Patent Description:
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.

Existing user equipment (UE) demodulation performance tests may not be adequate in developing wireless networks due to various changes in millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency operations. For example, New Radio (NR) wireless communication systems may operate in mmWave frequency range with beamforming and associated techniques. Various existing accuracy measurements corresponding to or part of the demodulation performance tests may become inapplicable while operations are in mmWave frequency range.

The following documents are relevant: <NPL> which discusses TP to TR <NUM> on open items for UE RRM testing methodology and <NPL> which discusses NR test methods UE RRM testing methodology.

Additional embodiments are set out in the dependent claims.

In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof wherein like numerals designate like parts throughout, and in which is shown by way of illustration embodiments that may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, the following detailed description is not to be taken in a limiting sense.

Various operations may be described as multiple discrete actions or operations in turn, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the claimed subject matter. However, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular, these operations may not be performed in the order of presentation. Operations described may be performed in a different order than the described embodiment. Various additional operations may be performed and/or described operations may be omitted in additional embodiments.

For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrases "A or B" and "A and/or B" mean (A), (B), or (A and B). For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrases "A, B, or C" and "A, B, and/or C" mean (A), (B), (C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C).

As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, be part of, or include any combination of integrated circuits (for example, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), etc.), discrete circuits, combinational logic circuits, system on a chip (SOC), system in a package (SiP), that provides the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware modules to provide the described functions.

Fifth generation (<NUM>) NR wireless communication systems may operate in multiple frequency ranges including an mmWave frequency range above <NUM>, for example, NR Frequency Range <NUM> (FR2) from <NUM> to <NUM>. In NR communications with respect to mmWave, it is reasonable to expect a greater level of integration for high-frequency devices (FR2 devices or devices to be operated in FR2) than seen today with the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard for Long Term Evolution (LTE) devices and NR devices operating in lower frequencies, for example, NR Frequency Range <NUM> (FR1) from <NUM> to <NUM>. Such highly integrated devices may feature innovative front-end solutions, multi-element antenna arrays, passive and active feeding networks, etc., so that existing test techniques used for devices to be operated in LTE and/or NR FR1 frequencies may become inadequate for measurements associated with UE radio frequency (RF) performance, radio resource management (RRM) performance, demodulation performance, and channel state information (CSI) reporting performance in FR2 operations.

A highly integrated NR device may not be physically accessible by a front-end cable connector to connect to a test equipment (TE), because the interface between the front-end and the antenna may be an antenna-array feeding network, which is tightly integrated and, therefore, precludes the possibility of exposing a test connector, and so on. For example, there may not be access points to a baseband port, because the baseband port may be integrated with RF circuitry, integrated with an RF antenna array through some feeding network, or integrated with intermediate frequency (IF) circuitry. A greater level of integration of high-frequency devices including devices operating above <NUM> may drive the need for over-the-air (OTA) testing of all <NUM>) UE RF performance requirements, <NUM>) UE RRM performance requirements, and/or <NUM>) UE demodulation and CSI performance requirements (further denoted as UE demodulation without loss of generality). Thus, conventional UE demodulation test setup may not be applicable due to highly integrated realization of UE baseband and RF components. Embodiments described herein may include, for example, apparatuses, methods, and storage media for measurements of, or related to, accuracy measurements in UE demodulation performance tests in NR FR2 operations. Various embodiments described herein may provide adequate accuracy including absolute and/or relative accuracy measurements in demodulation performance tests in an over-the-air (OTA) test environment, other associated test environments, and/or implemented network environments.

<FIG> schematically illustrates an example block diagram of an architecture of a UE <NUM> operating in compliance with NR FR2 standards in accordance with one or more embodiments. The UE <NUM> may be a smartphone (for example, a handheld touchscreen mobile computing device connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing devices, such as a Personal Data Assistant (PDA), pager, laptop computer, desktop computer, wireless handset, customer premises equipment (CPE), fixed wireless access (FWA) device, Vehicle mounted UE or any computing device including a wireless communications interface. In some embodiments, the UE <NUM> 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 narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), 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 NB-IoT/MTC network describes interconnecting NB-IoT/MTC UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The NB-IoT/MTC UEs may execute background applications (for example, keep-alive message, status updates, location related services, etc.).

The UE <NUM> includes baseband processing circuitry <NUM>, IF processing circuitry <NUM> if applicable, RF processing circuitry <NUM>, an antenna-array matching network <NUM>, and an antenna array <NUM>. Based on the latest NR standards defined by the 3GPP, it is reasonable to expect that all or a vast majority of NR tests will be defined and tested with respect to an OTA measurement reference <NUM> at an input of antenna array <NUM> for a frequency range <NUM> (FR1) operation. However, for the UE <NUM> operating in FR2, at least certain demodulation performance tests may be defined and/or tested with respect to an input of the RF processing circuitry <NUM> as a reference point.

In some embodiments, baseband processing circuitry <NUM> may include multiple parallel baseband chains. Each baseband chain may process baseband signals and be the same or substantially similar to the baseband circuitry <NUM> in <FIG>. RF processing circuitry <NUM> may include multiple parallel RF chains or branches corresponding to one or more baseband chains. One baseband chain may be coupled with one or more RF chains and one RF chain may be coupled with one or more baseband chains, depending on various UE architectures. Each RF chain or branch may be coupled with one antenna-array matching network <NUM>, which may be coupled with one or more antenna arrays <NUM>. It is noted that "baseband chain," "baseband branch," and "baseband port" are used interchangeably in this application. A baseband chain may also refer to a receiver branch regarding UE reception.

In some embodiments, the UE <NUM> may include protocol processing circuitry that may include one or more instances of control circuitry to provide control functions for the baseband processing circuitry <NUM>, IF processing circuitry <NUM>, RF processing circuitry <NUM>, antenna-array feeding network <NUM>, and antenna array(s) <NUM>.

It is noted that in NR operations with respect to mmWave (FR2), baseband port <NUM> may not be accessible to test equipment to conduct a direct baseband-demodulation performance test due to the highly integrated baseband/RF circuitry. Similarly, IF port <NUM>, RF port <NUM>, and antenna element inputs <NUM> may not have access points either from test equipment point of view. In addition, antenna array <NUM> may be used in mmWave operations, which refer to frequencies above <NUM>. Thus, conductive measurements are not applicable for FR2 NR. Instead, OTA measurement may apply to most of, if not all, NR UE performance measurements in FR2.

<FIG> illustrates example components of the UE <NUM> in accordance with some embodiments. In contrast to <FIG>, <FIG> shows example components of the UE <NUM> from receiving and transmitting function point of view, and it may not include all of the components described in <FIG>. In some embodiments, the UE <NUM> may include application circuitry <NUM>, baseband circuitry <NUM>, RF circuitry <NUM>, RF front-end (RFFE) circuitry <NUM>, and a plurality of antennas <NUM> together at least as shown. In some embodiments, the UE <NUM> may include additional elements such as, for example, a 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 (for example, said circuitry may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations).

The processors may include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors (for example, graphics processors, application processors, etc.). In some embodiments, processors of application circuitry <NUM> may process IP data packets received from an evolved packet core (EPC).

The baseband circuitry <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the baseband circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments. The baseband circuitry <NUM> may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry <NUM> and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry <NUM>. Baseband circuitry <NUM> may interface with the application circuitry <NUM> for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry <NUM>. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include a third generation (<NUM>) baseband processor 204A, a fourth generation (<NUM>) baseband processor 204B, a fifth generation (<NUM>) baseband processor 204C, or other baseband processor(s) 204D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (for example, second generation (<NUM>), sixth generation (<NUM>), etc.). The baseband circuitry <NUM> (for example, one or more of baseband processors 204A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry <NUM>. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 204A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory <NUM> and executed via a central processing unit (CPU) 204E. 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 <NUM> may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include convolutional, tail-biting convolutional, convolutional turbo, Viterbi, Polar, 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.

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 204F. The audio DSP(s) 204F 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, in 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 <NUM> and the application circuitry <NUM> may be implemented together such as, for example, on a SOC.

For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN).

The RF circuitry <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the RF processing circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry <NUM> may include one or more switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry <NUM> may include receiver circuitry 206A, which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the RFFE circuitry <NUM> and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry <NUM>. RF circuitry <NUM> may also include transmitter circuitry 206B, which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry <NUM> and provide RF output signals to the RFFE circuitry <NUM> for transmission.

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

The RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF beams received from one or more antennas. The RF beams may operate in mmWave, sub-mmWave, or microwave frequency range. The RFFE circuitry <NUM> coupled with the one or more antennas <NUM> may receive the transmit beams and proceed them to the RF circuitry <NUM> for further processing. The RFFE circuitry <NUM> may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry <NUM> for transmission by one or more of the antennas <NUM>, with or without beamforming. In various embodiments, the amplification through transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry <NUM>, solely in the RFFE circuitry <NUM>, or in both the RF circuitry <NUM> and the RFFE circuitry <NUM>. The RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include an antenna-array feeding network similar to and substantially interchangeable with the antenna-array feeding network <NUM> in some embodiments.

In some embodiments, the RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a TX/RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a low noise amplifier (LNA) to amplify received RF beams and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (for example, to the RF circuitry <NUM>). The transmit signal path of the RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (for example, provided by RF circuitry <NUM>), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for beamforming and subsequent transmission (for example, by one or more of the one or more antennas <NUM>).

For example, processors of the baseband circuitry <NUM>, alone or in combination, may be used to execute Layer <NUM>, Layer <NUM>, or Layer <NUM> functionality, while processors of the application circuitry <NUM> may utilize data (for example, packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer <NUM> functionality (for example, transmission communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As referred to herein, Layer <NUM> may comprise a physical (PHY) layer of a UE, described in further detail below.

<FIG> illustrates an example of a radio frequency front end <NUM> incorporating an mmWave RFFE <NUM> and one or more sub-<NUM> radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) <NUM>. The mmWave RFFE <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the RFFE <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, and/or the RFFE circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments. The mmWave RFFE <NUM> may be used for the UE <NUM> while operating in FR2 or mmWave; the RFICs <NUM> may be used for the UE <NUM> while operating in FR1, sub-<NUM>, or LTE bands. In this embodiment, the one or more RFICs <NUM> may be physically separated from the mmWave RFFE <NUM>. RFICs <NUM> may include connection to one or more antennas <NUM>. The RFFE <NUM> may be coupled with multiple antennas <NUM>, which may constitute one or more antenna panels.

<FIG> illustrates an alternate example of an RFFE <NUM>, in accordance with various embodiments. In this aspect both millimeter wave and sub-<NUM> radio functions may be implemented in an mmWave and sub-mmWave RFFE <NUM>. The RFFE <NUM> may incorporate both millimeter wave antennas <NUM> and sub-<NUM> antennas <NUM>. The RFFE <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the RFFE <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, and/or the RFFE circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments.

<FIG> schematically illustrates an exemplary receiver (RX) <NUM> according to various embodiments. The RX circuitry <NUM> may include all or parts of, the RFFE <NUM>, the receiver circuitry 206A, or a combination thereof. Further, the RX circuitry <NUM> may include all or parts of the mmWave RFFE <NUM> or the RFFE <NUM>. <FIG> may schematically illustrate how a receiving beam may be formed and processed by an RF front end and receiver circuitry in accordance with various embodiments.

The RX circuitry <NUM> may include one or more antenna arrays <NUM> (only one is showing in <FIG>). In some embodiments, each antenna array <NUM> may include one or more antennas (or antenna elements), filters, low noise amplifiers, programmable phase shifters and power supplies (not shown). In other embodiments, some of those components may be a part of a receiver beamforming <NUM>. The receiver beamforming <NUM> may include one or more filters, low noise amplifiers, programmable phase shifters and power supplies (not shown) to form a receiving beam for a receiver branch <NUM>. In some embodiments, the receiving beam may be used for more than one receiver branch. The receiver branch <NUM> may further process the received signal and/or the receiving beam.

In some embodiments, the antenna array <NUM> and/or the RX circuitry <NUM> may receive a signal transmitted by another device that includes one or more transmitters (TX) <NUM>. For the sake of simplicity, only one TX <NUM> is used in description herein. The TX <NUM> may include one or more antenna arrays to generate a transmitting beam while operating in FR2. The transmitting device may be a test equipment (TE) <NUM> in an OTA test environment. The signal may be transmitted to the UE <NUM> wirelessly via one or more wireless paths <NUM>, which may be in compliance with a corresponding OTA test setup or configuration for certain measurements in FR2. Under such an OTA test setup, a transmitted signal power level and/or a signal-to-noise (SNR) of the transmitted signal may be configurable at one or more receiver reference points <NUM> before receiver beamforming, because of the limited and/or controllable path loss corresponding to the wireless paths <NUM>. Thus, the received signal power level and/or the SNR of the received signal at reference point A may be configurable and controllable by properly setting up the TX <NUM>. In contrast, a power level of the received signal and/or an SNR of the received signal at a reference point B <NUM> after the receiver beamforming <NUM> may not be configurable or measurable due to various limitations with respect to mmWave RFFE designs and realizations.

In a UE demodulation performance measurement in NR FR2 operations, including but not limited to a synchronization signal-reference signal received power (SS-RSRP), synchronization signal-reference signal received quality (SS-RSRQ), and synchronization signal signal-to-noise and interference (SS-SINR), the receiver of the UE <NUM> may be required to comply with one or more measurement accuracies. To simplify descriptions herein, only SS-RSRP and its pertinent measurements are discussed. SS-RSRQ and/or SS-SINR may be implemented in the same or a substantially similar approach as disclosed with respect to SS-RSRP. In addition, the SS-RSRP/SS-RSRQ/SS-SINR may be used interchangeably with RSRP/RSRQ/SINR throughout this disclosure. The former set of terms may be used exclusively in NR-related operations while handling synchronization signals (SSs). In embodiments, an SS-RSRP accuracy may be used to indicate how accurate a receiver can be or how much error it may have while measuring SS-RSRP regarding a specific synchronization signal (SS) or reference signal (RS). For example, if a UE receiver is measured with an RSRP accuracy of +<NUM> dB, it means that the measured RSRP is 3dB higher than the RSRP of the received SS or the real RSRP (a should-be RSRP). Such an RSRP accuracy may be referred to as an absolute RSRP accuracy and/or relative RSRP depending on other test conditions and implementations.

Conventionally in NR FR1 operations, an RSRP accuracy may be measured directly based on a configured or received RSRP and a measured RSRP by a UE receiver. For example, a TX may transmit a synchronization signal (SS) so that the UE receiver may receive the SS with an SS-RSRP value of X at a reference point of the antenna connector of the UE. In some embodiments, the TX <NUM> may be configured to transmit the SS at certain power level to ensure an SS-RSRP value of X at the reference point. Such a configured or received RSRP may be referred to as a base RSRP for calculating the RSRP accuracy. Then a measured RSRP by the UE receiver may be compared with the base RSRP. A difference between the two RSRP values may indicate the RSRP (or SS-RSRP) accuracy with respect to the UE. This reference point of an FR1 UE may equivalently be at the reference point <NUM> of the UE <NUM> operating in FR2. In contrast, in an FR2 UE or a UE operating in FR2, the reference point is defined as the reference point <NUM> after the receiver beamforming <NUM>, because an RSRP shall be measured based on a combined signal from antenna elements corresponding to a given receiver branch. However, the receiver beamforming <NUM> may enhance a signal power level and/or quality so that the base RSRP may become unknown or undeterminable based on different receiver beamforming configurations and/or various UE receiver implementations. Therefore, an RSRP accuracy in FR2 may not be determinable according to the approaches in NR FR1. Various embodiments described below provide approaches to measuring the RSRP accuracy in FR2 operations.

In embodiments according to an OTA test environment, the TX <NUM> of the TE <NUM> may be configured to transmit a first signal for the UE <NUM> to measure RSRP and one or more associated accuracies. The first signal may include an SS for SS-RSRP measurements. The power level of the SS may be configured to be a relatively large value so that thermal noise may become sufficiently small to be neglected or omitted. Also, when the SS is sufficiently large, which means sufficiently larger than receiver sensitivity limits, the UE receiver may be considered to have no errors (or zero accuracy) while measuring the SS-RSRP. Thus, a base SS-RSRP may be determined based on an SS-RSRP measurement of the SS of power level S, in which S may be sufficiently large, by the UE <NUM>. Note that the base SS-RSRP may be referred to as a "Geni" RSRP in certain 3GPP specifications. For example, S may be at least <NUM> dB or <NUM> dB greater than the corresponding thermal noise. In another example, S may be configured to be -<NUM> dBm, which is substantially greater than a typical UE sensitivity level. Note that the power level S may be configured to various values depending on other parameters in an RSRP accuracy measurement, and the examples herein are showing exemplary values for illustrative purposes but not limiting them in any possible ways.

Note that in the OTA environment, path loss between the TX <NUM> and the UE receiver may be known and calibrated. Thus, the power level of SS received by the UE at the reference point <NUM> may be equal to or directly associated with the power level of the SS transmitted by the TX <NUM>. For example, if the transmitted SS is -<NUM> dBm, the received SS at reference point <NUM> may be -<NUM> dBm due to <NUM> dB path loss caused by imperfections in test equipment and setup. Then the <NUM> dB path loss may be considered and/or calibrated as an offset in test configurations. Further, the received SS at reference point <NUM> may be -<NUM> dBm based on a <NUM> dB gain beamforming. In some embodiments, the TX <NUM> may transmit the SS at a power level so that the UE <NUM> may receive the SS at power level S at the reference point <NUM>.

In embodiments, the TX <NUM> may further transmit a second signal for the UE <NUM> to determine a measured SS-RSRP based on an SS-RSRP measurement of the second signal. The second signal may include the same SS and artificial noise. The SS in the second signal may be the same as or substantially similar to the SS of the first signal, and the power level of this SS may be configured to be the same S as the SS in the first signal. The power level (or noise level) of the artificial noise may be configured to be N so that the SNR of the second signal is to be a specific value S/N. The artificial noise may be generated to be effectively beamformed by the receiver beamforming <NUM> as the same or a substantially similar way to the SS. In some embodiments, the artificial noise may be correlated noise and/or interference, in contrast with the uncorrelated thermal noise. According to the invention, the artificial noise is correlated noise. So the artificial noise can be beamformed with power enhancement. Thus, the SNR of the received second signal at the reference point may still be S/N or sufficiently close to S/N. Note that the power level of the artificial noise may be configured sufficiently large so that the thermal noise may be neglected or omitted in the same or substantially similar way as to the power level of the SS. In addition, the artificial noise may be set to a level higher than the SS power level to achieve a typical SNR requirement regarding the UE receiver. For example, an SNR of -<NUM> dB may be required in a UE receiver implementation. Thus, as long as the SS power level is sufficiently higher than the thermal noise, the artificial noise may also be sufficiently large to neglect considerations of the thermal noise in calculating the RSRP accuracy in this approach.

In one example, if the SSs in both the first and second signals are transmitted at -<NUM> dBm, and the power level of the artificial noise in the second signal is -<NUM> dBm for the SNR of the second signal being of -<NUM> dB. When the first signal is received and beamformed by the UE receiver, the SS of the first signal may become or be enhanced to - <NUM> dBm at the reference point <NUM> due to a 10dB gain by the UE receiver with beamforming. Note that any path loss may not be considered for purposes of illustration. Then, the second signal including both the SS and artificial noise is received and beamformed by the UE receiver. The SS of the second signal may be enhanced to -<NUM> dBm at the reference point <NUM> due to a 10dB gain by the UE receiver with beamforming, and the artificial noise may also be enhanced to -<NUM> dBm by the receiver with beamforming. Thus, the received second signal may hold the same SNR of -<NUM> dB and have the same SS power of -<NUM> dBm.

In embodiments, the UE <NUM> may measure a second SS-RSRP based on the received second signal. Since the SS of the first signal and the SS of the second signal are transmitted at the same power level, the difference between the first SS-RSRP and the second SS-RSRP measured by the UE may indicate an SS-RSRP accuracy. If the UE <NUM> has a perfect accuracy that has no error in measuring an SS-RSRP in the baseband receiver, the two SS-RSRP of the respective first signal and second signal should have the same results, because the power levels of the two SSs are the same. However, the second signal contains noticeable artificial noise, which may be configured up to several dBs higher than the SS, and this may have an impact on the SS-RSRP accuracy for the UE <NUM>. Thus, a different SS-RSRP value may result from the SS-RSRP measurement of the second signal from the measurement of the first signal, and this delta may inidcate the SS-RSRP measurement accuracy while handling SS with noise and/or interference. In some embodiments, the SS-RSRP accuracy may be used to indicate an accuracy of a baseband receiver of the UE <NUM>. Since the SS-RSRP measurements may include inaccuracies from the RF receiver or RFFE, by measuring the delta of the two SS-RSRP results, the RSRP delta may indicate the inaccuracy from the baseband receiver but not from the RF receiver.

In some embodiments, the second signal may be configured with an SNR side condition that is the same or substantially similar to the side condition as to FR1. An SNR side condition refers to a condition of SNR to design the pertinent UE requirements and/or associated test setup. For example, a -<NUM> dB SNR may be required for the UE <NUM> to measure an SS-RSRP within certain accuracy. Accordingly, a -6dB target SNR may be configured for the second signal.

In some embodiments, an RSRQ accuracy and/or an SINR accuracy may be measured in the same or a substantially similar approach. In an example of SS-SINR accuracy measurement, a first signal may be configured with a sufficiently good SNR value S/N<NUM> and a second signal may be configured with an SNR value S/N<NUM> that is to be under a to-be-measured condition. Then a difference between the first SINR result and the second SINR result may indicate the SINR accuracy. For example, S/N<NUM> of the first signal may be configured to be <NUM> dB for a base SS-SINR measurement. If the UE receiver measures the SS-SINR of <NUM> dB, there may be a -<NUM> dB offset account for calibration or imperfection in the OTA setup. Then S/N<NUM> of the second signal may be configured to be -<NUM> dB for a measured SS-SINR. If the second SS-SINR is measured at -<NUM> dB, the SS-SINR delta may be calculated as (-<NUM>) - (-<NUM>) - (-<NUM>) = <NUM> dB. This calculation accounts for the -<NUM> dB offset determined in the base SS-SINR measurement. Thus, an SS-SINR accuracy may be +<NUM> dB accordingly.

<FIG> illustrates an operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> to facilitate a process of RSRP accuracy measurement in FR2 by the UE <NUM> in accordance with various embodiments. The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may be performed by the UE <NUM> or circuitry thereof. For example, in some embodiments the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may be implemented by digital baseband circuitry <NUM> and a CPU 204E. Note that RSRQ accuracy and/or SINR accuracy may be measured in the same or a substantially similar approach.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, determining a first SS-RSRP based on reception of a first signal of an FR2 SS. The SS may be configured based on a target power level S. The target power level S may be referred to a transmitting power level of the first signal, a receiving power level received by the UE <NUM> before receiver beamforming, or a receiving power level received by the UE <NUM> after receiver beamforming at a reference point defined for FR2 UEs. In embodiments, the UE <NUM> may receive the first signal from a TX of a TE in an OTA test environment. The first signal may be referred to as an SS of power level S or SS of target power level S. To determine the SS-RSRP of the first signal, the UE <NUM> may measure the SS-RSRP based on the received first signal according to a regular SS-RSRP measurement procedure.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, determining a second SS-RSRP based on reception of a second signal that includes the FR2 SS and artificial noise. The SS in the second signal may be configured to be the same as the SS in the first signal, which is of power level S. The target power level S may be referred to a transmitting power level of the second signal, a receiving power level received by the UE <NUM> before receiver beamforming, or, according ot the invention, a receiving power level received by the UE <NUM> after receiver beamforming at a reference point defined for FR2 UEs. The power level of the SS of the second signal may be configured in the same way as the SS of the first signal. In embodiments, the UE <NUM> may receive the second signal from a TX of a TE in an OTA test environment. The second signal may have the artificial noise level at N, or the power level of the artificial noise is a power level N. The second signal may be configured with a target SNR. The UE may receive the second signal with a receiver beamforming configuration that is the same or unchanged receiver beamforming configuration used for receiving the first signal. To determine the SS-RSRP of the first signal, the UE <NUM> may measure the SS-RSRP based on the received first signal according to a regular SS-RSRP measurement procedure.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, determining an SS-RSRP delta based on a difference between the first SS-RSRP and the second SS-RSRP. The first SS-RSRP may be referred to as a base SS-RSRP to represent an SS-RSRP without receiver error and/or inaccuracy. The second SS-RSRP may be referred to as a measured SS-RSRP to represent an SS-RSRP with receiver error and/or inaccuracy. The SS-RSRP delta may be calculated by dB.

In some embodiments, the UE <NUM> under test may report the SS-RSRP delta to the TE so that the TE may determine whether the UE <NUM> is within an allowed accuracy range. The UE may further determine an absolute or relative SS-RSRP accuracy based on the SS-RSRP delta. In some embodiments, the UE may report the determined absolute or relative SS-RSRP accuracy to the TE. In some other embodiments, the UE may determine whether it pass or fail the SS-RSRP accuracy requirement based on the RSRP delta or the determined absolute/relative accuracy.

<FIG> illustrates an operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> to facilitate the process of RSRP accuracy measurement in FR2 by the TE in accordance with various embodiments. The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may be performed by the TE <NUM> or circuitry thereof. For example, in some embodiments the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may be implemented by TX <NUM>, TE <NUM>, digital baseband circuitry <NUM>, and a CPU 204E.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, generating a first signal that includes an FR2 SS of a target power level S. The first signal may include specific identification information associated with the SS-RSRP and/or SS-RSRQ measurements. The target power level S may be referred to a transmitting power level of the first signal, a receiving power level received by the UE <NUM> before receiver beamforming, or, according to the invention, a receiving power level received by the UE <NUM> after receiver beamforming at a reference point defined for FR2 UEs.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, transmitting the first signal via one or more transmitters to the UE <NUM>. The transmission of the first signal may be via a test interface and/or after a test loop initialization. In some embodiments, the transmission of the first signal may be via measurement antennas.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, generating a second signal that includes the FR2 SS of the target power level S and artificial noise of power level N, based on a target SNR value. The second signal may include specific identification information associated with the SS-RSRP and/or SS-RSRQ measurements. The target power level S and/or the power level N may hold the SNR value. Such an SNR value may be predetermined according to an SNR side condition in FR1 and/or FR2 operations.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, transmitting the secondt signal via the one or more transmitters to the UE <NUM>. The transmission of the second signal may be via the same test interface and/or after the test loop initialization. In some embodiments, the transmission of the second signal may be via measurement antennas. Note that the second signal may be transmitted to the UE before or after the first signal is transmitted to the UE.

In some embodiments, the TE may further receive a report that indicates an SS-RSRP/SS-RSRQ delta, or an SS-RSRP/SS-RSRQ accuracy. The TE may further determine whether the UE satisfies a corresponding RSRP/RSRQ accuracy requirement based on the received report. The determination may be based on comparison between the report value and one or more predetermined values. In some other embodiments, if the UE determines whether it satisfies the corresponding RSRP/RSRQ accuracy requirement, the TE may receive a message that indicates whether the UE satisfies the corresponding requirement.

<FIG> illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry <NUM> of <FIG> may comprise processors 204A-204E and a memory <NUM> utilized by said processors. The processors 204A-204E of the UE <NUM> may perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>, in accordance with various embodiments. Alternatively or additionally, processors 204A-204E of the UE <NUM> may perform some or all of the operation with respect to SS-RSRP accuracy measurements. The processors 204A-204E of the TE may perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>, in accordance with various embodiments. Each of the processors 204A-204E may include a memory interface, 604A-604E, respectively, to send/receive data to/from the memory <NUM>.

The baseband circuitry <NUM> may further include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memory interface <NUM> (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the baseband circuitry <NUM>), an application circuitry interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry <NUM> of <FIG>), an RF circuitry interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry <NUM> of <FIG>), a wireless hardware connectivity interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (for example, Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components), and a power management interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive power or control signals).

<FIG> is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (for example, a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, <FIG> shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources <NUM> including one or more processors (or processor cores) <NUM>, one or more memory/storage devices <NUM>, and one or more communication resources <NUM>, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus <NUM>. For embodiments where node virtualization (for example, network function virtualization (NFV)) is utilized, a hypervisor <NUM> may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources <NUM>.

The processors <NUM> (for example, 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 <NUM> and a processor <NUM>.

The memory/storage devices <NUM> 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..

For example, the communication resources <NUM> may include wired communication components (for example, for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® components (for example, Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

Instructions <NUM> may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors <NUM> to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. For example, in an embodiment in which the hardware resources <NUM> are implemented into the UE <NUM>, the instructions <NUM> may cause the UE to perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>. In other embodiments, the hardware resources <NUM> may be implemented into the TE <NUM>. The instructions <NUM> may cause the TE <NUM> to perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>. The instructions <NUM> may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors <NUM> (for example, within the processor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices <NUM>, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions <NUM> may be transferred to the hardware resources <NUM> from any combination of the peripheral devices <NUM> or the databases <NUM>. Accordingly, the memory of processors <NUM>, the memory/storage devices <NUM>, the.

peripheral devices <NUM>, and the databases <NUM> are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

The present disclosure is described with reference to flowchart illustrations or block diagrams of methods, apparatuses (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the disclosure. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart or block diagram block or blocks.

Claim 1:
One or more non-transitory computer-readable media, CRM, comprising instructions to, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of a test equipment, TE, cause the TE to:
generate (<NUM>) a first signal that includes a frequency range <NUM>, FR2, synchronization signal of a target power level S at a receiver reference point after receiver beamforming at a user equipment, UE, wherein the FR2 is from <NUM> megahertz, MHz, to <NUM>;
transmit (<NUM>) the first signal via one or more transmitters to the, UE;
generate (<NUM>) a second signal that includes the FR2 synchronization signal and artificial correlated noise of power level N, based on a target signal-to-noise, SNR, value; and
transmit (<NUM>) the second signal via the one or more transmitters to the UE.