Patent ID: 11902846
Assignee: TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 16:
17. A network node configured for beam-level mobility load balancing in a radio access network (RAN), the network node comprising:
communication interface circuitry configured to communicate with one or more user equipment (UEs) and with one or more target nodes in the RAN; and
processing circuitry operably coupled with the communication interface circuitry, whereby the processing circuitry and the communication interface circuitry are configured to:
exchange beam-level load information with the one or more target nodes;
based on the beam-level load information, select one or more particular target beams, associated with a particular target node, for MLB operations with a particular source beam associated with the network node; and
transmit, to the particular target node, a request including one or more first handover offsets to be applied during MLB operations between:
a group of one or more source beams associated with the source node, including the particular source beam; and
a group of one or more target beams associated with the particular target node, including the selected one or more particular target beams; and

receive, from the particular target node, a response including one of the following:
an acknowledgement that the one or more first handover offsets will be applied; or
one or more second handover offsets to be applied instead of the one or more first handover offsets, wherein:

the request is a Handover Request for a subset of a first plurality of user equipment (UEs) to the selected one or more particular target beams; and
the response is one of the following messages: a Handover Request Acknowledge, or a Handover Preparation Failure.