Patent 11088749 was granted and assigned to Apple (company) on August, 2021 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Devices for and methods of beam refinement using a beam refinement reference signal (BRRS) are generally described. A UE receives BRRS information indicating a BRRS position of at least one OFDM symbol in a first or last symbol pair in a subframe. The BRRS replaces the xPDCCH, the last two symbols of data (an xPDSCH or xPUSCH), or is TDMed with a GP. The data and BRRS are allocated to the UE or to different UEs. The BRRS information is provided via an indicator in the DCI or higher layer signaling. The UE refines either the current Rx beam or directly refines a candidate Rx beam and uses one or multiple symbols, as indicated by a BRRS format.