Patent ID: 11956834
Assignee: NOKIA TECHNOLOGIES OY
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one non-transitory memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:
receive, by the apparatus from a user equipment, a beam-formed random access signal comprising a preamble of a first preamble group that indicates a use of beam sweeping by the user equipment, wherein the beam-formed random access signal is received over a set of random access channel occasions, wherein beam-formed random access signals are uniquely identifiable by the random access channel occasion over which they are received;
wherein the first preamble of the first preamble group received from the user equipment indicates that the user equipment is attempting access with beam sweeping, and a second preamble of a second preamble group different from the first group received from the user equipment indicates that the user equipment is attempting access without beam sweeping;
based on the first preamble, determine, by the apparatus, that the user equipment is sending multiple beam-formed random access signals including versions of the first preamble;
based on the determining, await, by the apparatus, reception of all possible beam-formed access signals including versions of the first preamble before selecting one of the beam-formed random access signals;
after receipt of all of the beam-formed random access signals including versions of the first preamble, comparing, by the apparatus, a reference signal received power (RSRP) for each of the received beamed formed random access signals including versions of the first preamble;
based on the comparing, select, by the apparatus, one of the beam-formed random access signals that has a highest RSRP; and
transmit, by the apparatus within a random access response message to the user equipment, at least an indicator of the selected beam-formed random access signal.