some embodiments described herein.

[0010] FIG. 6 illustrates beam specific scrambling using dual beam transmission according to some embodiments described herein.

[0011] FIG. 7 illustrates Space frequency block coding (SFBC) with Frequency- Switched Transmit Diversity (FSTD) for beam diversity according to some embodiments described herein.

[0012] FIG. 8 illustrates the structure for frequency division multiplexing (FDM) based beam cycling according to some embodiments described herein.

[0013] FIG. 9 illustrates one example for the time division multiplexing (TDM) based beam cycling scheme according to some embodiments described herein.

[0014] FIG. 10 illustrates one example for the multi-symbol level beam sweeping according to some embodiments described herein.

[0015] FIG. 11 illustrates a MAC control element according to some

embodiments described herein.

[0016] FIG. 12 illustrates an architecture of a system 1200 of a network in accordance with some embodiments.

[0017] FIG. 13 illustrates example components of a device 1300 in accordance with some embodiments.

[0018] FIG. 14 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments

[0019] FIG. 15 is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments.

[0020] FIG 16 is an illustration of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. [0021] FIG. 17 illustrates components of a core network in accordance with some embodiments.

[0022] FIG. 18 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, of a system 1800 to support NFV.

[0023] FIG. 19 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

[0024] The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects of various embodim ents.

However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the various aspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In certain instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the various embodiments with

unnecessary detail.

[0025] The following description and the drawings sufficiently illustrate specific embodiments to enable those skilled in the art to practice them. Other embodiments may incorporate structural, logical, electrical, process, and other changes. Portions and features of some embodiments may be included in, or substituted for, those of other embodiments. Embodiments set forth in the claims encompass all available equivalents of those claims.

DESCRIPTION

[0026] Mobile communication has evolved significantly from early voice systems to today's highly sophisticated integrated communication platform. The next generation wireless communication system, 5G, will provide access to information and sharing of data anywhere, anytime by various users and applications. 5G is expected to be a unified network/system designed to meet vastly different and sometime conflicting performance dimensions and services. Such diverse multi-dimensional requirements are driven by different services and applications. In general, 5G will evolve based on 3 GPP LTE-Advanced with additional potential new Radio (NR) Access Technologies (RATs) to enrich people lives with better, simple and seamless wireless connectivity solutions.

[0027] Various examples relate to techniques for wireless

communications to enable beam-based spatial diversity transmission schemes. Note that although the detailed embodiments set forth below are mainly focused on unicast transmission, similar designs may be applied for the various channels, e.g. broadcast message, e.g. NR physical broadcast channel (PBCH), NR system information block (SIB).

[0028] Hybrid ARQ (Automatic Retransmission reQuest) operation, where a transmitter retransmits a packet upon reception of a retransmission request, e.g., a HARQ NACK (Negative-Acknowledgement), may exploit the time diversity of a channel and provide a correction in link adaptation error due to time- varying interference level.

[0029] In LTE, the HARQ mechanism supports both Chase Combining

(beam) and Incremental Redundancy (IR). Chase Combining is equivalent to symbol-level Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) for multiple received packets with the same codeword, and IR combines different codewords (generated from the same information bits) to achieve effectively low rate coding. FIG. 1 illustrates a circular buffer 100 and redundancy versions for incremental redundancy operation according to some embodiments described here. The circular buffer 100 may have 96 columns and four redundancy versions 102, 104, 106, and 108. Each redundancy version indicates a starting point to read out bits from the circular buffer 100. In an example, the four RVs start at columns 2, 26, 50 and 74, respectively, where the column indexing starts with zero.

Typically, low rate coding based HARQ (i.e. IR) is expected to outperform symbol level HARQ combining (i.e. beam). Systematic bits 120 may be used to decode a payload. If the payload cannot be decoded, parity bits 122 may be used to decode the payload.

[0030] For 5G systems, high frequency band communication may provide wider bandwidth to support integrated communication systems. The beam forming is an important implementation of a high frequency band system due to the fact that the beam forming gain may compensate for severe path loss caused by atmospheric attenuation, improve the SNR, and enlarge the coverage area. By aligning the transmission beam to the target user equipment (UE), radiated energy is focused for higher energy efficiency, and mutual UE interference may be suppressed.

[0031] With narrow beam based system operation, HARQ operation may exploit an additional dimension of channel diversity, "spatial diversity or beam diversity". In particular, multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transmission schemes which jointly exploit channel coding gains and spatial diversity to deliver a given transport block (TB) or downlink (DL)/uplink (UL) control information may be used. Multiple beams may be used to transmit and receive data. Different beams may be generated in various different ways.

[0032] In an example, beam forming may be used in transmission. A network transmit and receive point (TRP) or a UE transmits different RV codewords for the TB or control information over a set of multiple beams. Each RV codeword is associated with a distinctive beam. Modulation symbols of different RV codewords beamformed with different beams may be transmitted on a same or distinctive time-frequency radio resource,

[0033] The TRP or the UE may scramble a given RV codeword with multiple scrambling codes and transmits the resulting distinctively scrambled codewords with distinctive beams on a common time and frequency radio resource. In this example, a transmitter generates multiple transmission layers via the multiple scrambling codes, and spatially multiplexes the transmission layers with multiple beams. The scrambling codes are applied to help avoid beam interference across multiplexed beams,

[0034] A beam specific interleaver may be applied for the transmission on each beam. The TRP or the UE may employ different interleavers on the same or different RVs of a transport block for transmission.

[0035] Space frequency block coding (SFBC) may be applied in conjunction with Frequency- Switched Transmit Diversity (FSTD) for transmit and beam diversity. More specifically, with SFBC, a pair of modulated symbols are transmitted on two consecutive resource elements (RE) using a same beam. While for different beams, FSTD is applied which indicates that for the resource elements where transmission is on one beam, there is no transmission on another beam. [0036] A LIE may be equipped with two or more antennas, sub-arrays or panels. These UEs may transmit or receive the control channel and data channel using two or multiple sub-arrays simultaneously to improve the link budget. FIG. 2 illustrates an example of dual transmission scheme for the control and/or data channel. In particular, a UE 202 forms a first beam 210 and a second beam 212 at the same time. The beams 210 and 212 may be transmit or receive beams. For example, the beams 210 and 212 may be transmitted at the same to a single TRP or to a first TRP 220 and a second TRP 222. The UE 202 may transmit or receive control channel data or data channel data. In this example, two TRPs 220 and 222, such as two gNBs, receive uplink data from the UE 202 using a dual beam transmission. In another example, one gNB may receive the uplink data channel from the UE 202 using the two beams 210 and 212.

[0037] In various examples, different redundancy versions (RV) codewords encoded from a common pay load (information bits) may be transmitted over a set of multiple beams with each RV codeword being associated with a distinctive beam. This transmission scheme combines channel coding with spatial spreading and effectively achieves low code rate to maximize the coding gain. A distinctive RV codeword of the encoded data block is transmitted on a distinctive or common time-frequency radio resource using one beam such that multiple RV codewords of one encoded data block are transmitted simultaneously in different beams to the receiver. This may lead to increased coverage and robustness in both the DL and the UL. If the distinctive time-frequency resource is used by different narrow-beams, the time and frequency diversity may be achieved in addition to coding gain and spatial diversity. Alternatively, a codeword of a respective RV is associated with one beam (i.e. a spatial layer), and a set of orthogonal or spatially separated beams which carry multiple codewords encoded from the common information bits are multiplexed in the given radio resource.

[0038] In some examples, beam-specific RV for the transmission may explicitly indicated in the DCI format, FIG. 3 illustrates the example for beam- specific RV for transmission. The encoded bits for beam#0 310 starts from RV = 0 302 while the encoded bits for beam- 1 312 starts from RV ^:=: 2 304. In another example, the RV value associated with data transmission on a given beam maybe implicitly derived at least based on the beam index value and a predefined RV pattern. For example, a UE configured with dual-beams transmission, Beam #2 and Beam #5, for spatial diversity may assume that RV #0 is implicitly used for Beam #2 while RV #2 is implicitly used for Beam #5 transmission.

[0039] FIG. 4 illustrates one example of beam diversity using dual beam transmission. In this example, RV = 0 is used for the transmission on beam #0 402 and RV = 2 is used for the transmission on beam #1 404. In this example, two TRPs 412 and 414 may each transmit one beam to the UE 400. In another example, a single TRP may use multiple beams to transmit data to the UE 400.

[0040] According to certain aspects, the modulation and coding (MCS) scheme may be same for different RVs of a given encoded data block in different beams. Alternatively, independent MCS fields may be used for different RVs transmissions using separate narrow-beams based on varied radio channel characteristics. In addition, different beams may also be transmitted in conjunction with different power allocation or power control schemes or loops that allocates the total transmit power to the beams.

[0041] Note that this mechanism may be appropriate for the scenario when independent NR physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is used for scheduling the transmission of the transport blocks on each beam. Further, the RV on each beam may be same or distinct (as shown in the FIG. 3) depending on the scheduler's decision. In the case when same RVs are used, e.g., RV = 0, and MCSs are used for multiple beams, UE may perform coherent combining for physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) decoding. Further, the transmission on each beam can be self-decodable. This indicates that after successfully decoding the transmission on the first beam, the receiver may skip the decoding of the transport blocks on the remaining beam(s) to reduce the power consumption.

[0042] In an example, a single DCI transmitted from multiple beams may be used to schedule the data channel transmission using a multiple beam transmission. This scheme may to provide a more robust performance for DCI reception at UE side. For this scheme, a predetermined RV association rule between transmissions on multiple beams may be defined. For example, the association rule may be implicitly derived based on the beam index value and a predefined beam- specific RV mapping pattern. In another example, the association rule may be determined by higher layers via the NR master information block (xMIB), the NR system information block (xSIB) or the radio resource control (RRC) signaling. For instance, RV = 0 is used for transmission on beam #0. Then based on the predefined association rule, RV ^: = 2 is used for transmission on beam #1.

[0043] In another example, the starting position in the circular buffer for rate-matching for transmission on each beam may be aligned with each other. For example, the starting position for rate-matching for the 1 ^st beam is aligned with the starting position as defined for RV. The RV may be indicated in the DCI format. The starting position for rate-matching for the 2 ^nd beam follows the last position of rate-matching for the 1 ^st beam, etc. FIG. 5 illustrates the starting position in the circular buffer for rate-matching for transmission with each beam is aligned with each other. For example, a first beam 510 is transmitted with RV = 0. A second beam 512 may be aligned with the first beam 512, such that the second beam 512 follows after the first beam 510.

[0044] Note that this mechanism may be suitable for the scenario when a single NR PDCCH is used for scheduling the transmission of transport blocks on multiple beams. The MCS for transmission on each beam may be distinct or same. The configuration of distinct or same MCS may be semi- statically configured by higher layers, or dynamically indicated through separate fields in a single DCI format or even different DCI formats. In the case when a same MCS is considered, further overhead reduction on the DCI format may be achieved but may suffer a loss of scheduling flexibility.

[0045] In an example, multiple scrambling codes may be used to scramble different RV codewords. Using separate beams to transmit different RV codes combined with multiple scrambling codes results in each beam having an RV codeword scrambled with a different codeword. The TRP or the UE may- scramble a given RV codeword with multiple scrambling codes and transmit the resulting distinctively scrambled codewords with distinctive beams on a common time and frequency radio resource. That is, a transmitter generates multiple transmission layers via the multiple scrambling codes, and spatially multiplex the transmission layers with multiple beams. The scrambling codes are applied to avoid beam interference across multiplexed beams.

In an example when a single DCI is used to schedule the transmission on multiple beams, a scrambling seed to generate the scrambling sequence may be defined as a function of at least one of following parameters: physical cell ID, virtual cell ID, frame/subframe/symboi/slot/mini-slot index, beam index, a UE ID, an antenna port index, a stream index, or any combination thereof In one example, the scrambling seed can be given by

Where N _c ^jj is the virtual cell ID which is configured by higher layers, n _s is the slot index or mini-slot index and I beam is the beam index.

[0046] In an example when separate DCIs are used to schedule the transmission on multiple beams, the scrambling ID may be explicitly signaled in the DCI. In this example, different scrambling IDs are used for different beams, different scrambling sequences may be applied on the codeword with same RV to reduce cross beam interference.

[0047] FIG. 6 illustrates an example of beam specific scrambling using dual beam transmission. In this example, scrambling sequence for beam #0 610 is generated according to beam index #0 and scrambling sequence for beam #\ 612 is generated based on beam index #\ . A UE 602 may then transmit or receive each beam from one or more TRPs 620 and 622. The descrambling of the received beam may be completed by determining the appropriate scrambling sequence for each beam.

[0048] In an example, a beam specific interleaver may be applied for the transmission on each beam. More specifically, the TRP or the UE may employ different interleavers on the same or different RVs of a transport block for transmission. In one example, depending on the type of interleaver used, the choice of the interleaver may be determined at least in part based on the beam index.

[0049] In an example, a space frequency block coding (SFBC) may be applied in conjunction with Frequency- Switched Transmit Diversity (FSTD) for Tx and beam diversity. More specifically, with SFBC, a pair of modulated symbols are transmitted on two consecutive resource elements (RE) using the same beam; while for different beams, FSTD is applied which indicates where the transmission of a resource element is on a beam. Within each beam, two antenna panels (AP) may be applied, where first AP can use horizontal polarization while second AP may use vertical polarization.

[0050] Alternatively, random digital beam cycling performed by cells in a network may be done on a per PRB, per PRE* pair, or per physical resource block group (PRG) basis. When the beam cycling is PRB (or PRB pair) based, the beam cycling uses a first beam in a first PRB (or PRB pair) and a second beam in a second PRB (or PRB pair), when both the first PRB (or PRB pair) and the second PRB (or PRB pair) are assigned to the data transmission. If the UE is not configured with preceding matrix indicator (PMI) based channel state indicator (CSI) reporting, the beam cycling may be PRB based if the resource allocation is based on distributed virtual resource block resource allocation, while the beam cycling is PRB pair based otherwise

[0051] FIG. 7 illustrates SFBC with FSTD for beam diversity. In particular, antenna port (AP) #0 and AP #2 are associated with beam #0 and AP #1 and AP #3 are associated with beam #1. Further, on the same beam, SFBC is applied while across two beams, FTSD is employed. Note that this transmission scheme may be applied for both data and control channel for robust

performance.

[0052] In an example, SFBC or space time block code (STBC) may be jointly applied on multiple beams. For instance, in one AP in beam #0, symbol

is transmitted on two resources (either in subcarrier or in

symbol); while in another AP in beam #1, symbol

[0053] In an example, the aforementioned techniques may be combined for beam diversity. For example, beam specific scrambling may be applied together with beam bundling where different RVs may be applied for each beam. In another example, beam specific scrambling may be employed in conjunction with SFBC and FSTD for beam diversity. Yet in another example, the same codeword with different RVs may be transmitted in each beam, while SFBC is applied on each beam for Tx diversity.

[0054] According to certain aspects, different UE-specific reference signal (UE-RS) based DL data transmission modes may be operated for data transmission, at least including Closed Loop Spatial Multiplexing (CLSM), Close-Loop Beam Forming (CLBF) and Open Loop Beam Diversity (OLBD). Selection of the transmission mode for a multi-beam DL data transmission may be indicated to the UE using the DCI format in an explicit fashion or in an implicit manner. For example, if the resource allocation used by the beam is localized, the corresponding data transmission is based on CLSM or CLBF, while if the resource allocation used by the cell is distributed, the corresponding PDSCH is based on OLBD. In some other examples, the transmission modes of data are associated with a search space of DCI is transmitted. For example, the DCI may be transmitted in a common search space (CSS) to implicitly configure the data transmission using OLBD or CLBF.

[0055] In an example, as different RVs may come from different beams, then for open loop transmission scheme, where SFBC can be used for rank 1 and large delay CDD for rank>l, when reporting the CSI for different beams. When beam diversity mechanism is enabled, the UE may report the smallest Rank Indicator (RI) measured from the beams for different RVs and report the CQI corresponding to the reported RI. Whether the beam diversity based CSI is required may be configured via higher layer signaling or DCI. Further which beams from the CSI-RS are the beams for different RVs may be indicated via higher layer signaling or DCI. In addition, if the UE only has Omni receiving operation, the total number of beams should not exceed the number of receiving antenna ports and for each beam only rank 1 transmission may be allowed.

[0056] In an example, the beam diversity approach and beam

aggregation may be distinguished by the HARQ process ID. For the beam diversity based approach, the HARQ process ID in each DCI which has different value of RV should be the same. For beam aggregation, the HARQ process ID may be different. In an example, if the beam diversity is utilized in uplink transmission, the uplink power control settings such as pO, alpha, cumulative closed loop factor for different beams in the beam diversity may be different, which can be one-to-one mapped to the RV(s) and configured via higher layer signaling.

[0057] In an example, an indication whether beam diversity is applied for the DL control channel may be configured by higher layer via radio resource control (RRC) signaling. For the DL or the UL data channel, an indication whether beam diversity based transmission mode is applied may be configured by higher layer via RRC signaling or dynamically indicated in the DCI. In the latter case, the same or cross subframe scheduling may be used to allow the UE to employ multiple panels to transmit or receive the data using beam diversity. For broadcast message, an indication whether beam diversity based transmission is applied may be predefined, or configured by higher layers via NR MIB, NR SIB or RRC signaling or dynamically indicated in the DCI with common search space.

[0058] For a MIMO system operating in the high band, e.g. mmWave band, hybrid beamforming may be utilized. The UE and gNodeB (gNB) may maintain a plurality of beam pairs targeting to different transmission or reception directions. Then the gNodeB may select a good UE-gNB beam pair link to get good link budget. For a UE moving with a high speed, the closed-loop MIMO may not be suitable as the best beam selected in the measurement stage may expire soon. This may make which beam pair link to use difficult for the gNB to determine. Diversity based transmission which is based on beam or precoder cycling may be used to determine the beam pair link. How to accomplish the beam cycling in the uplink may be different from that for downlink, as some factors such as uplink power control, timing advance (TA), should be taken into account,

j0059] Different UL beam pair links may be multiplexed in

Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) manner or Time Division

Multiplexing (TDM) manner. For the FDM manner, the UE may have multiple antenna panels which could enable the UE to transmit multiple beams simultaneously. For TDM^ manner, multiple antenna panels is not needed. Note that for FDM based or TDM based beam cycling, some enhancement on the control signaling for power control and TA would be necessary.

[0060] FIG. 8 illustrates the structure for FDM based beam cycling.

Different beam pair links (BPLs) may be applied to different frequency resources. Depending on the frequency granularity of precoder/beam cycling, per-RB/PRG beam cycling may be performed. The beam cycling frequency granularity may be either predetermined, e.g. , by a standard, or configurable by the network. In the case of being configurable, RRC based semi-statically signaling or DCI based dynamic signaling may be employed. [0061] In an example, a UE 802 has two antenna panels. Different beams 810 and 812 may be used. Each panel may transmit or receive one of the beams from a gNB 804. In addition, each beam may use different scheduled frequency resources 820 and 822, The resources may include the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) 822 that includes a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) 820.

[0062] In an example, different BPLs may be applied to different

Precoding Resource Group(s) (PRCs), Resource Block(s) (RBs) or Resource Element(s) (REs). Hence there may be multiple DMRS antenna ports (AP)s used for a transmission. Some APs are used for one BPL and other APs may be used for another BPL. The number of APs used for one BPL may be determined by the rank indicated by the DCI. Different BPLs may be applied to different PRGs, RBs or REs in a localized or a distributed mode. Alternatively, the mapping rule of different BPLs and different frequency resources, including PRG, RB or RE may be configured by higher layer signaling or pre-defined.

[0063] The beam cycling may be enabled based on Spatial Division

Multiplexing (SDM) manner. There may be more than one DCI used to trigger the transmission of each panel, which are used to trigger the PUSCH

transmission with the same HARQ process ID, the same or different RV, and different SRIs. The resource of each beam may be partially or fully overlapping [0064] When a UE does not have multiple Aps, time division

multiplexing may be used instead of EDM. Depending on beam cycling time granul arity and the desired number of cycling diversity, per- Symbol or per- Symbol-cluster beam cycling can be adopted. The number of cycling diversity may be designed to achieve a good trade-off between the diversity gain and DMRS overhead.

[0065] FIG. 9 illustrates one example for the TDM based beam cycling scheme. Different BPLs may be applied to different slots or symbols. In an example, a gNodeB 904 may use one DCI to independently trigger the PUSCH transmission 920 and 922 for different BPLs 910 and 912 within one slot from a UE 902. For time domain beam cycling, there may be multiple DCIs. The HARQ process ID should be the same in each Downlink Control Information (DCI) and the same or different Redundant Versions (RVs) may be indicated. Different Sounding reference signal Resource Indicator (SRI) may be used in each DCI to indicate the BPL so that the UE can decide which Tx beam to use as well as the transmission power and TA. Further, the starting symbol or duration of PUSCH transmission

corresponding to each BPL may be either dynamic indicated in the DCI or configured by higher layers via RRC signaling or a combination thereof. The other information such as TA and transmission scheme for each DCI can be the same or different. Alternatively, since those DCIs may have some common indication, the common indication may transmit only once in one DCI and the rest of the DC Is may transmit different indications.

[0066] In an example, the gNodeB may use one DCI to trigger a

PUSCH transmission using multiple slots. In this example, the UE may transmit the same Transport Block(s) (TBs) in each slot with the same or different RVs. The RVs may be pre-defined or configured by higher layer signaling or DCI. A fixed RV offset may be applied for the transmission of PUSCH using different BPLs. For instance, the RV used for the first

PUSCH transmission can be explicitly indicated in the DCI. The RV used for the subsequent PUSCH transmission may be derived based on the RV for the first transmission and the fixed RV offset. In addition, the same resource allocation may be used to indicate the resource for PUSCH transmission for different BPLs. The same initialization value may be applied for the generation of DMRS for multiple PUSCH transmissions. In an example, multiple SRIs may be transmitted to indicate the targeting BPL for each slot. In another example, the BPL pattern for multi-slot based transmission can be configured by higher layer signaling and the DCI may indicate the BPL pattern index if multiple BPL patterns have been configured.

[0067] In an example, different BPLs may be used in multiple consecutive symbols when an additional DMRS is enabled. FIG. 10 illustrates one example for the multi-symbol level beam sweeping. Then the control signaling enhancement described above may also be applied.

Whether slot level or multi-symbol level beam sweeping should be utilized may be pre-defined or configured by higher layer signaling or DCI.

[0068] In FIG. 10, a UE 1002 receives a data in a first slot 1020 from a gNB 1004 on the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). The received data may include information regarding beam scheduling for the UE 1002. For example, DCI or RRS information may be provided to the UE 1002. The UE 1002 may then transmit data on the PUSCH to the gNB 1004 using two beams 1010 and 1012.

[0069] Beam specific power control may be used to reflect different pathloss and targeting receiving power from different beams. Further as different BPLs may capture different channel clusters, a different TA may be used to reflect different delays in different channel clusters. To enable the beam cycling, the beam specific power control and TA may be taken into account. In an example, the UE may use different transmission power and/or different TA for each BPL. Hence different SRI may indicate different power control settings and pathloss estimation as well as different TA.

[0070] For closed-loop power control, if the beam sweeping based transmission is triggered by one DCI, the closed-loop power control factor may not be present in the DCI and the closed-loop power control may not be enabled. Alternatively, there may be multiple closed-loop power control factors and each is used for one SRI. The multiple closed-loop power control factors may be transmitted by one DCI with other UL indication or by another DCI as a second- stage DCI based on two-stage DCI mode.

[0071] Each TA is typically associated with a particular transmit-receive point (TRP). In case of multi-beam operation in NR, it is plausible to associate a TA with a BPL or a cluster of BPLs. For the TA to different BPLs or SRIs, to signal the proper TAs of respective BPL or BPL cluster, the gNB may transmit multiple TAs with the BPL index or SRI index by M AC control elements. One exemplary MAC control element is illustrated in FIG. 1 1.

[0072] In FIG. 1 1 , a TA 104 that corresponds with a first BPL index or

SRI 1102 is indicated in the control element. A TA 1 08 that corresponds with a second BPL index or SRI 1 06 may also be provided. Additional TAs associated with different BPL indexes may also be provided in a similar manner. The MAC control element format, therefore, provides a mechanism that allows individual BPLs to be configured separately from one another.

[0073] FIG. 12 illustrates an architecture of a system 1200 of a network in accordance with some embodiments. The system 1200 is shown to include a user equipment (UE) 1201 and a UE 202. The UEs 1201 and 1202 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), pagers, laptop computers, desktop computers, wireless handsets, or any computing device including a wireless communications interface.

[0074] In some embodiments, any of t he UEs 1201 and 1202 can comprise an Internet of Things (IoT) UE, which can comprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity- Based Service (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT network describes interconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network.

[0075] The UEs 1201 and 1202 may be configured to connect, e.g., communicatively couple, with a radio access network (RAN) 1210— the RAN 1210 may be, for example, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), a NextGen RAN (NG RAN), or some other type of RAN. The UEs 1201 and 1202 utilize connections 1203 and 1204, respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example, the connections 1203 and 1204 are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular

communications protocols, such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA) network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular (POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3 GPP Long Term Evolution (l . ^' i ^' K) protocol, a fifth generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and the like. [0076] In this embodiment, the UEs 1201 and 1202 may further directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 1205. The ProSe interface 1205 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising one or more logical channels, including but not limited to a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH).

[0077] The UE 1202 is shown to be configured to access an access point

(AP) 1206 via connection 1207. The connection 1207 can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 1206 would comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®) router. In this example, the AP 1206 is shown to be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below).

[0078] The RAN 1210 can include one or more access nodes that enable the connections 1203 and 1204. These access nodes (ANs) can be referred to as base stations (BSs), NodeBs, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), next Generation NodeBs (gNB), RAN nodes, and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). The RAN 1210 may include one or more RAN nodes for providing macrocells, e.g., macro RAN node 1211, and one or more RAN nodes for providing femtocells or picocells (e.g., ceils having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells), e.g., low power (LP) RAN node 1212.

[0079] Any of the RAN nodes 1211 and 1212 can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs 1201 and 1202. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 121 1 and 1212 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN 1210 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0080] In accordance with some embodiments, the UEs 1201 and 1202 can be configured to communicate using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communi cation signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes 121 1 and 1212 over a multi carrier communication channel in accordance various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) communication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

[0081] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 121 1 and 1212 to the UEs 1201 and 1202, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be a time-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDM systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resources that currently can be allocated. There are several different physical downlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks.

[0082] The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 1201 and 1202, The physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) may carry information about the transport format and resource allocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It may also inform the UEs 1201 and 1202 about the transport format, resource allocation, and H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to the UE 102 within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 1211 and 1212 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 1201 and 1202. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs 1201 and 1202.

[0083] The PDCCH may use control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, which may then be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as resource element groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCE s, depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and the channel condition. There can be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L=l, 2, 4, or 8).

[0084] Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for control channel information that are an extension of the above-described concepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more enhanced the control channel elements (ECCEs). Similar to above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as an enhanced resource element groups (EREGs). An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations.

[0085] The RAN 1210 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 1220—via an SI interface 1213. In embodiments, the CN 1220 may be an evolved packet core (EPC) network, a NextGen Packet Core (NPC) network, or some other type of CN. In this embodiment the S I interface 1213 is split into two parts; the Sl-U interface 1214, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes 121 1 and 1212 and the serving gateway (S-GW) 1222, and the S I -mobility management entity (MME) interface 1215, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 1211 and 1212 and MMEs 1221.

[0086] In this embodiment, the CN 1220 comprises the MMEs 1221, the

S-GW 1222, the Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW) 1223, and a home subscriber server (HSS) 1224. The MMEs 1221 may be similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Nodes (SGSN). The MMEs 1221 may manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. The HSS 1224 may comprise a database for network users, including

subscription-related information to support the network entities' handling of communication sessions. The CN 1220 may comprise one or several HSSs 1224, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on the capacity of the equipment, on the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 1224 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc,

[0087 j The S-GW 1222 may terminate the SI interface 1213 towards the

RAN 1210, and routes data packets between the RAN 1210 and the CN 1220. In addition, the S-GW 1222 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.

[0088] The P-GW 1223 may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN.

The P-GW 1223 may route data packets between the EPC network 1223 and external networks such as a network including the application server 1230 (alternatively referred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP) interface 1225. Generally, the application server 1230 may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). In this embodiment, the P-GW 1223 is shown to be communicatively coupled to an application server 1230 via an IP communications interface 1225. The application server 1230 can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UEs 1201 and 1202 via the CN 1220.

[0089] The P-GW 1223 may further be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCRF) 1226 is the policy and charging control element of the CN 1220. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE's Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE's IP- CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within a HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF 1226 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 1230 via the P- GW 1223. The application server 1230 may signal the PCRF 1226 to indicate a new service flow and select the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) and charging parameters. The PCRF 1226 may provision this rule into a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) (not shown) with the appropriate traffic flow template (TFT) and QoS class of identifier (QCI), which commences the QoS and charging as specified by the application server 1230.

[0090] FIG. 13 illustrates example components of a device 1300 in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the device 1300 may include application circuitry 1302, baseband circuitry 1304, Radio

Frequency (RF) circuitry 1306, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 1308, one or more antennas 1310, and power management circuitry (PMC) 1312 coupled together at least as shown. The components of the illustrated device 1300 may be included in a LIE or a RAN node. In some embodiments, the device 1300 may include less elements (e.g., a RAN node may not utilize application circuitry 1302, and instead include a processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC). In some embodiments, the device 1300 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (e.g., said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations).

[0091] The application circuitry 1302 may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 1302 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor! s) may include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors may be coupled with or may include memory/ ^' storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory storage to enable various applications or operating systems to mn on the device 1300. In some embodiments, processors of application circuitry 1302 may process IP data packets received from an EPC.

[0092] The baseband circuitry 1304 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry 1304 may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 1306 and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 1306. Baseband processing circuity 1304 may interface with the application circuitry 1302 for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 1306. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 1304 may include a third generation (3G) baseband processor 1304 A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor I304B, a fifth generation (5G) baseband processor 1304C, or other baseband

processors) 1304D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., second generation (2G), sixth generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry 1304 (e.g., one or more of baseband processors 1304A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 1306. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 13G4A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory 1304G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 1304E. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 1304 may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality . In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 1304 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functionality in other embodiments.

[0093] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 1304 may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 1304F. The audio DSP(s) 1304F may be include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 1304 and the application circuitry 1302 may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

[0094] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 1304 may provide for communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 1304 may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network

(EUTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMA ), a wireless local area network (WLA ), a wireless personal area network (WPAN).

Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 1304 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0095] RF circuitry 1306 may enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 1306 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry 1306 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 1308 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 1304. RF ^' circuitry 1306 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitr 1304 and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 1308 for transmission.

[0096] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry

1306 may include mixer circuitry 1306A, amplifier circuitry 1306B and filter circuitry 1306C. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 1306 may include filter circuitry 1306C and mixer circuitry 1306 A. RF circuitry 1306 may also include synthesizer circuitry 1306D for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 1306 A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1306 A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF ^' signals received from the FEM circuitry 1308 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 1306D. The amplifier circuitry 1306B may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry 1306C may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry 1304 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 1306 A of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0097] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1306 A of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 1306D to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 1308. The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 1304 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 1306C.

[0098] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1306A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 1306 A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry

1306 A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 1306 A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g.. Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1306A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 1306A may be arranged for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1306A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 1306 A of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation,

[0099] In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RF circuitry 306 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry 1304 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry 1306.

[00100] In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[00101] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 1306D may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+l synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency- synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 1306D may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[00102] The synthesizer circuitry 1306D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 1306 A of the RF circuitry 1306 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry I 306D may be a fractional N/N+l synthesizer.

[00103] In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 1304 or the applications processor 1302 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a lookup table based on a channel indicated by the applications processor 1302.

[00104] Synthesizer circuitry 1306D of the RF circuitry 1306 may include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a cam' out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle. [00105] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 1306D may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 1306 may include an IQ/polar converter.

[00106] FEM circuitry 1308 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 1310, amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF ^' circuitry 1306 for further processing. FEM circuitry 1308 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry 1306 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 1310. In various embodiments, the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry 1306, solely in the FEM 1308, or in both the RF circuitry 1306 and the FEM 1308.

[00107] In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 1308 may include a

TX RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry may include an LNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 1306). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 1308 may include a power amplifier (PA.) to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 1306), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 1310).

[00108] In some embodiments, the PMC 131.2 may manage power provided to the baseband circuitry 1304. In particular, the PMC 1312 may control power-source selection, voltage scaling, batter}' charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMC 1312 may often be included when the device 1300 is capable of being powered by a battery, for example, when the device is included in a UE. The PMC 1312 may increase the power conversion efficiency while providing desirable implementation size and heat dissipation characteristics.

[00109] While FIG. 13 shows the PMC 1312 coupled only with the baseband circuitry 1304. However, in other embodiments, the PMC 13 12 may be additionally or alternatively coupled with, and perform similar power management operations for, other components such as, but not limited to, application circuitry 1302, RF circuitry 1306, or FEM 1308.

[00110] In some embodiments, the PMC 1312 may control, or otherwise be part of, various power saving mechanisms of the device 1300. For example, if the device 1300 is in an RRC Connected state, where it is still connected to the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it may enter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a period of inactivity. During this state, the device 1300 may power down for brief intervals of time and thus save power.

[00111] If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, then the device 1300 may transition off to an RRC Idle state, where it disconnects from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. The device 1300 goes into a very low power state and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. The device 1300 may not be able to receive data in this state, in order to receive data, it transitions back to

RRC_Connected state.

[00112] An additional power saving mode may allow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer than a paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is totally unreachable to the network and may power down completely. Any data sent during this time incurs a large delay and it is assumed the delay is acceptable.

[00113] Processors of the application circuitry 1302 and processors of the baseband circuitry 1304 may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the baseband circuitry 1304, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3, Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the application circuitry 1304 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., transmission communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a radio resource control (RRC) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 may comprise a medium access control (MAC) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer, and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a physical (PHY) layer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

[00114] FIG. 14 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry 1304 of FIG. 13 may comprise processors 1304A-1304E and a memory 1304G utilized by said processors. Each of the processors 1304A-1304E may include a memory interface, 1404A-1404E, respectively, to send/receive data to/from the memory 1304G.

[00115] The baseband circuitry 1304 may further include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memory interface 1412 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the baseband circuitry 1304), an application circuitry interface 1414 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry 1302 of FIG. 13), an RF circuitry interface 1416 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry 1306 of FIG. 13), a wireless hardware connectivity interface 1418 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components), and a power management interface 1420 (e.g., an interface to send/receive power or control signals to/from the PMC 1312).

[00116] FIG. 15 is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, a control plane 1500 is shown as a communications protocol stack between the UE 1201 (or alternatively, the UE 1202), the RAN node 1211 (or alternatively, the RAN node 212), and the MME 1221.

[00117] The PHY layer 1501 may transmit or receive information used by the MAC layer 1502 over one or more air interfaces. The PHY layer 1501 may further perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as the RRC layer 1505. The PHY layer 1501 may still further perform error detection on the transport channels, forward error correction (FEC) coding/decoding of the transport, channels, modulation/demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping onto physical channels, and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna processing.

[00118] The MAC layer 1502 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing of MAC service data units (SDUs) from one or more logical channels onto transport blocks (TB) to be delivered to PHY via transport channels, de-multiplexing MAC SDUs to one or more logical channels from transport blocks (TB) delivered from the PHY via transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction through hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ), and logical channel prioritization.

[00119] The RLC layer 1503 may operate in a plurality of modes of operation, including: Transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM), The RLC layer 1503 may execute transfer of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), error correction through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transfers, and concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers. The RLC layer 1 503 may also execute re- segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transfers, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfers, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect protocol errors for A : data transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment.

[00120] The PDCP layer 1504 may execute header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUs at re-establishment of lower layers, eliminate duplicates of lower layer SDUs at re-establishment of lower layers for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-based discard of data, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

[00121] The main services and functions of the RRC lay er 1505 may include broadcast of system information (e.g., included in Master Information Blocks (MIBs) or System Information Blocks (SIBs) related to the non-access stratum (NAS)), broadcast of system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of an RRC connection between the UE and E-UTRAN (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance and release of point to point Radio Bearers, security functions including key management, inter radio access technology (RAT) mobility, and measurement configuration for UE

measurement reporting. Said MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or more information elements (lEs), which may each comprise individual data fields or data structures.

[00122] The UE 1201 and the RAN node 121 1 may utilize a Uu interface

(e.g., an LTE-Uu interface) to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the PHY layer 1501, the MAC layer 1502, the RLC layer 1503, the PDCP layer 1504, and the RRC layer 1505.

[00123] The non-access stratum (NAS) protocols 1506 form the highest stratum of the control plane between the UE 1201 and the MME 1221 . The NAS protocols 1506 support the mobility of the UE 1201 and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE 201 and the P-GW 1223.

[00124] The S I Application Protocol (S l-AP) layer 1515 may support the functions of the S I interface and comprise Elementary Procedures (EPs). An EP is a unit of interaction between the RAN node 121 1 and the CN 1220. The S l- AP layer services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services and non UE-associated services. These services perform functions including, but not limited to; E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transfer.

[00125] The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP/IP layer) 1514 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 121 1 and the MME 1221 based, in part, on the IP protocol, supported by the IP layer 1513. The L2 layer 1512 and the LI layer 151 1 may refer to communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) used by the RAN node and the MME to exchange information. [00126] The RAN node 1211 and the MME 1221 may utilize an Sl-MME interface to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the L layer 1511, the L2 layer 1512, the IP layer 1513, the SCTP layer 1514, and the S l -AP layer 1515.

[00127] FIG. 16 is an illustration of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, a user plane 1600 is shown as a communications protocol stack between the UE 1201 (or

alternatively, the UE 1202), the RAN node 1211 (or alternatively, the RAN node 1212), the S-GW 1222, and the P-GW 1223. The user plane 1600 may utilize at least some of the same protocol layers as the control plane 1500, For example, the UE 1201 and the RAN node 1211 may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., an LTE- Uu interface) to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the PHY layer 1501, the MAC layer 1502, the RLC layer 1503, the PDCP layer 1504,

[00128] The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for the user plane (GTP-U) layer 1604 may be used for carrying user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. The user data transported can be packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example. The UDP and IP security (UDP/IP) layer 1603 may provide checksums for data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication on the selected data flows. The RAN node 1211 and the S-GW 1222 may utilize an Sl - U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the LI layer 151 1 , the L2 layer 1512, the UDP/IP layer 1603, and the GTP-U layer 1604. The S-GW 1222 and the P-GW 1223 may utilize an S5/S8a interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the LI layer 1511, the L2 layer 1512, the UDP/IP layer 1603, and the GTP-U layer 1604, As discussed above with respect to FIG. 15, NAS protocols support the mobility of the UE 1201 and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE 1201 and the P-GW 1223.

[00129] FIG. 17 illustrates components of a core network in accordance with some embodim ents. The components of the CN 1220 m ay be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes including components to read and execute instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is utilized to virtualize any or ail of the above described network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer readable storage mediums (described in further detail below). A logical instantiation of the CN 1220 may be referred to as a network slice 1701. A logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 1220 may be referred to as a network sub-slice 1702 (e.g., the network sub-slice 1702 is shown to include the PGW 1223 and the PCRF 1226).

[00130] NFV architectures and infrastructures may be used to virtualize one or more network functions, alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry- standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems can be used to execute virtual or reconfigurabie implementations of one or more EPC components/functions.

[00131] FIG. 18 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, of a system 1800 to support NFV. The system 800 is illustrated as including a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) 1802, a network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) 1804, a VNF manager (VNFM) 1806, virtualized network functions (VNFs) 1808, an element manager (EM) 1810, an NFV Orchestrator (NFVO) 1812, and a network manager (NM) 1814.

[00132] The VIM 1802 manages the resources of the NFVI 1804. The

NFVI 1804 can include physical or virtual resources and applications (including hypervisors) used to execute the system 1800. The VIM 1802 may manage the life cycle of virtual resources with the NFVI 1804 (e.g., creation, maintenance, and tear down of virtual machines (VMs) associated with one or more phy sical resources), track VM instances, track performance, fault and security of VM instances and associated physical resources, and expose VM instances and associated physical resources to other management systems.

[00133] The VNFM 1806 may manage the VNFs 1808. The VNFs 1808 may be used to execute EPC components/functions. The VNFM 1806 may manage the life cycle of the VNFs 1808 and track performance, fault and security of the virtual aspects of VNFs 1808. The EM 1810 may track the performance, fault and security of the functional aspects of VNFs 1808. The tracking data from the VNFM 806 and the EM 1810 may comprise, for example, performance measurement (PM) data used by the VIM 1802 or the NFVI 1804. Both the VNFM 1806 and the EM 1810 can scale up/down the quantity of VNFs of the system 1800.

[00134] The NFVO 1812 may coordinate, authorize, release and engage resources of the NFVI 1804 in order to provide the requested service (e.g., to execute an EPC function, component, or slice). The NM 1814 may provide a package of end-user functions with the responsibility for the management of a network, which may include network elements with VNFs, non-virtualized network functions, or both (management of the VNFs may occur via the EM 1810).

[00135] FIG. 19 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 19 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1900 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1910, one or more memory/ storage devices 1920, and one or more communication resources 1930, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 1940, For

embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1902 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/ sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 1900

[00136] The processors 1910 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor 1912 and a processor 1914.

[00137] The memory/storage devices 1920 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 1920 may include, but are not limited to any type of volatile or non-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random- access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[00138] The communication resources 1930 may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1904 or one or more databases 1906 via a network 1908. For example, the communication resources 1930 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth© Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

[00139] Instructions 1950 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 1910 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 1950 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 1910 (e.g., within the processor's cache memory), the memory/ storage devices 1920, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 1950 may be transferred to the hardware resources 1900 from any combination of the peripheral devices 1904 or the databases 1906. Accordingly, the memory of processors 1910, the memory/ storage devices 1920, the peripheral devices 1904, and the databases 1906 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[00140] Additional notes and examples:

[00141] Example 1 is an apparatus of user equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising: memory and processing circuitry configured to: decode a downlink control indicator (DCI) comprising a first redundancy version indicator; derive a first redundancy version for a first beam based on the first redundancy version indicator; encode data at a first location in a circular buffer based on the first redundancy version for a first beam; and encode the data in the circular buffer at a second location different from the first location for a second beam.

[00142] In Example 2, the subject matter of Example 1 includes, the apparatus comprising: a first antenna array to transmit the first beam; and a second antenna array to transmit the second beam. [00143] In Example 3, the subject matter of Example 2 includes, the first beam transmitted at a first time based on the DCI; and the second beam transmitted at a second time based on the DCI.

[00144] In Example 4, the subject matter of Examples 1-3 includes, the processing circuitry further configured to derive a second redundancy version for a second beam based on a beam index of the second beam.

[00145] In Example 5, the subject matter of Examples 2-4 includes, the first beam is transmitted to a first new radio (NR) enhanced node B (gNB) and the second beam is transmitted to a second gNB.

[00146] In Example 6, the subject matter of Examples 2-5 includes, the first beam and the second beam transmitted on the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

[00147] In Example 7, the subject matter of Examples 2-6 includes, the first beam and the second beam transmitted on the physical broadcast channel (PBCH).

[00148] In Example 8, the subject matter of Examples 1-7 includes, the

DCI comprising a first MCS indication used to encode the data for the first beam.

[00149] In Example 9, the subject matter of Example 8 includes, the DCI comprising a second MCS indication used to encode the data for the second beam.

[00150] In Example 10, the subject matter of Examples 1-9 includes, the apparatus comprising: a first receiver to receive a first receive beam including the DCI; and a second receive to receive a second receive beam including the DCI.

[00151] In Example 11, the subject matter of Examples 1-10 includes, the second location immediately follows the first location.

[00152] In Example 12, the subject matter of Examples 2-11 includes, the processing circuitry configured to: interleave the first beam using a first interleaver, and interleave the second beam using a second inter! eaver.

[00153] Example 13 is an apparatus comprising means for performing any of the operations of Examples 1-12.

[00154] Example 14 is a computer-readable medium comprising instructions to cause an apparatus of a user equipment (UE), upon execution of the instructions by processing circuitry of the apparatus, to: decode a downlink control indicator (DCI) comprising a first redundancy version indicator; derive a first redundancy version for a first beam based on the first redundancy version indicator; encode data at a first location in a circular buffer based on the first redundancy version for a first beam; and encode the data in the circular buffer at a second location different from the first location for a second beam,

[00155] In Example 15, the subject matter of Example 14 includes, the instructions further cause the processing circuitry to: transmit, from a first antenna array, the first beam; and transmit, from a second antenna array, the second beam.

[00156] In Example 16, the subject matter of Example 15 includes, the first beam transmitted at a first time based on the DCI; and the second beam transmitted at a second time based on the DCI.

[00157] In Example 17, the subject matter of Examples 14-16 includes, the instructions further cause the processing circuitry to derive a second redundancy version for a second beam based on a beam index of the second beam.

[00158] In Example 18, the subject matter of Examples 15-17 includes, the first beam is transmitted to a first new radio (NR.) enhanced node B (gNB) and the second beam is transmitted to a second gNB.

[00159] In Example 19, the subject matter of Examples 14-18 includes, the DCI comprising a first MCS indication used to encode the data for the first beam.

[00160] In Example 20, the subject matter of Example 19 includes, the DCI comprising a second MCS indication used to encode the data for the second beam.

[00161] In Example 21, the subject matter of Examples 14-20 includes, the instructions further cause the processing circuitry to: receive, by a first receiver, a first receive beam including the DCI; and receive, by a second receiver, a second receive beam including the DCI.

[00162] In Example 22, the subject matter of Examples 14-21 includes, the second location immediately follows the first location.

[00163] In Example 23, the subject matter of Examples 15—22 includes, the instructions further cause the processing circuitry to: interleave the first beam using a first interleave!"; and interleave the second beam using a second interieaver.

[001 4] Example 24 is an apparatus of a new radio (NR.) enhanced nodeB (gNB), the apparatus comprising: memory and processing circuitry configured to: derive a first redundancy version for a first beam based on the first redundancy version indicator; encode the DCI at a first location in a circular buffer based on the first redundancy version for a first beam; and encode the DCI in the circular buffer at a second location difterent from the first location for a second beam.

[00165] In Example 25, the subject matter of Example 24 includes, the apparatus comprising: a first antenna array to transmit the first beam; and a second antenna array to transmit the second beam.

[00166] In Example 26, the subject matter of Examples 24-25 includes, the DCI comprising a first MCS indication used to encode data from a user equipment (UE).

[00167] In Example 27, the subject matter of Examples 24-26 includes, the processing circuitry further configured to derive a second redundancy version for a second beam based on a beam index of the second beam.

[00168] In Example 28, the subject matter of Examples 25-27 includes, the first beam and the second beam transmitted on the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

[00169] In Example 29, the subject matter of Examples 25-28 includes, the first beam and the second beam transmitted on the physical broadcast channel (PBCH).

[00170] In Example 30, the subject matter of Examples 26-29 includes, the DCI comprising a second MCS indication used to encode the data from the UE.

[00171] In Example 31 , the subject matter of Examples 24-30 includes, the second location immediately follows the first location.

[00172] Example 32 is an apparatus comprising means for performing any of the operations of Examples 24-31.

[00173] Example 33 is a computer-readable medium comprising instructions to cause an apparatus of a user equipment (UE), upon execution of the instructions by processing circuitry of the apparatus, to: derive a first redundancy version for a first beam based on the first redundancy version indicator; encode the DCI at a first location in a circular buffer based on the first redundancy version for a first beam; and encode the DCI in the circular buffer at a second location different from the first location for a second beam.

[00174] In Example 34, the subject matter of Example 33 includes, the instructions further cause the processing circuitry to: transmit, from a first antenna array, the first beam; and transmit, from a second antenna array, the second beam,

[00175] In Example 35, the subject matter of Examples 33-34 includes, the DCI comprising a first MCS indication used to encode data from a user equipment (UE).

[00176] In Example 36, the subject matter of Examples 33-35 includes, the instaictions further cause the processing circuitry to derive a second redundancy version for a second beam ba sed on a beam index of the second beam.

[00177] In Example 37, the subject matter of Examples 34-36 includes, the first beam and the second beam transmitted on the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

[00178] In Example 38, the subject matter of Examples 34-37 includes, the first beam and the second beam transmitted on the physical broadcast channel (PBCH),

[00179] In Example 39, the subject matter of Examples 35-38 includes, the DCI comprising a second MCS indication used to encode the data from the UE.

[00180] In Example 40, the subject matter of Examples 33-39 includes, the second location immediately follows the first location.

[00181] Example 41 is at least one machine-readable medium including instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform operations to implement of any of Examples 1-40.

[00182] Example 42 is an apparatus comprising means to implement of any of Examples 1-40.

[00183] Example 43 is a system to implement of any of Examples 1-40.

[00184] Example 44 is a method to implement of any of Examples 1 -40. [00185] The above detailed description includes references to the

accompanying drawings, which form a part of the detailed description. The drawings show, by way of illustration, specific embodiments that may be practiced. These embodiments are also referred to herein as "examples." Such examples may include elements in addition to those shown or described.

However, also contemplated are examples that include the elements shown or described. Moreover, also contemplate are examples using any combination or permutation of those elements shown or described (or one or more aspects thereof), either with respect to a particular example (or one or more aspects thereof), or with respect to other examples (or one or more aspects thereof) shown or described herein.

[00186] Publications, patents, and patent documents referred to in this document are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety, as though individually incorporated by reference. In the event of inconsistent usages between this document and those documents so incorporated by reference, the usage in the incorporated reference(s) are supplementary to that of this document, for irreconcilable inconsistencies, the usage in this document controls.

[00187] In this document, the terms "a" or "an" are used, as is common in patent documents, to include one or more than one, independent of any other instances or usages of "at least one" or "one or more," In this document, the term "or" is used to refer to a nonexclusive or, such that "A or B" includes "A but not B," "B but not A," and "A and B," unless otherwise indicated. In the appended claims, the terms "including" and "in which" are used as the plain- English equivalents of the respective terms "comprising" and "wherein." Also, in the fol lowing claims, the terms "including" and "comprising" are open-ended, that is, a system, device, article, or process that includes elements in addition to those listed after such a term in a claim are still deemed to fall within the scope of that claim. Moreover, in the following claims, the terms "first," "second," and "third," etc, are used merely as labels, and are not intended to suggest a numerical order for their objects.

[00188] The embodiments as described above may be implemented in various hardware configurations that may include a processor for executing instructions that perform the techniques described. Such instructions may be contained in a machine-readable medium such as a suitable storage medium or a memory or other processor-executable medium.

[00189] The embodiments as described herein may be implemented in a number of environments such as part of a wireless local area network (WLAN), 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), or Long-Term-Evolution (LTE) or a Long-Term-Evolution (LTE) communication system, although the scope of the disclosure is not limited in this respect. An example LTE system includes a number of mobile stations, defined by the LTE specification as User Equipment (UE), communicating with a base station, defined by the LTE specifications as an gNB.

[00190] Antennas referred to herein may comprise one or more directional or omnidirectional antennas, including, for example, dipole antennas, monopoie antennas, patch antennas, loop antennas, microstrip antennas or other types of antennas suitable for transmission of RF signals. In some embodiments, instead of two or more antennas, a single antenna with multiple apertures may be used. In these embodiments, each aperture may be considered a separate antenna. In some multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) embodiments, antennas may be effectively separated to take advantage of spatial diversity and the different channel characteristics that may result between each of antennas and the antennas of a transmitting station. In some MIMO embodiments, antennas may ^¬ be separated by up to 1/10 of a wavelength or more.

[00191] In some embodiments, a receiver as described herein may be configured to receive signals in accordance with specific communication standards, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards including IEEE 802.1 1 standards and/or proposed specifications for WLANs, although the scope of the disclosure is not limited in this respect as they may also be suitable to transmit and/or receive communications in accordance with other techniques and standards. In some embodiments, the receiver may be configured to receive signals in accordance with the IEEE 802.16-2004, the IEEE 802.16(e) and/or IEEE 802, 16(m) standards for wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs) including variations and evolutions thereof although the scope of the disclosure is not limited in this respect as they may also be suitable to transmit and/or receive communications in accordance with other techniques and standards. In some embodiments, the receiver may be configured to receive signals in accordance with the Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) LTE communication standards. For more

information with respect to the IEEE 802.1 1 and IEEE 802.16 standards, please refer to "IEEE Standards for Information Technology— Telecommunications and Information Exchange between Systems" - Local Area Networks - Specific Requirements - Part 11 "Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY), ISO/IEC 8802-11 : 1999", and Metropolitan Area Networks ~ Specific Requirements - Part 16: "Air Interface for Fixed Broadband Wireless Access Systems," May 2005 and related amendments/versions. For more information with respect to UTRAN LTE standards, see the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3 GPP) standards for UTRAN-LTE, including variations and evolutions thereof.

[00192] The above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. For example, the above-described examples (or one or more aspects thereof) may be used in combination with others. Other embodiments may be used, such as by one of ordinary skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The Abstract is to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Also, in the above Detailed Description, various features may be grouped together to streamline the disclosure. However, the claims may not set forth every feature disclosed herein as embodiments may feature a subset of said features. Further, embodiments may include fewer features than those disclosed in a particular example. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with a claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment. The scope of the embodiments disclosed herein is to be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.