PATENT DOCUMENT

Publication Number: US-11510114-B2
Application Number: US-201816479482-A
Country: US
Kind Code: B2

Title: Exit conditions for conditional handovers and beam based mobility state estimation

Abstract:
Methods, systems, and storage media are provided for exiting conditional handovers and for estimating a user equipment mobility state. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Claims:
The invention claimed is: 
     
       1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media (NTCRSM) comprising instructions, wherein execution of the instructions by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) is to cause the UE to:
 identify, from a received radio resource control (RRC) message, a conditional handover (CHO) command, wherein the CHO command is to indicate a first condition and a second condition, wherein the first condition is to indicate a condition to execute a handover (HO) of the CHO command and the second condition is to indicate a condition to not execute the HO, wherein the first condition and the second condition are based at least in part on a determination of how long a network should reserve resources for the UE in consideration of handover performance; 
 monitor the first condition and the second condition, and 
 perform an HO procedure when the first condition is met before the second condition is met, or 
 discard the CHO command when the second condition is met and the first condition is not met. 
 
     
     
       2. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 1 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 initiate a validity timer; and 
 perform the HO procedure when the first condition is met before expiration of the validity timer, 
 wherein the second condition comprises expiration of the validity timer. 
 
     
     
       3. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 2 , wherein the validity timer corresponds with an individual target cell or an individual target beam, and execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 perform the HO procedure with the individual target cell or the individual target beam when the first condition is met before expiration of the validity timer. 
 
     
     
       4. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 2 , wherein the validity timer corresponds with a plurality of target cells or a plurality of target beams, and execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 perform the HO procedure with a target cell of the plurality of target cells or a target beam of the plurality of target beams when the first condition is met for the target cell or the target beam before expiration of the validity timer. 
 
     
     
       5. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 2 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 initiate the validity timer in response to receipt of the CHO command; 
 initiate the validity timer when a serving cell signal strength or serving beam signal strength is below a threshold indicated by the RRC message; or 
 initiate the validity timer when a difference between a serving cell signal strength and a target cell signal or a difference between a serving beam signal strength and a target beam signal strength is within a range indicated by the RRC message. 
 
     
     
       6. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 2 , wherein duration of the validity timer is based at least in part on a tradeoff between a time duration needed to reserve resources for the HO and providing a sufficient amount of time so that the UE may properly perform the HO in order to a avoid radio link failure. 
     
     
       7. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 1 , wherein the second condition is met when a difference between a source cell signal-to-noise-and-interference (SINR) and a target cell SINR becomes less than a measurement report threshold, or when a difference between a source beam SINR and a target beam SINR becomes less than another measurement report threshold. 
     
     
       8. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 1 , wherein the second condition is met when a target cell SINR is less than or equal to a source cell SINR or when a target beam SINR is less than or equal to a source beam SINR. 
     
     
       9. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 1 , wherein, when the second condition is met, execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 control radio control circuitry to perform one or more measurements of one or more cells or one or more beams; and 
 control transmission of a measurement report to indicate signal strengths of the one or more cells or the one or more beams. 
 
     
     
       10. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 9 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 detect, based on the one or more measurements, a new cell that is not among the one or more cells or a new beam that is not among the one or more beams; and 
 when a signal strength or signal quality of the new cell or the new beam is greater than or equal to a signal strength or signal quality of a service cell or serving beam,
 discard the CHO command, and 
 control transmission of another measurement report to indicate the signal strength or the signal quality of the new cell or the new beam. 
 
 
     
     
       11. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 1 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 control transmission of a scheduling request, a random access response, or an RRC connection reestablishment message when the second condition is met. 
 
     
     
       12. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 11 , wherein, when the first condition is met, execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 control transmission of a message to a source cell or a transmission-reception point that is to provide a source beam after performance of the HO procedure, wherein the message is to indicate successful performance of the HO procedure. 
 
     
     
       13. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 1 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to:
 initiate a plurality of validity timers corresponding to a plurality of target cells or a plurality of target beams; and perform the HO procedure with a target cell of the plurality of target cells or a target beam of the plurality of target beams when the first condition is met for the target cell or the target beam before expiration of a corresponding validity timer. 
 
     
     
       14. The one or more NTCRSM of  claim 13 , wherein duration of each of the plurality of validity timers is different from one another. 
     
     
       15. A base station (BS) comprising:
 a transceiver; and 
 processing circuitry communicatively coupled to the transceiver and configured to: 
 receive a measurement report from a user equipment (UE); 
 generate a conditional handover (CHO) request message when the UE is to be handed over to a target base station; and 
 send the CHO request message to the target base station, and
 obtain, from the target base station, a radio resource control (RRC) message to be sent to the UE, wherein the RRC message is to include a CHO command, and wherein the CHO command is to indicate a CHO condition and an exit condition, wherein the CHO condition is to indicate a condition, which when fulfilled, is to cause the UE to initiate a handover (HO) with the target base station, and the exit condition is to indicate a condition, which when fulfilled, is to cause the UE to discard the CHO command, wherein the CHO condition and the exit condition are based at least in part on a determination of how long a network should reserve resources for the UE in consideration of handover performance. 
 
 
     
     
       16. The BS of  claim 15 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to transmit the RRC message to the UE in response to receipt of the RRC message by the processing circuitry. 
     
     
       17. The BS of  claim 15 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to receive a message from the UE to indicate successful completion of the HO with the target base station, or to obtain a message from the target base station to indicate successful completion of the HO with the UE. 
     
     
       18. The BS of  claim 15 , the processing circuitry is further configured to determine that the UE is to be handed over to the target base station based on signal strength or signal quality measurements included in the measurement report. 
     
     
       19. The BS of  claim 15 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to send an instruction to the target base station to release a target resource when the exit condition is fulfilled or when the CHO condition is not fulfilled. 
     
     
       20. The BS of  claim 19 , wherein the instruction to the target radio access network is sent using an X2/Xn message.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     The present application is a national phase entry under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application No. PCT/US2018/019124, filed Feb. 22, 2018, entitled “EXIT CONDITIONS FOR CONDITIONAL HANDOVERS AND BEAM BASED MOBILITY STATE ESTIMATION,” which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/463,894 filed Feb. 27, 2017 and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/466,873 filed Mar. 3, 2017, the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. 
    
    
     FIELD 
     Various embodiments of the present application generally relate to the field of wireless communications, and in particular, to conditional handovers and mobility state estimation. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Future implementations of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) new radio (NR) systems may support conditional handovers in order to support stringent latency requirements and fast moving user equipment (UEs). Conditional handovers may involve a UE sending a measurement report to a source cell, followed by the reception of a conditional handover command from the network. The conditional handover command may indicate a condition for the UE to perform a handover procedure. In this case, the UE must wait until the condition is met before the handover is performed. Conditional handovers may lead to better handover failure performance when compared to legacy handover procedures. 
     However, handover failures may occur when the handover condition is not met, for example, when a UE moves close to a cell edge or boundary and then comes to a stop. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To facilitate this description, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings. 
         FIG. 1A  illustrates an example system architecture of a network, in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIGS. 1B-1E  illustrate various channel quality graphs in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 2  illustrates another example system architecture of a network, in accordance with various embodiments 
         FIG. 3  depicts an example of infrastructure equipment in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 4  depicts example components of a computer platform in accordance with various embodiments  FIG. 5  depicts example components of baseband circuitry and radio frequency circuitry in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 6  depicts example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 7  depicts example components capable to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to various example embodiments. 
         FIG. 8  is an illustration of various protocol functions in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 9  shows an example conditional handover procedure in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 10  shows an example conditional handover (CHO) procedure that may be performed by a user equipment, in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 11  shows an example CHO procedure that may be performed by a source radio access network node, in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 12  shows an example CHO procedure that may be performed by a target radio access network node, in accordance with various embodiments. 
         FIG. 13  shows an example mobility state estimation procedure in accordance with various embodiments. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Embodiments discussed herein relate to conditional handovers and mobility state estimation. In embodiments, a conditional handover (CHO) command may indicate a first condition and a second condition. The first condition may indicate a condition to execute a handover (HO) of the CHO and the second condition may indicate a condition to not execute the HO or discard the CHO command. A user equipment (UE) may perform an HO procedure when the first condition is met before the second condition is met; and may discard the CHO command when the second condition is met and the first condition is not met. In addition, the UE may identify a plurality of mobility state estimation (MSE) thresholds from a configuration message. Each of the MSE thresholds may correspond to an MSE value. The UE may determine an MSE of the UE to be an individual MSE value when a value of a mobility counter is less than or equal to an MSE threshold that corresponds with the individual MSE value. Furthermore, the UE may count a number of beam switches and/or a number of transmission-reception point (TRP) switches that occur within a time period, and may estimate a current mobility state based on the number of beam switches and/or the number of TRP switches. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed. 
     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 the claimed invention. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the various aspects of the invention claimed 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 present invention with unnecessary detail. 
     Various aspects of the illustrative embodiments will be described using terms commonly employed by those skilled in the art to convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that alternate embodiments may be practiced with only some of the described aspects. For purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials, and configurations are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the illustrative embodiments. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that alternate embodiments may be practiced without the specific details. In other instances, well-known features are omitted or simplified in order not to obscure the illustrative embodiments. 
     Further, various operations will be described as multiple discrete operations, in turn, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the illustrative embodiments; however, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular, these operations need not be performed in the order of presentation. 
     The phrase “in various embodiments,” “in some embodiments,” and the like are used repeatedly. The phrase generally does not refer to the same embodiments; however, it may. The terms “comprising,” “having,” and “including” are synonymous, unless the context dictates otherwise. The phrase “A and/or B” means (A), (B), or (A and B). The phrases “A/B” and “A or B” mean (A), (B), or (A and B), similar to the phrase “A and/or B.” For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase “at least one of A and B” means (A), (B), or (A and B). The description may use the phrases “in an embodiment,” “in embodiments,” “in some embodiments,” and/or “in various embodiments,” which may each refer to one or more of the same or different embodiments. Furthermore, the terms “comprising,” “including,” “having,” and the like, as used with respect to embodiments of the present disclosure, are synonymous. 
     Example embodiments may be described as a process depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a data flow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart may describe the operations as a sequential process, many of the operations may be performed in parallel, concurrently, or simultaneously. In addition, the order of the operations may be re-arranged. A process may be terminated when its operations are completed, but may also have additional steps not included in the figure(s). A process may correspond to a method, a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, and the like. When a process corresponds to a function, its termination may correspond to a return of the function to the calling function and/or the main function. 
     Example embodiments may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program code, software modules, and/or functional processes, being executed by one or more of the aforementioned circuitry. The program code, software modules, and/or functional processes may include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular data types. The program code, software modules, and/or functional processes discussed herein may be implemented using existing hardware in existing communication networks. For example, program code, software modules, and/or functional processes discussed herein may be implemented using existing hardware at existing network elements or control nodes. 
       FIG. 1A  illustrates an architecture of a system  100 A of a network, in accordance with various embodiments. The following description is provided for an example system  100 A that operates in conjunction with the Fifth Generation (5G) or New Radio (NR) system standards as provided by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technical specifications (TS). However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE), future (for example, Sixth Generation (6G)) systems, and the like. 
     As shown by  FIG. 1A , the system  100 A may include user equipment (UE)  101  and UE  102 . As used herein, the term “user equipment” or “UE” may refer to a device with radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment” or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device including a wireless communications interface. In this example, UEs  101  and  102  are illustrated as smartphones (for example, 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 consumer electronics devices, cellular phones, smartphones, feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handsets, desktop computers, laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment (ICE) devices, an Instrument Cluster (IC), head-up display (HUD) devices, onboard diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment (DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs), Electronic Engine Management System (EEMS), electronic/engine control units (ECUs), electronic/engine control modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or “smart” appliances, machine-type communications (MTC) devices, machine-to-machine (M2M), Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and/or the like. 
     In some embodiments, any of the UEs  101  and  102  can comprise an 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 M2M or 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 (for example, keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network. 
     The UEs  101  and  102  may be configured to connect, for example, communicatively couple, with a access network (AN) or radio access network (RAN)  110 . In embodiments, the RAN  110  may be a next generation (NG) RAN or a 5G RAN, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), or a legacy RAN, such as a UTRAN (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network) or GERAN (GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications or Groupe Spécial Mobile) EDGE (GSM Evolution) Radio Access Network). As used herein, the term “NG RAN” or the like may refer to a RAN  110  that operates in an NR or 5G system  100 A, and the term “E-UTRAN” or the like may refer to a RAN  110  that operates in an LTE or 4G system  100 A. The UEs  101  and  102  utilize connections (or channels)  103  and  104 , respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below). As used herein, the term “channel” may refer to any transmission medium, either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or a data stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalent to “communications channel,” “data communications channel,” “transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,” “data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequency carrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or medium through which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” may refer to a connection between two devices through a Radio Access Technology (RAT) for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information. 
     In this example, the connections  103  and  104  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 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and/or any of the other communications protocols discussed herein. In embodiments, the UEs  101  and  102  may directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface  105 . The ProSe interface  105  may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink (SL) interface  105  and may comprise 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). 
     The UE  102  is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP)  106  (also referred to as also referred to as “WLAN node  106 ”, “WLAN 106”, “WLAN Termination  106 ” or “WT  106 ” or the like) via connection  107 . The connection  107  can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP  106  would comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®) router. In this example, the AP  106  is shown to be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, the UE  102 , RAN  110 , and AP  106  may be configured to utilize LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA) operation and/or WLAN LTE/WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel (LWIP) operation. The LWA operation may involve the UE  102  in RRC_CONNECTED being configured by a RAN node  111 ,  112  to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve the UE  102  using WLAN radio resources (for example, connection  107 ) via Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) protocol tunneling to authenticate and encrypt packets (for example, internet protocol (IP) packets) sent over the connection  107 . IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating entirety of original IP packets and adding a new packet header thereby protecting the original header of the IP packets. 
     The RAN  110  can include one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes  111  and  112  that enable the connections  103  and  104 . As used herein, the terms “access node,” “access point,” or the like may describe equipment that provides the radio baseband functions for data and/or voice connectivity between a network and one or more users. These access nodes can be referred to as base stations (BS), next Generation NodeBs (gNBs), RAN nodes, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), NodeBs, Road Side Units (RSUs), Transmission Reception Points (TRxPs or TRPs), and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (for example, terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (for example, a cell). The term “Road Side Unit” or “RSU” may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity implemented in or by an gNB/eNB/RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE, where an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU”, an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU.” As used herein, the term “NG RAN node” or the like may refer to a RAN node  111 / 112  that operates in an NR or 5G system  100 A (for example a gNB), and the term “E-UTRAN node” or the like may refer to a RAN node  111 / 112  that operates in an LTE or 4G system  100 A (for example, an eNB). According to various embodiments, the RAN nodes  111  and/or  112  may be implemented as one or more of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station, and/or a low power (LP) base station for providing femtocells, picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells. In other embodiments, the RAN nodes  111  and/or  112  may be implemented as one or more software entities running on server computers as part of a virtual network, which may be referred to as a cloud radio access network (CRAN). In other embodiments, the RAN nodes  111  and  112  may represent individual gNB-distributed units (DUs) that are connected to a gNB-centralized unit (CU) via an F1 interface (not shown by  FIG. 1A ). 
     Any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs  101  and  102 . In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN  110  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. 
     In embodiments, the UEs  101  and  102  can be configured to communicate using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communication technique (for example, for downlink communications) or a Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) communication technique (for example, 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. 
     In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  to the UEs  101  and  102 , 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. 
     The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs  101  and  102 . 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  101  and  102  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  111  and  112  based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs  101  and  102 . The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (for example, assigned to) each of the UEs  101  and  102 . 
     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 CCEs, 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 (for example, aggregation level, L=1, 2, 4, or 8). 
     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. 
     Furthermore, UEs  101 ,  102  may be capable of measuring various channel, link, and/or cell-related criteria, such as channel conditions, signal and/or beam strength or quality (for example, reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), and the like), and provide a measurement report (MR) including this information to a RAN node  111 ,  112 . In many deployment scenarios, a UE  101 ,  102  may undergo a handover (HO) operation when moving between cells. For example, when a UE  101 ,  102  moves from a cell of RAN node  111  to a cell of RAN node  112 , RAN node  111  may handover the UE  101 ,  102  to RAN node  112 . In this case, RAN node  112  may be considered a “source cell,” “source RAN node,” or a “source eNB,” and RAN node  112  may be considered a “target cell,” “target RAN node,” or a “target eNB.” Typically, the source RAN node  111  may send a measurement configuration to the UE  101 ,  102  to request a measurement report from the UE  101 ,  102  when certain configured event(s) triggered, and the UE  101 ,  102  may perform signal quality or cell power measurements for channels or links of the target RAN node  112  and/or other neighboring cells (not shown). 
     Based on the results of the measurement, some configured events may trigger the UE to send the measurement report to the source RAN node  111 . The source RAN node  111  may decide to handover the UE  101 ,  102  to the target RAN node  112  by initiating the HO operation. To initiate the HO operation, the source RAN node  111  may transmit an HO request message to the target RAN node  112 , and in response, the source RAN node  111  may receive an HO request acknowledgement (ACK) from the target RAN node  112 . Once the HO request ACK is received, the source RAN node  111  may send an HO command to the UE to begin an attachment process with the target RAN node  112 . At this point, the source RAN node  111  stops data transmission to the UE since the UE detaches from the source RAN node  111  and starts synchronization with the target RAN node  112 . If the source RAN node  111  still has data intended for the UE, the source RAN node  111  may send a sequence number (SN) status transfer to the target RAN node  112  and forward data to the target RAN node  112  so that the target RAN node  112  can transmit such data to UE  101 ,  102  once the HO operation is complete. 
     Conditional handovers (CHOs) may be used in embodiments where system  100 A is an NR system. In these embodiments, a UE  101 ,  102  may be triggered to generate and transmit an early measurement report (MR) to a source cell, followed by the receipt of a CHO command from the network (for example, the source/serving cell). The CHO command may include a threshold or other condition, which indicates when the UE  101 ,  102  may execute or otherwise initiate an HO to an indicated target cell, and the UE  101 ,  102  must wait until this condition is met before the HO is performed. The use of CHOs may lead to better HO failure performance when compared to legacy system HO failure performance. However, as shown by  FIG. 1B , issues may arise when the condition indicated by the CHO command do not occur or are otherwise not detected by the UE  101 ,  102 . 
     Referring to  FIG. 1B , which shows a channel quality graph  100 B for a scenario where a CHO is not triggered. The graph  100 B shows that a UE  101 ,  102  may be triggered to send an MR at node  140  when the UE  101 ,  102  detects a signal strength/quality of a source cell or beam  011  (also referred to as “source  011 ” or the like) to decrease, and an increase in a signal strength/quality of a target cell or beam  012  (also referred to as “target  012 ” or the like). The source  011  and target  012  may be provided by a same or different RAN node  111 ,  112 , or by different TRxPs of a same RAN node  111 ,  112 . In this scenario, after the MR is sent at node  140 , the UE  101 ,  102  continues to detect that the signal strength of the source  011  is below that of the target  012 , but the signal strength of the target  012  does not reach the threshold indicated by the CHO command. Therefore, the UE  101 ,  102  in this scenario does not trigger the CHO at node  141 . This scenario may occur when, for example, the UE  101 ,  102  moves close to a cell boundary and then comes to a halt. 
     The use of a two-step CHO scheme in NR as discussed previously relies on the UE  101 / 102  evaluating source  011  and target cell/beam  012  strength/qualities and comparing the evaluated cell/bea, strength/qualities with different thresholds, for example, a maximum threshold X High  (indicated by a CHO command) and a minimum threshold X Low  (indicated by a the MR sent at node  140 ). Due to NR channel characteristics and UE mobility patterns, there can potentially be a number of scenarios where the UE  101 / 102  sends the MR based on X Low  and then waits for the CHO condition to occur, which may potentially take a long time to happen as shown by  FIG. 1B , which may lead to poor HO performance. The embodiments shown and describe with respect to  FIGS. 1C-1E  may alleviate these issues. 
       FIG. 1C  shows a channel quality graph  100 C for a scenario where a timer-based CHO exit condition is used, in accordance with various embodiments. In these embodiments, a validity timer may be associated with the CHO command by the source  011 . In such embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may start a timer at node  143  in response to receipt of the CHO command for a particular target cell/beam  112 . At node  144 , the UE  101 / 102  may periodically or otherwise continue to check the HO execution condition indicated by the CHO command (for example, by comparing the difference between the source  011  and target cell/beam  012  qualities to the X High ) during a duration of the validity period. If the condition is satisfied before the timer expires, the UE  101 / 102  may execute the HO with the target cell/beam  112 . However, if at node  145  the timer expires before the CHO condition occurs, the UE  101 / 102  may discard the CHO command and operate as if the CHO command was never received. 
     The validity timer may be configured in different ways based on various criteria. In a first example, the validity timer may be configured for every CHO command, wherein a single validity timer duration may be indicated in a configuration for one or more target/candidate cells or beams. In a second example, validity timer(s) may be configured per target or candidate entity, wherein one CHO command or configuration may indicate multiple target/candidate cells or beams with individual configurations, and each target/candidate cell or beam may be associated with a corresponding timer duration. Additionally, each of the timers (or timer durations) may be different from one another. In embodiments, CHO command or configuration may indicate a starting time or starting condition for starting the timer. For example, the CHO command or configuration may indicate to start the timer(s) when the CHO command is received by the UE  101 / 102 , when the UE  101 / 102  detects or estimates that the serving cell/beam signal strength/quality is below a configured or determined threshold; and/or when the UE  101 / 102  detects or estimates that the target cell or beam is less than a certain signal strength/quality (e.g., X dBs) in comparison to the source  012  cell or beam. Furthermore, the timer may be reset when the HO operation is executed or triggered to execute (for example, when the CHO condition is detected). Moreover, the UE  101 / 102  may generate and transmit a new MR for the same target cell/beam once the timer for the previous CHO command has expired or reset. Table 1 shows an example configuration or CHO command that may be included in an RRC message to be used for the validity timer based exit condition embodiments. The example of table 1 is based on current LTE standards, but may also be applicable to NR implementations. 
     
       
         
           
               
             
               
                 TABLE 1 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 -    MobilityControlInfo 
               
               
                 The IE MobilityControlInfo includes parameters relevant for network controlled mobility to/within 
               
               
                 E-UTRA. 
               
               
                 MobilityControlInfo Information Element 
               
               
                 -- ASN1START 
               
               
                 MobilityControlInfo ::=  SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   targetPhysCellId 
                   PhysCellId, 
                   
               
               
                   carrierFreq 
                   CarrierFreqEUTRA 
                   OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                   -- Cond HO-toEUTRA2 
                   
                   
               
               
                   carrierBandwidth 
                   CarrierBandwidthEUTRA 
                   OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                   -- Cond HO-toEUTRA 
                   
                   
               
               
                   additionalSpectrumEmission 
                   AdditionalSpectrumEmission 
                   OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                   -- Cond HO-toEUTRA 
                   
                   
               
               
                   t304 
                   ENUMERATED { 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   
                     ms50, ms100, ms150, ms200, ms500, ms1000, 
               
               
                   
                     ms2000, ms10000-v1310}, 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   newUE-Identity 
                   C-RNTI, 
                   
               
               
                   radioResourceConfigCommon 
                   RadioResourceConfigCommon, 
                   
               
               
                   rach-ConfigDedicated 
                   RACH-ConfigDedicated 
                   OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                   -- Need OP 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ..., 
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ carrierFreq-v9e0 
                   CarrierFreqEUTRA-v9e0 
                   OPTIONAL 
               
               
                   -- Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ]], 
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ drb-ContinueROHC-r11 
                   ENUMERATED (true) 
                   OPTIONAL 
               
               
                   -- Cond HO 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ]], 
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ mobilityControlInfoV2X-r14 
                 MobilityControlInfoV2X-r14 
                   OPTIONAL 
               
               
                   -- Need OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ]] 
                   
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
                   
               
               
                 MobilityControlInfoSCG-r12 ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
                   
               
               
                   t307-r12 
                   ENUMERATED { 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   
                     ms50, ms100, ms150, ms200, ms500, ms1000, 
               
               
                   
                     ms2000, spare1}, 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   ue-IdentitySCG-r12 
                   C-RNTI 
                 OPTIONAL,  -- 
               
               
                 Cond SCGEst, 
                   
                   
               
               
                   rach-ConfigDedicated-r12 
                   RACH-ConfigDedicated 
                 OPTIONAL,  -- 
               
               
                 Need OP 
                   
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   cipheringAlgorithmSCG-r12 
                   CipheringAlgorithm-r12  OPTIONAL,  -- Need ON 
               
               
                   ... 
                   
               
               
                   [[conditionalHORelease-r15 
                     ENUMERATED { 
               
               
                   
                       ms50, ms100, ms150, ms200, ms500, ms1000, 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   
                       ms2000, spare1}, 
                 OPTIONAL,  -- 
               
            
           
           
               
            
               
                 Need OR]] 
               
               
                 } 
               
               
                 MobilityControlInfoV2X-r14 ::= SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   v2x-CommTxPoolExceptional-r14 
                   SL-CommResourcePoolV2X-r14 
                 OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                   -- Need OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                   v2x-CommRxPool-r14 
                   SL-CommRxPoolListV2X-r14 
                 OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                   -- Need OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                   v2x-CommSyncConfig-r14 
                   SL-SyncConfigListV2X-r14 
                 OPTIONAL 
               
               
                   -- Need OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 CarrierBandwidthENTRA ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                   dl-Bandwidth 
                   ENUMERATED { 
               
               
                   
                       n6, n15, n25, n50, n75, n100, spare10, 
               
               
                   
                       spare9, spare8, spare7, spare6, spare5, 
               
               
                   
                       spare4, spare3, spare2, spare1}, 
               
               
                   ul-Bandwidth 
                   ENUMERATED { 
               
               
                   
                       n6, n15, n25, n50, n75, n100, spare10, 
               
               
                   
                       spare9, spare8, spare7, spare6, spare5, 
               
               
                   
                       spare4, spare3, spare2, spare1} OPTIONAL 
               
               
                 -- Need OP 
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                 CarrierFreqEUTRA ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
                   
               
               
                   dl-CarrierFreq 
                   ARFCN-ValueEUTRA, 
                   
               
               
                   ul-CarrierFreq 
                   ARFCN-ValueEUTRA 
                   OPTIONAL  -- 
               
               
                 Cond FDD 
                   
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
                   
               
               
                 CarrierFreqEUTRA-v9e0 ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
                   
               
               
                   dl-CarrierFreq-v9e0 
                   ARFCN-ValueEUTRA-r9, 
                   
               
               
                   ul-CarrierFreq-v9e0 
                   ARFCN-ValueEUTRA-r9 
                 OPTIONAL  -- Cond 
               
               
                 FDD 
                   
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
                   
               
               
                 -- ASN1STOP 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     In the example of table 1, the MobilityControlInfo information element (IE) may include a condition HO release field (conditionalHORelease-r15) that includes a validity timer duration in milliseconds (ms). In this example, the value “ms50” may refer to 50 ms, “ms100” may refer to 100 ms, and so forth. Where multiple timers are to be set/configured for individual cells or beams, the MobilityControlInfo IE may include multiple conditionalHORelease-r15 fields, each of which may include their own validity timer values. 
       FIG. 1D  shows a channel quality graph  100 D for a scenario where an event-based CHO exit condition is used, in accordance with various embodiments. In these embodiments, the CHO command may be discarded in response to the detection of an indicated or configured event. The event may be measurement/detection of a target or serving cell strength/quality dropping below a threshold, a difference between the source  011  and target  012  cell or beam strengths/qualities, or some other event. In the example of  FIG. 1D , the event-based exit condition may be a different between the source  011  and target  012  cell or beam SINR dropping below the MR threshold X Low . As shown by the graph  100 D, the UE  101 / 102  may send the MR at node  140 , and over time, the signal strength/quality of the target cell/beam  012  may decrease. In this case, since the difference between the source  011  and target  012  cell/beam SINRs becomes less than X Low  (MR threshold), the UE  101 / 102  may determine that the target cell/beam  012  is no longer better than the source cell/beam  011 . Therefore, the UE  101 / 102  in this scenario may discard the CHO command at node  147 . After discarding the CHO command, the UE  101 / 102  may send a new MR for any potentially new target  012  cells/beams (not shown by  FIG. 1D ). 
     In various embodiments, the event-based exit condition may be defined using a certain decibel (dB) threshold. For example, a CHO command or configuration may indicate the event to be when target cell/beam SINR is less than or equal to (&lt;=) 1 dB higher than the source cell/beam  011  SINR. 
     In some embodiments, the exit condition may be added directly in the event configuration, as is shown by table 2. Table 2 shows an example RRC message IE for event A3 according to current LTE standards with additions or changes to include the CHO exit condition. However, the example of table 2 may also be applicable to other LTE event configurations and/or applicable to NR implementations. 
     
       
         
           
               
             
               
                 TABLE 2 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 -   ReportConfigEUTRA 
               
               
                 The IE ReportConfigEUTRA specifies criteria for triggering of an E-UTRA measurement reporting event. 
               
               
                 The E-UTRA measurement reporting events concerning CRS are labelled AN with N equal to 1, 2 and so 
               
               
                 on. 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                  Event 1: 
                 Serving becomes better than absolute threshold; 
               
               
                  Event A2: 
                 Serving becomes worse than absolute threshold; 
               
               
                  Event A3: 
                 Neighbour becomes amount of offset better than PCell/PSCell; 
               
               
                  Event A4: 
                 Neighbour becomes better than absolute threshold; 
               
               
                  Event A5: 
                 PCell/PSCell becomes worse than absolute threshold1 AND Neighbour becomes better 
               
            
           
           
               
            
               
                 than another absolute threshold2; 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                  Event A6: 
                 Neighbour becomes amount of offset better than SCell. 
               
            
           
           
               
            
               
                 The E-UTRA measurement reporting events concerning CSI-RS are labelled CN with N equal to 1 and 2. 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                  Event C1: 
                 CSI-RS resource becomes better than absolute threshold; 
               
               
                  Event C2: 
                 CSI-RS resource becomes amount of offset better than reference CSI-RS resource. 
               
            
           
           
               
            
               
                 The E-UTRA measurement reporting events concerning CBR are labelled VN with N equal to 1 and 2. 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                  Event V1: 
                 CBR becomes larger than absolute threshold; 
               
               
                  Event V2: 
                 CBR becomes smaller than absolute threshold. 
               
            
           
           
               
            
               
                 ReportConfigEUTRA information element 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 -- ASN1START 
                   
               
               
                 ReportConfigEUTRA ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   triggerType 
                 CHOICE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                     event 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                       eventId 
                 CHOICE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         event1 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                           1-Threshold 
                 ThresholdEUTRA 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
               
                         eventA2 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           a2-Threshold 
                 ThresholdEUTRA 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventA3 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           a3-Offset 
                 INTEGER (−30..30), 
               
               
                           a3-OffsetLeave 
                 INTEGER (−30..30), 
               
               
                           reportOnLeave 
                 BOOLEAN 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventA4 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           a4-Threshold 
                 ThresholdEUTRA 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventA5 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           a5-Threshold1 
                 ThresholdEUTRA, 
               
               
                           a5-Threshold2 
                 ThresholdEUTRA 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
               
                         ..., 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventA6-r10 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           a6-Offset-r10 
                 INTEGER (−30..30), 
               
               
                           a6-ReportOnLeave-r10 
                 BOOLEAN 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventC1-r12 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           c1-Threshold-r12 
                 ThresholdEUTRA-v1250, 
               
               
                           c1-ReportOnLeave-r12 
                 BOOLEAN 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventC2-r12 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           c2-RefCSI-RS-r12 
                 MeasCSI-RS-Id-r12, 
               
               
                           c2-Offset-r12 
                 INTEGAR (−30..30), 
               
               
                           c2-ReportOnLeave-r12  
                 BOOLEAN 
               
               
                         } 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventV1-r14 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           v1-Threshold-r14 
                 SL-CBR-r14 
               
               
                         }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                         eventV2-r14 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                           v2-Threshold-r14 
                 SL-CBR-r14 
               
               
                         } 
                   
               
               
                       }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                       hysteresis 
                 Hysteresis, 
               
               
                       timeToTrigger 
                 TimeToTrigger 
               
               
                     }, 
                   
               
               
                     periodical 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                       purpose 
                 ENUMERATED { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   
                 reportStrongestCells, reportCGI} 
               
               
                     } 
                   
               
               
                   }, 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   triggerQuantity 
                 ENUMERATED {rsrp, rsrq}, 
               
               
                   reportQuantity 
                 ENUMERATED {sameAsTriggerQuantity, both}, 
               
               
                   maxReportCells 
                 INTEGER (1..maxCellReport), 
               
               
                   reportInterval 
                 ReportInterval, 
               
               
                   reportAmount 
                 ENUMERATED (r1, r2, r4, r8, r16, r32, r64, 
               
               
                 infinity), 
                   
               
               
                   ..., 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   [[ si-RequestForHO-r9 
                 ENUMERATED (setup) 
                 OPTIONAL, -- Cond 
               
               
                 reportCGI 
                   
                   
               
               
                    ue-RxTxTimeDiffPeriodical-r9 
                 ENUMERATED (setup) 
                 OPTIONAL  -- Need 
               
               
                 OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ]], 
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ includeLocationInfo-r10 
                 ENUMERATED {true} 
                 OPTIONAL, -- Need 
               
               
                 OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                    reportAddNeighMeas-r10 
                 ENUMERATED {setup} 
                 OPTIONAL  -- Need 
               
               
                 OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ]], 
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ alternativeTimeToTrigger-r12 
                 CHOICE { 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                      release 
                 NULL, 
               
               
                      setup 
                 TimeToTrigger 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
               
            
               
                    } 
                   
                 OPTIONAL, 
                 -- Need ON 
               
               
                    useT312-r12 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL, 
                 -- Need ON 
               
               
                    usePSCell-r12 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL, 
                 -- Need ON 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                    aN-Threshold1-v1250 
                 RSRQ-RangeConfig-r12 
                 OPTIONAL, -- 
               
               
                 Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                    a5-Threshold2-v1250 
                 RSRQ-RangeConfig-r12 
                 OPTIONAL, -- 
               
               
                 Need ON 
                   
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
               
            
               
                    reportStrongestCSI-RSs-r12 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL, 
                 -- Need ON 
               
               
                    reportCRS-Meas-r12 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL, 
                 -- Need ON 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
               
            
               
                    triggerQuantityCSI-RS-r12 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL 
                 -- Need ON 
               
               
                   ]], 
                   
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ reportSSTD-Meas-r13 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL, 
                 -- Need ON 
               
               
                    rs-sinr-Config-r13 
                 CHOICE { 
                   
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                      release 
                 NULL, 
               
               
                      setup 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                        triggerQuantity-v1310 
                 ENUMERATED {sinr} 
                 OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                 -- Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                        aN-Threshold1-r13 
                 RS-SINR-Range-r13 
                 OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                 -- Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                        a5-Threshold2-r13 
                 RS-SINR-Range-r13 
                 OPTIONAL, 
               
               
                 -- Need ON 
                   
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                        reportQuantity-v1310 
                 ENUMERATED {rsrpANDsinr, 
               
               
                 rsrqANDsinr, all} 
                   
               
               
                      } 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                    } 
                 OPTIONAL, -- 
               
               
                 Need ON 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                    useWhiteCellList-r13 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL, -- 
               
               
                 Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                    measRSSI-ReportContfig-r13 
                 MeasRSSI-ReportConfig-r13 
                 OPTIONAL, -- 
               
               
                 Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                    includeMultiBandInfo-r13 
                 ENUMERATED {true} 
                 OPTIONAL, -- 
               
               
                 Cond reportCGI 
                   
                   
               
               
                    ul-DelayConfig-r13 
                 UL-DelayConfig-r13 
                 OPTIONAL  -- 
               
               
                 Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ]], 
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ ue-RxTxTimeDiffPeriodicalTDD-r13 
                 BOOLEAN 
                 OPTIONAL  -- 
               
               
                 Need ON 
                   
                   
               
               
                   ]], 
                   
                   
               
               
                   [[ 
                   
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                    purpose-v1430 
                 ENUMERATED {reportLocation, sidelink, spare2, 
               
               
                 spare1} 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   
                 OPTIONAL 
                 -- Need ON 
               
               
                   ]] 
                   
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 RSRQ-RangeConfig-r12 ::= 
                 CHOICE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   release 
                 NULL, 
               
               
                   setup 
                 RSRQ-Range-v1250 
               
               
                 } 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 ThresholdEUTRA ::= 
                 CHOICE{ 
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                   threshold-RSRP 
                 RSRP-Range, 
               
               
                   threshold-RSRQ 
                 RSRQ-Range 
               
               
                 } 
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 TheresholdEUTRA-V1250 ::= 
                 CSI-RSRP-Range-r12 
               
            
           
           
               
            
               
                 MeasRSSI-ReportConfig-r13 ::= SEQUENCE { 
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                   channelOccupancyThreshold-r13 
                 RSSI-Range-r13 
                 OPTIONAL  -- 
               
               
                 Need OR 
                   
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
                   
               
               
                 -- ASN1STOP 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     In the example of table 2, the ReportConfigEUTRA IE may include an event A3 exit condition (a3-OffsetLeave) in the eventId IE/field, where the a3-OffsetLeave element is to include an integer value. Where multiple event-based exit conditions are to be set/configured for individual cells or beams, the ReportConfigEUTRA IE may include multiple OffsetLeave elements in one or more of the listed eventId fields (for example, event1, eventA2, eventA3, and so forth), each of which may include their own values that are independent of the other OffsetLeave elements Additionally, each eventId field may include multiple OffsetLeave elements. In some embodiments, the hysteresis element/value (hysteresis) may be used to indicate the event-based exit condition, or a new hysteresis element/value may be added to each eventId that is to include an exit condition. 
       FIG. 1E  shows a channel quality graph  100 E for a scenario where another target cell or beam  013  (also referred to as “new target  013 ”) is detected by the UE  101 / 102 , in accordance with various embodiments. In these embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may be monitoring multiple cells/beams at a given time, and one of these cells/beams may evolve to have a better cell/beam signal strength/quality in comparison to an originally desired target  012 . This may occur while the UE  101 / 102  is evaluating the CHO execution condition for performing an HO to the target  012  indicated by the CHO command. In these embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may send the MR at node  140  as discussed previously, and the UE  101 / 102  may determine that the signal strength/quality of the new target  013  meets the MR criterion for executing the CHO operation at node  148 . At node  149 , the UE  101 / 102  may determine that the CHO condition is met for the new target  013 . Since this signifies that the new target  013  is a potentially better cell or beam to which the UE  101 / 102  should switch, the UE  101 / 102  may discard the CHO command for the old target  012 , send a new MR for the new target cell, and wait for the network (e.g., source RAN node  111 ,  112 ) to send a new/updated HO (or CHO) command for the new target  013 . This is shown by graph  100 E, where the new target  013  improves in quality while the CHO execution condition to target  012  is never met. Such embodiments may require some network coordination but could help avoid unnecessary intermediate HOs, which may occur if the UE  101 / 102  switches to target  012  and then subsequently repeats the whole HO procedure to switch to new target  013 . 
     In addition to the scenarios discussed with regard to  FIGS. 1C-1E , in various embodiments, some or all of the conditions may be released when the UE  101 / 102  executes the HO (or CHO). In some embodiments, some or all of the conditions may be released when one of the previously discussed conditions are triggered. In some embodiments, some or all of the conditions may be released when the UE  101 / 102  declares a radio link failure (RLF), for example, when timers T 310  and/or T 312  expire. 
     In some embodiments, if the CHO condition is not satisfied and one of the previously discussed exit conditions are met, the UE  101 / 102  may have no choice but to connect or reconnect to a source cell or beam since legacy procedures dictate that the source cell should discontinue any data transmission to the UE  101 / 102  once the HO command is sent to the UE  101 / 102 . In order for the UE to connect/reconnect with the source cell/beam when the exit condition is not met, the UE  101 / 102  may perform one or more of a scheduling request (SR) procedure, a random access (RA) procedure, and/or an RRC Connection Reestablishment procedure. In embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may perform the RA procedure with the source cell/beam if there are no valid physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resources available. In some embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may perform the RRC Connection Reestablishment procedure when the source RAN node  111 / 112  still has a valid UE context. Therefore, the network (e.g., source RAN node  111 / 112 ) may need provide some coordination to ensure that the source RAN node  111 / 112  does not discard the UE context after sending the HO (or CHO) command, at least until the source RAN node  111 / 112  receives an indication that the UE  101 / 102  has successfully handed over to target RAN node  111 / 112 . 
     In embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may perform the SR procedure, the RA procedure, and/or the RRC Connection Reestablishment procedure according to a predetermined or configured priority or order. In one example, the UE  101 / 102  may be configured to perform the RA procedure as a first or primary procedure when RA resources are allocated for the UE  101 / 102 , and may perform the RRC Connection Reestablishment procedure as a secondary procedure when RA resources are not allocated for the UE  101 / 102 . In another example, the UE  101 / 102  may be configured to perform the SR procedure as a primary procedure when PUCCH resources are available or allocated for the UE  101 / 102 , and may perform the RA procedure and/or the RRC Connection Reestablishment procedure as secondary procedures as discussed with regard to the previous example. In yet another example, the UE  101 / 102  may perform the SR procedure, the RA procedure, and the RRC Connection Reestablishment procedure in order until (re)connection with the source cell/beam is (re)established. 
     Furthermore, in various embodiments, when the UE  101 / 102  successfully performs an HO to a target cell or beam, the UE  101 / 102  may send a notification of the successfully performed HO to the source RAN node  111 / 112 . In such embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may transmit such an indication before initiation of the HO procedure, during performance of the HO procedure, or after the HO procedure has been completed. Additionally or alternatively, the target RAN node  111 / 112  may send an HO completion indication to the source RAN node  111 / 112  (if different than the target RAN node  111 / 112 ) once the UE has completed the HO. This indication may be used by the source RAN node  111 / 112  to release the UE  101 / 102  and/or the UE context. 
     According to various embodiments, several options may be used to enable CHO commands. In a first option, a new event for CHO may be created. In a second option, a new field in the HO command may be created to indicate that the HO is a CHO or that CHO is enabled, and such a field may also include or indicate the CHO condition. In this option, the new field and/or the CHO condition may be included in an RRC container generated by the target RAN node  111 / 112 . In a third option, a new field may be created in an RRCConnectionReconfiguration message sent by source RAN node  111 / 112  to the UE  101 / 12 , which may also include the mobilityControlInfo IE. In this option, the RRCConnectionReconfiguration message may be generated by the source RAN node  111 / 112  along with the CHO condition and the exit condition. 
     In addition, the source RAN node  111 / 112  may signal the occurrence of a CHO to a target RAN node  111 / 112 . This signaling may be done using the X2 or Xn interface where the source RAN node  111 / 112  is different or separate from the target RAN node  111 / 112 , or this signaling may done using an internal interface where the source and target RAN node  111 / 112  is a same device or equipment (for example, using the F1 interface between a gNB-centralized unit (CU) and gNB-distributed unit (DU) in NR implementations). In some embodiments, the source RAN node  111 / 112  may include an indication in the HO request message to indicate that the HO is a CHO. In this way, the target RAN node  111 / 112  may know that the CHO may not occur immediately. Additionally, in these embodiments, the target RAN node  111 / 112  may accept the CHO if CHO is supported (for example, by sending an HO acknowledgement (ACK) message to the source RAN node  111 / 112 ) or the target RAN node  111 / 112  may reject may reject the CHO if CHO is not supported (for example, by sending an HO negative ACK (NACK) message to the source RAN node  111 / 112 ). In other embodiments, the target RAN node  111 / 112  may decide that a CHO can be triggered and may provide an indication of this decision to the source RAN node  111 / 112 . 
     Furthermore, communication between the source and target RAN nodes  111 / 112  may include the source RAN node  111 / 112  indicating to the target RAN node  111 / 112  to release RACH resources when a CHO exit condition has been met and/or when the CHO has failed. The source RAN node  111 / 112  may send such an indication in response to receipt of a new MR from a UE  101 / 102  as discussed previously, or when an exit condition timer at the source RAN node  111 / 112  expires. In some embodiments, the source RAN node  111 / 112  may send the CHO condition and the CHO exit condition to the target RAN node  111 / 112  so that the target RAN node  111 / 112  may determine whether the CHO exit condition has occurred and the target RAN node  111 / 112  may release RACH resources when the CHO exit condition occurs. There embodiments may be used where timer-based exit conditions are used. 
     Moreover, in some embodiments, the UE capability information may also be altered or changed to accommodate CHOs. For example, a one (1) bit field may be added to the UE capability IE to indicate UE  101 / 102  support for conditional handovers. In other embodiments, CHO support may be a mandatory feature, and thus, the network elements may assume that CHO is supported by UEs  101 / 102  or for a particular class or type of UEs  101 / 102 . 
     Referring back to  FIG. 1A , the UEs  101 ,  102  may perform measurements for cell selection and cell reselection, as well as for handover operations. When the UEs  101 ,  102  are camped on a cell provided by a RAN node  111 ,  112 , the UEs  101 ,  102  may regularly or periodically search for a better cell or beam according to cell reselection criteria. If a better cell or beam is found, that cell or beam may be selected, and the UEs  101 ,  102  may tune to that cell&#39;s control channel(s) or (the beam&#39;s anchor channel(s)) so that the UEs  101 ,  102  can receive system information, registration area information (for example, tracking area information), other access stratum (AS) and/or non-access stratum (NAS) information, and/or paging and notification messages (if registered), as well as transfer to connected mode (if registered). 
     In some embodiments, the cell selection or reselection process may be speed-dependent, where the UEs  101 ,  102  may be restricted to the number of reselections they may perform based on a speed or velocity at which the UEs  101 ,  102  are traveling. In these embodiments, the UEs  101 ,  102  may be capable of estimating their respective mobility states. A UE&#39;s mobility state may be used to avoid frequent cell (re)selections and HOs, and may be used to enhance other features. The UEs  101 ,  102  may estimate their respective mobility states by counting the number of handovers and/or cell (re)selections within a selected period of time or a time window. In this regard, the UEs  101 ,  102  may receive an indication or configuration from the network of the time window and count thresholds used to determine the respective mobility states. In some embodiments, mobility state estimation may be implemented by the network by tracking the prior history of handovers or (re)selections for the UEs  101 ,  102 . The process or procedures used by the UEs  101 ,  102  (or the network) to estimate or determine their respective mobility states may be referred to as Mobility State Estimation (MSE). 
     The mobility states may include a normal mobility state, a medium mobility state, and a high mobility state. The classification of a UE&#39;s mobility state into one of the aforementioned categories may be based on mobility state parameters including T CRmax , N CR_H , N CR_M , and T CRmaxHyst  that are sent in the system information broadcast of a serving cell. T CRmax  is the duration for evaluating criteria to enter mobility states (for example, the time period or time window discussed previously); N CR_H  is the threshold number of cell (re)selections to enter the high mobility state; N CR_M  is the number of cell (re)selections to enter the medium mobility state; and T CRmaxHyst  is an additional duration (time period, time window, etc.) for evaluating criteria to enter the normal mobility state. For example, a UE  101 ,  102  may estimate its mobility state to be the medium mobility when the number of cell reselections during time period T CRmax  exceeds N CR_M , but does not exceed N CR_H . In another example, a UE  101 / 102  may estimate its mobility state to be the high mobility state when the number of cell reselections during time period T CRmax  exceeds N CR_H . The UE  101 ,  102  may estimate its mobility state to be the normal mobility state when the UE&#39;s mobility state is neither one of the medium or high mobility states. Additionally, the UEs  101 ,  102  may not count consecutive reselections between the same two cells into mobility state detection criteria if the same cell is reselected just after one other reselection. 
     If the UE  101 ,  102  detects the criteria for the high mobility state, then the UE  101 ,  102  may enter or transition to the high mobility state. If the UE  101 ,  102  detects the criteria for the medium mobility state, then the UE  101 ,  102  may enter or transition to the medium mobility state. Otherwise, if criteria for either the medium or the high mobility state are not detected during time period T CRmaxHyst , then the UE  101 ,  102  may enter or transition to the normal mobility state. When the UEs  101 ,  102  operate in an NR system, the UEs  101 ,  102  may experience high frequency beamforming to be used, which may make MSE more challenging. 
     Various NR implementations may include high frequency or relatively high rates of beamforming, which may introduce complexity into the MSE procedures. This is because NR RAN nodes  111 / 112  may include multiple TRPs, and each of the multiple TRPs may be used to provide individual cells or to form individual beams. Therefore, NR cell sizes may be relatively large in comparison to the cell sizes provided by typical LTE RAN nodes  111 / 112 . 
     According to various embodiments, an NR-capable UE  101 / 102  may count each cell based on a corresponding cell identifier (cell ID) when HO and/or cell reselection occurs, regardless of TRxP and/or beam switches, and may the UE  101 / 102  may use the cell count and a set of configured mobility state thresholds to determine whether the UE  101 / 102  is in a high, medium, or low mobility state. In embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may also count the number of TRxP, beam, and/or cell reselections or switches, which may be used for determining the UE mobility state. 
     In a first example, all NR cells in a given region or network may have the same cell size, regardless of the number of TRxPs per cell. In this example, the UE  101 / 102  may determine the UE mobility state based on the HO/reselection count and the configured mobility state thresholds, determine the UE mobility state based on the beam and/or TRxP switch count and the configured mobility state thresholds, or a combination thereof. 
     In a second example, various NR cells in a given region or network may have the different cell sizes. In this example, the UE  101 / 102  may determine the UE mobility state in a same or similar manner as in the first example. Additionally or alternatively, the UE  101 / 102  may use the cell count, beam switch count, and/or TRxP switch count to estimate a cell size of a current serving cell, and use the estimated cell size for the previously discussed MSE procedures of the first example. In some embodiments, the network (e.g., a RAN node  111 / 112 ) may broadcast or otherwise indicate the number of TRPs for a set of cells, and the UE  101 / 102  may use this information to estimate the cell sizes for MSE. 
     In various embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may also be configured with a scaling factor for a beam switch count, and may determine a weighted sum using the scaling factor. In these embodiments, a weighted cell count may be based on the number of TRP and/or beam switches within an individual cell, and the scaling factor may be used to take beam/TRP switching into account to a cell size. For example, table 3 shows an example UE  101 / 102  count information indicating a number of beam switches and TRP switches for individual cells. 
     
       
         
           
               
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 3 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Cell ID 
                 Number of Beam Switches 
                 Number of TRP Switches 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
               
            
               
                 1 
                 10 
                 3 
               
               
                 3 
                 5 
                 5 
               
               
                 5 
                 100 
                 10 
               
               
                 10 
                 20 
                 2 
               
               
                 5 
                 80 
                 8 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     In table 3, the individual cells may be identified by the Cell ID field. From the example of table 3, cell 5 may have a larger cell size than cell 3 or the UE  101 / 102  may have moved along the cell edge of cell 3. According to the previously discussed embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may add the number of beam switches and the number of TRP switches, and may compare this sum with the configured mobility state threshold(s). However, using the aforementioned scaling factor may provide a more accurate MSE since, for example, the UE  101 / 102  may be blocked in a single cell that causes the UE  101 / 102  to perform a relatively large amount of beam/TRP switches while the UE  101 / 102  is in the low mobility state. 
     In some embodiments, the network (e.g., a RAN node  111 / 112 ) may signal one or more tuples, attribute-value pairs (AVPs), or other like data structures to indicate individual scaling factor and threshold associations only for beam switches of an individual cell. For example, the network can signal a tuples in the form of (S, T) where the first number S in the tuple may be the scaling factor and the second number T in the tuple may be a corresponding threshold. In these embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may apply the weighted sum using this information. For example, the network may signal the following tuples for cell 5 in table 3: (0.5,10), (0.3,20), (0.1,50); and the weighted sum may be calculated as follows: 10*0.5+20*0.3+50*0.1=5+6+5=17. In this example, the UE  101 / 102  may use the configured threshold to determine the MSE. In some embodiments, the network may signal the same or similar tuples, AVPs, etc. to be used only for TRP switches. In some embodiments, the network may signal the a first set of tuples, AVPs, etc. to be used for beam switches and a second set of tuples, AVPs, etc. to be used for TRP switches, and the UE  101 / 102  may perform MSE using both sets of tuples, AVPs, etc. 
     For connected mode, the above beam and TRP related actions/operations can be applied. However, for idle mode, it is likely the UE  101 / 102  will not be able to perform or know beam related information. In such cases, the UE  101 / 102  may know the change of highest signal values in each blocks within the L blocks, and may use the L index change as the change of beam and applying the above information. An alternative may include using the UE beams as the beam count regardless of network beams. 
     Referring back to  FIG. 1A , the RAN nodes  111 ,  112  may be configured to communicate with one another via interface  113 X. In embodiments where the system  100 A is an LTE system, the interface  113 X may be an X2 interface  113 X. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes  111 ,  112  (for example, two or more eNBs and the like) that connect to EPC  120 , and/or between two eNBs connecting to EPC  120 . In some implementations, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide flow control mechanisms for user data packets transferred over the X2 interface, and may be used to communicate information about the delivery of user data between eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence number information for user data transferred from a master eNB (MeNB) to a secondary eNB (SeNB); information about successful in sequence delivery of PDCP PDUs to a UE  101 / 102  from an SeNB for user data; information of PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to a UE  101 / 102 ; information about a current minimum desired buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting to the UE user data; and the like. The X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functionality, including context transfers from source to target eNBs, user plane transport control, etc.; load management functionality; as well as inter-cell interference coordination functionality. 
     In embodiments where the system  100 A is a 5G or NR system, the interface  113 X may be an Xn interface  113 X. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes  111 ,  112  (for example, two or more gNBs and the like) that connect to 5GC  120 , between a RAN node  111 ,  112  (for example, a gNB) connecting to 5GC  120  and an eNB, and/or between two eNBs connecting to 5GC  120 . In some implementations, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flow control functionality. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functionality, functionality to manage the Xn-C interface; mobility support for UE  101 / 102  in a connected mode (for example, CM-CONNECTED) including functionality to manage the UE mobility for connected mode between one or more RAN nodes  211 . The mobility support may include context transfer from an old (source) serving RAN node  111 ,  112  to new (target) serving RAN node  111 ,  112 ; and control of user plane tunnels between old (source) serving RAN node  111 ,  112  to new (target) serving RAN node  111 ,  112 . A protocol stack of the Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of a UDP and/or IP layer(s) to carry user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol (referred to as Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer that is built on SCTP. The SCTP may be on top of an IP layer, and may provide the guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer point-to-point transmission is used to deliver the signaling PDUs. In other implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and/or the Xn-C protocol stack may be same or similar to the user plane and/or control plane protocol stack(s) shown and described herein. 
     The RAN  110  is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network—in this embodiment, Core Network (CN)  120 . The CN  120  may comprise a plurality of network elements  122 , which are configured to offer various data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (for example, users of UEs  101 ,  102 ) who are connected to the CN  120  via the RAN  110 . The term “network element” may describe a physical or virtualized equipment used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term “network element” may be considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network equipment, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, radio access network device, gateway, server, virtualized network function (VNF), network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), and/or the like. The components of the CN  120  may 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 (for example, a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) may be utilized to virtualize any or all 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  120  may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN  120  may be referred to as a network sub-slice. 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 reconfigurable implementations of one or more EPC components/functions. 
     In embodiments, the CN  120  may be a 5G CN (referred to as “5GC  120 ” or the like), while in other embodiments, the CN  120  may be an Evolved Packet Core (EPC). Where CN  120  is an EPC (referred to as “EPC  120 ” or the like), the RAN  110  may be connected with the CN  120  via an S1 interface  113 A. In embodiments, the S1 interface  113 A may be split into two parts, an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface  114 , which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes  111  and  112  and the serving gateway (S-GW), and the S1-mobility management entity (MME) interface  115 , which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes  111  and  112  and MMEs. 
     In embodiments, the EPC  120  comprises the MMEs, the S-GW, the Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW), and a home subscriber server (HSS). The MMEs  121  may be similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Nodes (SGSN). The MMEs may perform various mobility management (MM) procedures to manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. MM (also referred to as “EPS MM” or “EMM” in E-UTRAN systems) may refer to all applicable procedures, methods, data storage, etc. that are used to maintain knowledge about a present location of the UE  101 ,  102 , provide user identity confidentiality, and/or other like services to users/subscribers. Each UE  101 ,  102  and the MME  121  may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and an MM context may be established in the UE  101 ,  102  and the MME  121  when an attach procedure is successfully completed. The MM context may be a data structure or database object that stores MM-related information of the UE  101 ,  102 . 
     The HSS may comprise a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities&#39; handling of communication sessions. The EPC network  120  may comprise one or several HSSs  124 , depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on the capacity of the equipment, on the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. 
     The S-GW may terminate the S1 interface  113 A towards the RAN  110 , and routes data packets between the RAN  110  and the EPC  120 . In addition, the S-GW 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. The P-GW may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN. The P-GW may route data packets between the EPC network  123  and e2ernal networks such as a network including the application server  130  (alternatively referred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP) interface  125 . Generally, the application server  130  may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (for example, UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). In this embodiment, the P-GW is shown to be communicatively coupled to an application server  130  via an IP communications interface  125 . The application server  130  can also be configured to support one or more communication services (for example, Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UEs  101  and  102  via the EPC  120 . 
     The P-GW may further be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCRF) is the policy and charging control element of the EPC  120 . In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with an RE&#39;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 an RE&#39;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 may be communicatively coupled to the application server  130  via the P-GW. The application server  130  may signal the PCRF to indicate a new service flow and select the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) and charging parameters. The PCRF  126  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  130 . 
     Where CN  120  is a 5GC (referred to as “5GC  120 ” or the like), the RAN  110  may be connected with the CN  120  via an NG interface  113 A. In embodiments, the NG interface  113 A may be split into two parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface  114 , which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes  111  and  112  and a user plane function (UPF), and the S1 control plane (NG-C) interface  115 , which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes  111  and  112  and Access and Mobility Functions (AMFs). Embodiments where the CN  120  is a 5GC  120  are discussed in more detail with regard to  FIG. 2 . 
       FIG. 2  illustrates an architecture of a system  200  of a 5G network in accordance with some embodiments. The system  200  is shown to include a UEs  101  and  102  (collectively referred to as “UEs  101 / 102 ” or “UE  101 / 102 ”) discussed previously; a RAN  110  discussed previously, and which may include RAN nodes  111  and  112  discussed previously; and a Data network (DN)  203 , which may be, for example, operator services, Internet access or 3rd party services; and a 5G Core Network (5GC or CN)  120 . 
     In addition to being capable of performing handovers and MSE as discussed previously, the 5GC-capable UEs  101 ,  102  may also perform beam management operations/procedures. In NR implementations, beam management may refer to a set of layer 1 (L1) and/or layer 2 (L2) procedures to acquire and maintain a set of transmission/reception point (TRP or TRxP) and/or UE beams that can be used for downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) transmission and/or reception, which may include beam determination, which may refer to TRxP(s) or UE ability to select of its own transmission (Tx)/reception (Rx) beam(s); beam measurement, which may refer to TRxPs or UE ability to measure characteristics of received beamformed signals; beam reporting, which may refer the UE ability to report information of beamformed signal(s) based on beam measurement; and beam sweeping, which may refer to operation(s) of covering a spatial area, with beams transmitted and/or received during a time interval in a predetermined manner. 
     Tx/Rx beam correspondence at a TRxP holds if at least one of the following conditions are satisfied: TRxP is able to determine a TRxP Rx beam for the uplink reception based on UE&#39;s downlink measurement on TRxP&#39;s one or more Tx beams; and TRxP is able to determine a TRxP Tx beam for the downlink transmission based on TRxP&#39;s uplink measurement on TRxP&#39;s one or more Rx beams. Tx/Rx beam correspondence at a UE holds if at least one of the following is satisfied: UE is able to determine a UE Tx beam for the uplink transmission based on UE&#39;s downlink measurement on UE&#39;s one or more Rx beams; UE is able to determine a UE Rx beam for the downlink reception based on TRxP&#39;s indication based on uplink measurement on UE&#39;s one or more Tx beams; and Capability indication of UE beam correspondence related information to TRxP is supported. 
     In some implementations, DL beam management may include procedures P-1, P-2, and P-3. Procedure P-1 may be used to enable UE measurement on different TRxP Tx beams to support selection of TRxP Tx beams/UE Rx beam(s). For beamforming at TRxP, procedure P-1 typically includes a intra/inter-TRxP Tx beam sweep from a set of different beams. For beamforming at the UE, procedure P-1 typically includes a UE Rx beam sweep from a set of different beams. 
     Procedure P-2 may be used to enable UE measurement on different TRxP Tx beams to possibly change inter/intra-TRxP Tx beam(s). Procedure P-2 may be a special case of procedure P-1 wherein procedure P-2 may be used for a possibly smaller set of beams for beam refinement than procedure P-1. Procedure P-3 may be used to enable UE measurement on the same TRxP Tx beam to change UE Rx beam in the case UE uses beamforming. Procedures P-1, P-2, and P-3 may be used for aperiodic beam reporting. 
     UE measurements based on RS for beam management (at least CSI-RS) is composed of K beams (where K is a total number of configured beams), and the UE may report measurement results of N selected Tx beams (where N may or may not be a fixed number). The procedure based on RS for mobility purpose is not precluded. Beam information that is to be reported may include measurement quantities for the N beam(s) and information indicating N DL Tx beam(s), if N&lt;K. Other information or data may be included in or with the beam information. When a UE is configured with K′&gt;1 non-zero power (NZP) CSI-RS resources, a UE can report N′ CSI-RS Resource Indicator (CRIs). 
     In some NR implementations, a UE can trigger a mechanism to recover from beam failure, which may be referred to a “beam recovery”, “beam failure recovery request procedure”, and/or the like. A beam failure event may occur when the quality of beam pair link(s) of an associated control channel falls below a threshold, when a time-out of an associated timer occurs, or the like. The beam recovery mechanism may be triggered when beam failure occurs. The network may explicitly configure the UE with resources for UL transmission of signals for recovery purposes. Configurations of resources are supported where the base station (e.g., a TRP, gNB, or the like) is listening from all or partial directions (e.g., a random access region). The UL transmission/resources to report beam failure can be located in the same time instance as a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) or resources orthogonal to PRACH resources, or at a time instance (configurable for a UE) different from PRACH. Transmission of DL signal is supported for allowing the UE to monitor the beams for identifying new potential beams. 
     For beam failure recovery, a beam failure should be declared if all the serving PDCCH beams fail. The beam failure recovery request procedure may be initiated when a beam failure is declared. For example, the beam failure recovery request procedure may be used for indicating to a serving gNB (or TRP) of a new SSB or CSI-RS when beam failure is detected on a serving SSB(s)/CSI-RS(s). A beam failure may be detected by the lower layers and indicated to a Media Access Control (MAC) entity of the UE. 
     In some implementations, beam management may include providing or not providing beam-related indications. When beam-related indication is provided, information pertaining to UE-side beamforming/receiving procedure used for CSI-RS-based measurement can be indicated through QCL to the UE. The same or different beams on the control channel and the corresponding data channel transmissions may be supported. 
     Downlink (DL) beam indications may be based on a Transmission Configuration Indication (TCI) state(s). The TCI state(s) may be indicated in a TCI list that is configured by radio resource control (RRC) and/or Media Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE). In some implementations, a UE can be configured up to M TCI-States by higher layer signaling to decode PDSCH according to a detected PDCCH with downlink control information (DCI) intended for the UE and the given serving cell where M depends on the UE capability. Each configured TCI state includes one reference signal (RS) set TCI-RS-SetConfig. Each TCI-RS-SetConfig may include parameters for configuring quasi co-location relationship(s) between the RSs in the RS set and the demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) port group of the PDSCH. The RS set may include a reference to either one or two DL RSs and an associated quasi co-location type (QCL-Type) for each DL RS(s) configured by the higher layer parameter QCL-Type. For the case of two DL RSs, the QCL types shall not be the same, regardless of whether the references are to the same DL RS or different DL RSs. The quasi co-location types indicated to the UE are based on the higher layer parameter QCL-Type and may take one or a combination of the following types: QCL-TypeA: {Doppler shift, Doppler spread, average delay, delay spread}; QCL-TypeB: {Doppler shift, Doppler spread}; QCL-TypeC: {average delay, Doppler shift}; QCL-TypeD: {Spatial Rx parameter}. 
     The UE may receive a selection command (e.g., in a MAC CE), which may be used to map up to 8 TCI states to the codepoints of the DCI field TCI-states. Until a UE receives higher layer configuration of TCI states and before reception of the activation command, the UE may assume that the antenna ports of one DM-RS port group of PDSCH of a serving cell are spatially quasi co-located with the SSB determined in the initial access procedure. When the number of TCI states in TCI-States is less than or equal to 8, the DCI field TCI-states directly indicates the TCI state. 
     A beam failure recovery request could be delivered over dedicated PRACH or Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resources. For example, a UE can be configured, for a serving cell, with a set  q   0  of periodic CSI-RS resource configuration indexes by higher layer parameter Beam-Failure-Detection-RS-ResourceConfig and with a set  q   1  of CSI-RS resource configuration indexes and/or SS/PBCH block indexes by higher layer parameter Candidate-Beam-RS-List for radio link quality measurements on the serving cell. If there is no configuration, the beam failure detection could be based on CSI-RS or SSB, which is spatially Quasi Co-Located (QCLed) with the PDCCH Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS). For example, if the UE is not provided with the higher layer parameter Beam-Failure-Detection-RS-ResourceConfig, the UE may determine  q   0  to include SS/PBCH blocks and periodic CSI-RS configurations with same values for higher layer parameter TCI-StatesPDCCH as for control resource sets (CORESET) that the UE is configured for monitoring PDCCH. 
     The physical layer of a UE may assess the radio link quality according to a set  q   0  of resource configurations against a threshold Q out,LR . The threshold Q out,LR  corresponds to a default value of higher layer parameter RIM-IS-OOS-thresholdConfig and Beam-failure-candidate-beam-threshold, respectively. For the set  q   0 , the UE may assess the radio link quality only according to periodic CSI-RS resource configurations or SS/PBCH blocks that are quasi co-located, with the DM-RS of PDCCH receptions DM-RS monitored by the UE. The UE applies the configured Q in,LR  threshold for the periodic CSI-RS resource configurations. The UE applies the Q out,LR  threshold for SS/PBCH blocks after scaling a SS/PBCH block transmission power with a value provided by higher layer parameter Pc_SS. 
     In some implementations, if a beam failure indication has been received by a MAC entity from lower layers, then the MAC entity may start a beam failure recovery timer (beamFailureRecoveryTimer) and initiate a Random Access procedure. If the beamFailureRecoveryTimer expires, then the MAC entity may indicate a beam failure recovery request failure to upper layers. If a downlink assignment or uplink grant has been received (e.g., on a PDCCH addressed for a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI)), then the MAC entity may stop and reset beamFailureRecoveryTimer and consider the beam failure recovery request procedure to be successfully completed. 
     Referring back to  FIG. 2 , the CN  120  may include an Authentication Server Function (AUSF)  222 ; an Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)  221 ; a Session Management Function (SMF)  224 ; a Network Exposure Function (NEF)  223 ; a Policy Control function (PCF)  226 ; a Network Function (NF) Repository Function (NRF)  225 ; a Unified Data Management (UDM)  227 ; an Application Function (AF)  228 ; a User Plane Function (UPF)  202 ; and a Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF)  229 . 
     The UPF  202  may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to DN  203 , and a branching point to support multi-homed PDU session. The UPF  202  may also perform packet routing and forwarding, packet inspection, enforce user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection); traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for user plane (e.g. packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform Uplink Traffic verification (for example, SDF to QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF  202  may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network. The DN  203  may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third party services. NY  203  may include, or be similar to application server  130  discussed previously. The UPF  202  may interact with the SMF  224  via an N4 reference point between the SMF  224  and the UPF  202 . 
     The AUSF  222  may store data for authentication of UE  101 / 102  and handle authentication related functionality. The AUSF  222  may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. The AUSF  222  may communicate with the AMF  221  via an N12 reference point between the AMF  221  and the AUSF  222 ; and may communicate with the UDM  227  via an N13 reference point between the UDM  227  and the AUSF  222 . Additionally, the AUSF  222  may exhibit an Nausf service-based interface. 
     The AMF  221  may be responsible for registration management (for example, for registering UE  101 / 102 , etc.), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF  221  may be a termination point for the an N11 reference point between the AMF  221  and the SMF  224 . The AMF  221  may provide transport for Session Management (SM) messages between the UE  101 / 102  and the SMF  224 , and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF  221  may also provide transport for short message service (SMS) messages between UE  101 / 102  and an SMS function (SMSF) (not shown by  FIG. 2 ). AMF  221  may act as Security Anchor Function (SEA), which may include interaction with the AUSF  222  and the UE  101 / 102 , receipt of an intermediate key that was established as a result of the UE  101 / 102  authentication process. Where USIM based authentication is used, the AMF  221  may retrieve the security material from the AUSF  222 . AMF  221  may also include a Security Context Management (SCM) function, which receives a key from the SEA that it uses to derive access-network specific keys. Furthermore, AMF  221  may be a termination point of RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between the (R)AN  211  and the AMF  221 ; and the AMF  221  may be a termination point of NAS (N1) signalling, and perform NAS ciphering and integrity protection. 
     AMF  221  may also support NAS signalling with a UE  101 / 102  over an N3 interworking-function (IWF) interface. The N3IWF may be used to provide access to untrusted entities. N3IWF may be a termination point for the N2 interface between the (R)AN  211  and the AMF  221  for the control plane, and may be a termination point for the N3 reference point between the (R)AN  211  and the UPF  202  for the user plane. As such, the AMF  221  may handle N2 signalling from the SMF  224  and the AMF  221  for PDU sessions and QoS, encapsulate/de-encapsulate packets for IPSec and N3 tunneling, mark N3 user-plane packets in the uplink, and enforce QoS corresponding to N3 packet marking taking into account QoS requirements associated to such marking received over N2. N3IWF may also relay uplink and downlink control-plane NAS signalling between the UE  101 / 102  and AMF  221  via an N1 reference point between the UE  101 / 102  and the AMF  221 , and relay uplink and downlink user-plane packets between the UE  101 / 102  and UPF  202 . The N3IWF also provides mechanisms for IPsec tunnel establishment with the UE  101 / 102 . The AMF  221  may exhibit an Namf service-based interface, and may be a termination point for an N14 reference point between two AMFs  221  and an N17 reference point between the AMF  221  and a 5G-Equipment Identity Register (5G-EIR) (not shown by  FIG. 2 ). 
     The UE  101 / 102  may need to register with the AMF  221  in order to receive network services. Registration Management (RM) is used to register or deregister the UE  221  with the network (for example, AMF  221 ), and establish a UE context in the network (for example, AMF  221 ). The UE  101 / 102  may operate in an RM-REGISTERED state or an RM-DEREGISTERED state. In the RM-DEREGISTERED state, the UE  101 / 102  is not registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF  221  holds no valid location or routing information for the UE  101 / 102  so the UE  101 / 102  is not reachable by the AMF  221 . In the RM-REGISTERED state, the UE  101 / 102  is registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF  221  may hold a valid location or routing information for the UE  101 / 102  so the UE  101 / 102  is reachable by the AMF  221 . In the RM-REGISTERED state, the UE  101 / 102  may perform mobility Registration Update procedures, perform periodic Registration Update procedure triggered by expiration of the periodic update timer (for example, to notify the network that the UE  101 / 102  is still active), and perform a Registration Update procedure to update UE capability information or to re-negotiate protocol parameters with the network, among others. 
     The AMF  221  may store one or more RM contexts for the UE  101 / 102 , where each RM context is associated with a specific access to the network. The RM context may be a data structure, database object, etc. that indicates or stores, inter alia, a registration state per access type and the periodic update timer. The AMF  221  may also store a 5GC MM context that may be the same or similar to the (E)MM context discussed previously. In various embodiments, the AMF  221  may store a CE mode B Restriction parameter of the UE  101 / 102  in an associated MM context or RM context. The AMF  221  may also derive the value, when needed, from the UE&#39;s usage setting parameter {possible values: “Data Centric”, “Voice Centric”} already stored in the UE context (and/or MM/RM Context). 
     Connection Management (CM) may be used to establish and release a signaling connection between the UE  101 / 102  and the AMF  221  over the N1 interface. The signaling connection is used to enable NAS signaling exchange between the UE  101 / 102  and the CN  120 , and comprises both the AN signaling connection between the UE and the Access Network (AN) (for example, RRC connection or UE-N3IWF connection for Non-3GPP access) and the N2 connection for the UE  101 / 102  between the AN (for example, RAN  211 ) and the AMF  221 . The UE  101 / 102  may operate in one of two CM states, CM-IDLE mode or CM-CONNECTED mode. When the UE  101 / 102  is operating in the CM-IDLE state/mode, the UE  101 / 102  may have no NAS signaling connection established with the AMF  221  over the N1 interface, and there may be (R)AN  211  signaling connection (for example, N2 and/or N3 connections) for the UE  101 / 102 . When the UE  101 / 102  is operating in the CM-CONNECTED state/mode, the UE  101 / 102  may have an established NAS signaling connection with the AMF  221  over the N1 interface, and there may be a (R)AN  211  signaling connection (for example, N2 and/or N3 connections) for the UE  101 / 102 . Establishment of an N2 connection between the (R)AN  211  and the AMF  221  may cause the UE  101 / 102  to transition from CM-IDLE mode to CM-CONNECTED mode, and the UE  101 / 102  may transition from the CM-CONNECTED mode to the CM-IDLE mode when N2 signaling between the (R)AN  211  and the AMF  221  is released. 
     The SMF  224  may be responsible for session management (for example, session establishment, modify and release, including tunnel maintain between UPF and AN node); UE IP address allocation &amp; management (including optional Authorization); Selection and control of UP function; Configures traffic steering at UPF to route traffic to proper destination; termination of interfaces towards Policy control functions; control part of policy enforcement and QoS; lawful intercept (for SM events and interface to LI System); termination of SM parts of NAS messages; downlink Data Notification; initiator of AN specific SM information, sent via AMF over N2 to AN; determine SSC mode of a session. The SMF  224  may include the following roaming functionality: handle local enforcement to apply QoS SLAB (VPLMN); charging data collection and charging interface (VPLMN); lawful intercept (in VPLMN for SM events and interface to LI System); support for interaction with external DN for transport of signalling for PDU session authorization/authentication by external DN. An N16 reference point between two SMFs  224  may be included in the system  200 , which may be between another SMF  224  in a visited network and the SMF  224  in the home network in roaming scenarios. Additionally, the SMF  224  may exhibit the Nsmf service-based interface. 
     The NEF  223  may provide means for securely exposing the services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third party, internal exposure/re-exposure, Application Functions (for example, AF  228 ), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, the NEF  223  may authenticate, authorize, and/or throttle the AFs. NEF  223  may also translate information exchanged with the AF  228  and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF  223  may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal 5GC information. NEF  223  may also receive information from other network functions (NFs) based on exposed capabilities of other network functions. This information may be stored at the NEF  223  as structured data, or at a data storage NF using a standardized interfaces. The stored information can then be re-exposed by the NEF  223  to other NFs and AFs, and/or used for other purposes such as analytics. Additionally, the NEF  223  may exhibit an Nnef service-based interface. 
     The NRF  225  may support service discovery functions, receive NF Discovery Requests from NF instances, and provide the information of the discovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF  225  also maintains information of available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the terms “instantiate”, “instantiation”, and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and an “instance” may refer to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Additionally, the NRF  225  may exhibit the Nnrf service-based interface. 
     The PCF  226  may provide policy rules to control plane function(s) to enforce them, and may also support unified policy framework to govern network behaviour. The PCF  226  may also implement a front end (FE) to access subscription information relevant for policy decisions in a UDR of the UDM  227 . The PCF  226  may communicate with the AMF  221  via an N15 reference point between the PCF  226  and the AMF  221 , which may include a PCF  226  in a visited network and the AMF  221  in case of roaming scenarios. The PCF  226  may communicate with the AF  228  via an N5 reference point between the PCF  226  and the AF  228 ; and with the SMF  224  via an N7 reference point between the PCF  226  and the SMF  224 . The system  200  and/or CN  120  may also include an N24 reference point between the PCF  226  (in the home network) and a PCF  226  in a visited network. Additionally, the PCF  226  may exhibit an Npcf service-based interface. 
     The UDM  227  may handle subscription-related information to support the network entities&#39; handling of communication sessions, and may store subscription data of UE  101 / 102 . For example, subscription data may be communicated between the UDM  227  and the AMF  221  via an N8 reference point between the UDM  227  and the AMF  221  (not shown by  FIG. 2 ). The UDM  227  may include two parts, an application FE and a User Data Repository (UDR) (the FE and UDR are not shown by  FIG. 2 ). The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM  227  and the PCF  226 , and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including Packet Flow Descriptions (PFDs) for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs  201 ) for the NEF  223 . The Nudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR  221  to allow the UDM  227 , PCF  226 , and NEF  223  to access a particular set of the stored data, as well as to read, update (for example, add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM FE, which is in charge of processing of credentials, location management, subscription management and so on. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing; user identification handling; access authorization; registration/mobility management; and subscription management. The UDR may interact with the SMF  224  via an N10 reference point between the UDM  227  and the SMF  224 . UDM  227  may also support SMS management, wherein an SMS-FE implements the similar application logic as discussed previously. Additionally, the UDM  227  may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface. 
     The AF  228  may provide application influence on traffic routing, access to the Network Capability Exposure (NCE), and interact with the policy framework for policy control. The NCE may be a mechanism that allows the 5GC and AF  228  to provide information to each other via NEF  223 , which may be used for edge computing implementations. In such implementations, the network operator and third party services may be hosted close to the UE  101 / 102  access point of attachment to achieve an efficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network. For edge computing implementations, the 5GC may select a UPF  202  close to the UE  101 / 102  and execute traffic steering from the UPF  202  to DN  203  via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF  228 . In this way, the AF  228  may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF  228  is considered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF  228  to interact directly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF  228  may exhibit an Naf service-based interface. 
     The NSSF  229  may select a set of network slice instances serving the UE  101 / 102 . The NSSF  229  may also determine allowed Network Slice Selection Assistance Information (NSSAI) and the mapping to the Subscribed Single-NSSAIs (S-NSSAIs), if needed. The NSSF  229  may also determine the AMF set to be used to serve the UE  101 / 102 , or a list of candidate AMF(s)  221  based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF  225 . The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE  101 / 102  may be triggered by the AMF  221  with which the UE  101 / 102  is registered by interacting with the NSSF  229 , which may lead to a change of AMF  221 . The NSSF  229  may interact with the AMF  221  via an N22 reference point between AMF  221  and NSSF  229 ; and may communicate with another NSSF  229  in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown by  FIG. 2 ). Additionally, the NSSF  229  may exhibit an Nnssf service-based interface. 
     As discussed previously, the CN  120  may include an SMSF, which may be responsible for SMS subscription checking and verification, and relaying SM messages to/from the UE  101 / 102  to/from other entities, such as an SMS-GMSC/IWMSC/SMS-router. The SMS may also interact with AMF  221  and UDM  227  for notification procedure that the UE  101 / 102  is available for SMS transfer (for example, set a UE not reachable flag, and notifying UDM  227  when UE  101 / 102  is available for SMS). 
     The CN  120  may also include other elements that are not shown by  FIG. 2 , such as a Data Storage system/architecture, a 5G-Equipment Identity Register (5G-EIR), a Security Edge Protection Proxy (SEPP), and the like. The Data Storage system may include a Structured Data Storage network function (SDSF), an Unstructured Data Storage network function (UDSF), and/or the like. Any NF may store and retrieve unstructured data into/from the UDSF (for example, UE contexts), via N18 reference point between any NF and the UDSF (not shown by  FIG. 2 ). Individual NFs may share a UDSF for storing their respective unstructured data or individual NFs may each have their own UDSF located at or near the individual NFs. Additionally, the UDSF may exhibit an Nudsf service-based interface (not shown by  FIG. 2 ). The 5G-EIR may be an NF that checks the status of Permanent Equipment Identifiers (PEI) for determining whether particular equipment/entities are blacklisted from the network; and the SEPP may be a non-transparent proxy that performs topology hiding, message filtering, and policing on inter-PLMN control plane interfaces. 
     Additionally, there may be many more reference points and/or service-based interfaces between the NF services in the NFs; however, these interfaces and reference points have been omitted from  FIG. 2  for clarity. In one example, the CN  120  may include an Nx interface, which is an inter-CN interface between the MME (for example, MME  121 ) and the AMF  221  in order to enable interworking between CN  120  and CN  120 . Other example interfaces/reference points may include an N5g-eir service-based interface exhibited by a 5G-EIR, an N27 reference point between NRF in the visited network and the NRF in the home network; and an N31 reference point between the NSSF in the visited network and the NSSF in the home network. 
       FIG. 3  illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment  300  in accordance with various embodiments. The infrastructure equipment  300  (or “system  300 ”) may be implemented as a base station, radio head, RAN node, etc., such as the RAN nodes  111  and  112 , and/or AP  106  shown and described previously. In other examples, the system  300  could be implemented in or by a UE or a core network node/entity, such as those shown and described with regard to  FIGS. 1-2 . The system  300  may include one or more of application circuitry  305 , baseband circuitry  304 , one or more radio front end modules  315 , memory  320 , power management integrated circuitry (PMIC)  325 , power tee circuitry  330 , network controller  335 , network interface connector  340 , satellite positioning circuitry  345 , and user interface  350 . In some embodiments, the device  400  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 (for example, said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations). 
     As used herein, the term “circuitry” may refer to, is part of, or includes hardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable device (FPD), (for example, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable System on Chip (SoC)), digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functionality. In addition, the term “circuitry” may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the program code used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuitry. 
     The terms “application circuitry” and/or “baseband circuitry” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as “processor circuitry.” As used herein, the term “processor circuitry” may refer to, is part of, or includes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carrying out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations; recording, storing, and/or transferring digital data. The term “processor circuitry” may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), a single-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions, such as program code, software modules, and/or functional processes. 
     Application circuitry  305  may include one or more central processing unit (CPU) cores and one or more of cache memory, low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers, serial interfaces such as SPI, I 2 C or universal programmable serial interface module, real time clock (RTC), timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purpose input/output (I/O or IO), memory card controllers such as Secure Digital (SD/)MultiMediaCard (MMC) or similar, Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces, Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) interfaces and Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access ports. As examples, the application circuitry  305  may include one or more Intel Pentium®, Core®, or Xeon® processor(s); Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s), Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), or Epyc® processors; and/or the like. In some embodiments, the system  300  may not utilize application circuitry  305 , and instead may include a special-purpose processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC or 5GC, for example. 
     Additionally or alternatively, application circuitry  305  may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more a field-programmable devices (FPDs) such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and the like; programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), and the like; ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); and the like. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry  305  may comprise logic blocks or logic fabric including and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry  305  may include memory cells (for example, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (for example, static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuses, etc.) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc. in lookup-tables (LUTs) and the like. 
     The baseband circuitry  304  may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Although not shown, baseband circuitry  304  may comprise one or more digital baseband systems, which may be coupled via an interconnect subsystem to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, and an interface subsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also be coupled to a digital baseband interface and a mixed-signal baseband sub-system via another interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems may include a bus system, point-to-point connections, network-on-chip (NOC) structures, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio sub-system may include digital signal processing circuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry such as analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter circuitry, analog circuitry including one or more of amplifiers and filters, and/or other like components. In an aspect of the present disclosure, baseband circuitry  304  may include protocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (for example, the radio front end modules  315 ). 
     User interface circuitry  350  may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with the system  300  or peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interaction with the system  300 . User interfaces may include, but are not limited to one or more physical or virtual buttons (for example, a reset button), one or more indicators (for example, light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, speakers or other audio emitting devices, microphones, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or display device, etc. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power supply interface, etc. 
     The radio front end modules (RFEMs)  315  may comprise a millimeter wave RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the millimeter wave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays, and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical radio front end module  315 . The RFEMs  315  may incorporate both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter wave antennas. 
     The memory circuitry  320  may include one or more of volatile memory including dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and/or synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM) including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc., and may incorporate the three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®. Memory circuitry  320  may be implemented as one or more of solder down packaged integrated circuits, socketed memory modules and plug-in memory cards. 
     The PMIC  325  may include voltage regulators, surge protectors, power alarm detection circuitry, and one or more backup power sources such as a battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuitry may detect one or more of brown out (under-voltage) and surge (over-voltage) conditions. The power tee circuitry  330  may provide for electrical power drawn from a network cable to provide both power supply and data connectivity to the infrastructure equipment  300  using a single cable. 
     The network controller circuitry  335  may provide connectivity to a network using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet, Ethernet over GRE Tunnels, Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may be provided to/from the infrastructure equipment  300  via network interface connector  340  using a physical connection, which may be electrical (commonly referred to as a “copper interconnect”), optical, or wireless. The network controller circuitry  335  may include one or more dedicated processors and/or FPGAs to communicate using one or more of the aforementioned protocol. In some implementations, the network controller circuitry  335  may include multiple controllers to provide connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols. 
     The positioning circuitry  345 , which may include circuitry to receive and decode signals transmitted by one or more navigation satellite constellations of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) may include United States&#39; Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia&#39;s Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the European Union&#39;s Galileo system, China&#39;s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSS augmentation system (for example, Navigation with Indian Constellation (NAVIC), Japan&#39;s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France&#39;s Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS), etc.), or the like. The positioning circuitry  345  may comprise various hardware elements (for example, including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate the communications over-the-air (OTA) communications) to communicate with components of a positioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. 
     Nodes or satellites of the navigation satellite constellation(s) (“GNSS nodes”) may provide positioning services by continuously transmitting or broadcasting GNSS signals along a line of sight, which may be used by GNSS receivers (for example, positioning circuitry  345  and/or positioning circuitry implemented by UEs  101 ,  102 , or the like) to determine their GNSS position. The GNSS signals may include a pseudorandom code (for example, a sequence of ones and zeros) that is known to the GNSS receiver and a message that includes a time of transmission (ToT) of a code epoch (for example, a defined point in the pseudorandom code sequence) and the GNSS node position at the ToT. The GNSS receivers may monitor/measure the GNSS signals transmitted/broadcasted by a plurality of GNSS nodes (for example, four or more satellites) and solve various equations to determine a corresponding GNSS position (for example, a spatial coordinate). The GNSS receivers also implement clocks that are typically less stable and less precise than the atomic clocks of the GNSS nodes, and the GNSS receivers may use the measured GNSS signals to determine the GNSS receivers&#39; deviation from true time (for example, an offset of the GNSS receiver clock relative to the GNSS node time). In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry  345  may include a Micro-Technology for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (Micro-PNT) IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking/estimation without GNSS assistance. 
     The GNSS receivers may measure the time of arrivals (ToAs) of the GNSS signals from the plurality of GNSS nodes according to its own clock. The GNSS receivers may determine ToF values for each received GNSS signal from the ToAs and the ToTs, and then may determine, from the ToFs, a three-dimensional (3D) position and clock deviation. The 3D position may then be converted into a latitude, longitude and altitude. The positioning circuitry  345  may provide data to application circuitry  305  which may include one or more of position data or time data. Application circuitry  305  may use the time data to synchronize operations with other radio base stations (for example, RAN nodes  111 ,  112 ,  211  or the like). 
     The components shown by  FIG. 3  may communicate with one another using interface circuitry. As used herein, the term “interface circuitry” may refer to, is part of, or includes circuitry providing for the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, input/output (I/O) interfaces, peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or the like. Any suitable bus technology may be used in various implementations, which may include any number of technologies, including industry standard architecture (ISA), extended ISA (EISA), peripheral component interconnect (PCI), peripheral component interconnect extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe), or any number of other technologies. The bus may be a proprietary bus, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus systems may be included, such as an I 2 C interface, an SPI interface, point to point interfaces, and a power bus, among others. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates an example of a platform  400  (or “device  400 ”) in accordance with various embodiments. In embodiments, the computer platform  400  may be suitable for use as UEs  101 ,  102 ,  201 , application servers  130 , and/or any other element/device discussed herein. The platform  400  may include any combinations of the components shown in the example. The components of platform  400  may be implemented as integrated circuits (ICs), portions thereof, discrete electronic devices, or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof adapted in the computer platform  400 , or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassis of a larger system. The block diagram of  FIG. 4  is intended to show a high level view of components of the computer platform  400 . However, some of the components shown may be omitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangement of the components shown may occur in other implementations. 
     The application circuitry  405  may include circuitry such as, but not limited to single-core or multi-core processors and one or more of cache memory, low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers, serial interfaces such as serial peripheral interface (SPI), inter-integrated circuit (I 2 C) or universal programmable serial interface circuit, real time clock (RTC), timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purpose input-output (IO), memory card controllers such as secure digital/multi-media card (SD/MMC) or similar, universal serial bus (USB) interfaces, mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) interfaces and Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access ports. The processor(s) may include any combination of general-purpose processors and/or dedicated processors (for example, graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors (or cores) 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 run on the platform  400 . In some embodiments, processors of application circuitry  305 / 405  may process IP data packets received from an EPC or 5GC. 
     Application circuitry  405  be or include a microprocessor, a multi-core processor, a multithreaded processor, an ultra-low voltage processor, an embedded processor, or other known processing element. In one example, the application circuitry  405  may include an Intel® Architecture Core™ based processor, such as a Quark™, an Atom™, an i3, an i5, an i7, or an MCU-class processor, or another such processor available from Intel® Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. The processors of the application circuitry  405  may also be one or more of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s) or Accelerated Processing Units (APUs); A5-A9 processor(s) from Apple® Inc., Snapdragon™ processor(s) from Qualcomm® Technologies, Inc., Texas Instruments, Inc.® Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP)™ processor(s); a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc; an ARM-based design licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd.; or the like. In some implementations, the application circuitry  405  may be a part of a system on a chip (SoC) in which the application circuitry  405  and other components are formed into a single integrated circuit, or a single package, such as the Edison™ or Galileo™ SoC boards from Intel® Corporation. 
     Additionally or alternatively, application circuitry  405  may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more a field-programmable devices (FPDs) such as FPGAs and the like; programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), and the like; ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); and the like. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry  405  may comprise logic blocks or logic fabric including and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry  405  may include memory cells (for example, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (for example, static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuses, etc.) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc. in lookup-tables (LUTs) and the like. 
     The baseband circuitry  404  may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Although not shown, baseband circuitry  404  may comprise one or more digital baseband systems, which may be coupled via an interconnect subsystem to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, and an interface subsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also be coupled to a digital baseband interface and a mixed-signal baseband sub-system via another interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems may include a bus system, point-to-point connections, network-on-chip (NOC) structures, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio sub-system may include digital signal processing circuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry such as analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter circuitry, analog circuitry including one or more of amplifiers and filters, and/or other like components. In an aspect of the present disclosure, baseband circuitry  404  may include protocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (for example, the radio front end modules  415 ). 
     The radio front end modules (RFEMs)  415  may comprise a millimeter wave RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the millimeter wave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays, and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical radio front end module  415 . The RFEMs  415  may incorporate both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter wave antennas. 
     The memory circuitry  420  may include any number and type of memory devices used to provide for a given amount of system memory. As examples, the memory circuitry  420  may include one or more of volatile memory including be random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) and/or synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM) including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc. The memory circuitry  420  may be developed in accordance with a Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council (JEDEC) low power double data rate (LPDDR)-based design, such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, or the like. Memory circuitry  320  may be implemented as one or more of solder down packaged integrated circuits, single die package (SDP), dual die package (DDP) or quad die package (Q17P), socketed memory modules, dual inline memory modules (DIMMs) including microDIMMs or MiniDIMMs, and/or soldered onto a motherboard via a ball grid array (BGA). In low power implementations, the memory circuitry  420  s storage  108  may be on-die memory or registers associated with the application circuitry  405 . To provide for persistent storage of information such as data, applications, operating systems and so forth, memory circuitry  420  may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, inter alia, a solid state disk drive (SSDD), hard disk drive (HDD), a micro HDD, resistance change memories, phase change memories, holographic memories, or chemical memories, among others. For example, the computer platform  400  may incorporate the three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®. 
     Removable memory circuitry  423  may include devices, circuitry, enclosures/housings, ports or receptacles, etc. used to coupled portable data storage devices with the platform  400 . These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage purposes, and may include, for example, flash memory cards (for example, Secure Digital (SD) cards, microSD cards, xD picture cards, and the like), and USB flash drives, optical discs, external HDDs, and the like. 
     The platform  400  may also include interface circuitry (not shown) that is used to connect external devices with the platform  400 . The external devices connected to the platform  400  via the interface circuitry may include sensors  421 , such as accelerometers, level sensors, flow sensors, temperature sensors, pressure sensors, barometric pressure sensors, and the like. The interface circuitry may be used to connect the platform  400  to electro-mechanical components (EMCs)  422 , which may allow platform  400  to change its state, position, and/or orientation, or move or control a mechanism or system. The EMCs  422  may include one or more power switches, relays including electromechanical relays (EMRs) and/or solid state relays (SSRs), actuators (for example, valve actuators, etc.), an audible sound generator, a visual warning device, motors (for example, DC motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, and/or other like electro-mechanical components. In embodiments, platform  400  may be configured to operate one or more EMCs  422  based on one or more captured events and/or instructions or control signals received from a service provider and/or various clients. 
     In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect the platform  400  with positioning circuitry  445 , which may be the same or similar as the positioning circuitry  445  discussed with regard to  FIG. 3 . 
     In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect the platform  400  with near-field communication (NFC) circuitry  440 , which may include an NFC controller coupled with an antenna element and a processing device. The NFC circuitry  440  may be configured to read electronic tags and/or connect with another NFC-enabled device. 
     The driver circuitry  446  may include software and hardware elements that operate to control particular devices that are embedded in the platform  400 , attached to the platform  400 , or otherwise communicatively coupled with the platform  400 . The driver circuitry  446  may include individual drivers allowing other components of the platform  400  to interact or control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be present within, or connected to, the platform  400 . For example, driver circuitry  446  may include a display driver to control and allow access to a display device, a touchscreen driver to control and allow access to a touchscreen interface of the platform  400 , sensor drivers to obtain sensor readings of sensors  421  and control and allow access to sensors  421 , EMC drivers to obtain actuator positions of the EMCs  422  and/or control and allow access to the EMCs  422 , a camera driver to control and allow access to an embedded image capture device, audio drivers to control and allow access to one or more audio devices. 
     The power management integrated circuitry (PMIC)  425  (also referred to as “power management circuitry  425 ” or the like) may manage power provided to various components of the platform  400 . In particular, with respect to the baseband circuitry  404 , the PMIC  425  may control power-source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMIC  425  may often be included when the platform  400  is capable of being powered by a battery  430 , for example, when the device is included in a UE  101 ,  102 ,  201 . 
     In some embodiments, the PMIC  425  may control, or otherwise be part of, various power saving mechanisms of the platform  400 . For example, if the platform  400  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 platform  400  may power down for brief intervals of time and thus save power. If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, then the platform  400  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 platform  400  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 platform  400  may not receive data in this state, in order to receive data, it must transition back to RRC_Connected state. 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. 
     A battery  430  may power the platform  400 , although in some examples the platform  400  may be mounted deployed in a fixed location, and may have a power supply coupled to an electrical grid. The battery  430  may be a lithium ion battery, a metal-air battery, such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, and the like. In some implementations, such as in V2X applications, the battery  430  may be a typical lead-acid automotive battery. 
     In some implementations, the battery  430  may be a “smart battery,” which includes or is coupled with a Battery Management System (BMS) or battery monitoring integrated circuitry. The BMS may be included in the platform  400  to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery  430 . The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery  430  to provide failure predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and the state of function (SoF) of the battery  430 . The BMS may communicate the information of the battery  430  to the application circuitry  405  or other components of the platform  400 . The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) convertor that allows the application circuitry  405  to directly monitor the voltage of the battery  430  or the current flow from the battery  430 . The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform  400  may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, and the like. 
     A power block, or other power supply coupled to an electrical grid may be coupled with the BMS to charge the battery  430 . In some examples, the power block  128  may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain the power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform  400 . In these examples, a wireless battery charging circuit may be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuits chosen may depend on the size of the battery  430 , and thus, the current required. The charging may be performed using the Airfuel standard promulgated by the Airfuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standard promulgated by the Wireless Power Consortium, or the Rezence charging standard, promulgated by the Alliance for Wireless Power, among others. 
     Although not shown, the components of platform  400  may communicate with one another using a suitable bus technology, which may include any number of technologies, including industry standard architecture (ISA), extended ISA (EISA), peripheral component interconnect (PCI), peripheral component interconnect extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe), a Time-Trigger Protocol (TTP) system, or a FlexRay system, or any number of other technologies. The bus may be a proprietary bus, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus systems may be included, such as an I 2 C interface, an SPI interface, point to point interfaces, and a power bus, among others. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates example components of baseband circuitry  304 / 404  and radio front end modules (RFEM)  315 / 415  in accordance with some embodiments. As shown, the RFEM  315 / 415  may include Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry  506 , front-end module (FEM) circuitry  508 , one or more antennas  510  coupled together at least as shown. 
     The baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry  506  and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry  506 . Baseband processing circuitry  304 / 404  may interface with the application circuitry  305 / 405  for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry  506 . For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may include a third generation (3G) baseband processor  504 A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor  504 B, a fifth generation (5G) baseband processor  504 C, or other baseband processor(s)  504 D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (for example, second generation (2G), si5h generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry  304 / 404  (for example, one or more of baseband processors  504 A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry  506 . In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors  504 A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory  504 G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU)  504 E. 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  304 / 404  may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  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. 
     In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP)  504 F. The audio DSP(s)  504 F 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  304 / 404  and the application circuitry  305 / 405  may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC). 
     In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may provide for communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry. 
     RF circuitry  506  may enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry  506  may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry  506  may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry  508  and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry  304 / 404 . RF circuitry  506  may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry  508  for transmission. 
     In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry  506  may include mixer circuitry  506   a , amplifier circuitry  506   b  and filter circuitry  506   c . In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry  506  may include filter circuitry  506   c  and mixer circuitry  506   a . RF circuitry  506  may also include synthesizer circuitry  506   d  for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry  508  based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry  506   d . The amplifier circuitry  506   b  may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry  506   c  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  304 / 404  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  506   a  of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. 
     In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  506   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  506   d  to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry  508 . The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  and may be filtered by filter circuitry  506   c.    
     In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  506   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  506   a  of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (for example, Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  506   a  may be arranged for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyne operation. 
     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  506  may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry  506 . 
     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. 
     In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry  506   d  may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 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  506   d  may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider. 
     The synthesizer circuitry  506   d  may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry  506   a  of the RF circuitry  506  based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry  506   d  may be a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer. 
     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  304 / 404  or the applications processor  305 / 405  depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (for example, N) may be determined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by the applications processor  305 / 405 . 
     Synthesizer circuitry  506   d  of the RF circuitry  506  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 (for example, based on a carry 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. 
     In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry  506   d  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 (for example, 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  506  may include an IQ/polar converter. 
     FEM circuitry  508  may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas  510 , amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry  506  for further processing. FEM circuitry  508  may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry  506  for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas  510 . In various embodiments, the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry  506 , solely in the FEM  508 , or in both the RF circuitry  506  and the FEM  508 . 
     In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry  508  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 (for example, to the RF circuitry  506 ). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry  508  may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (for example, provided by RF circuitry  506 ), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (for example, by one or more of the one or more antennas  510 ). 
     Processors of the application circuitry  305 / 405  and processors of the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the baseband circuitry  304 / 404 , alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3, Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may utilize data (for example, packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (for example, 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. 
       FIG. 6  illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry  304 / 404  of  FIGS. 3-4  may comprise processors  504 A- 504 E and a memory  504 G utilized by said processors. Each of the processors  504 A- 504 E may include a memory interface,  604 A- 604 E, respectively, to send/receive data to/from the memory  504 G. 
     The baseband circuitry  304 / 404  may further include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memory interface  612  (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the baseband circuitry  304 / 404 ), an application circuitry interface  614  (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry  305 / 405  of  FIGS. 3-4 ), an RF circuitry interface  616  (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry  506  of  FIG. 5 ), a wireless hardware connectivity interface  618  (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  620  (for example, an interface to send/receive power or control signals to/from the PMIC  425 . 
       FIG. 7  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. 7  shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources  700  including one or more processors (or processor cores)  710 , one or more memory/storage devices  720 , and one or more communication resources  730 , each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus  740 . As used herein, the term “computing resource”, “hardware resource”, etc., may refer to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and/or physical or virtual component within a particular device, such as computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPU time and/or processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardware time or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports or network sockets, channel/link allocation, throughput, memory usage, storage, network, database and applications, and/or the like. For embodiments where node virtualization (for example, NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor  702  may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources  700 . A “virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application, device, system, etc. 
     The processors  710  (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  712  and a processor  714 . 
     The memory/storage devices  720  may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices  720  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. 
     The communication resources  730  may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices  704  or one or more databases  706  via a network  708 . For example, the communication resources  730  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. As used herein, the term “network resource” or “communication resource” may refer to computing resources that are accessible by computer devices via a communications network. The term “system resources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services, and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services, accessible through a server where such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable. 
     Instructions  750  may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors  710  to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions  750  may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors  710  (for example, within the processor&#39;s cache memory), the memory/storage devices  720 , or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions  750  may be transferred to the hardware resources  700  from any combination of the peripheral devices  704  or the databases  706 . Accordingly, the memory of processors  710 , the memory/storage devices  720 , the peripheral devices  704 , and the databases  706  are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media. 
       FIG. 8  illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device according to various embodiments. In particular,  FIG. 8  includes an arrangement  800  showing interconnections between various protocol layers/entities. The following description of  FIG. 8  is provided for various protocol layers/entities that operate in conjunction with the Fifth Generation (5G) or New Radio (NR) system standards, but some or all of these aspects of  FIG. 8  may be applicable to LTE implementations as well. 
     The protocol layers of arrangement  800  may include one or more of a physical layer (PHY)  810 , a medium access control layer (MAC)  820 , a radio link control layer (RLC)  830 , a packet data convergence protocol layer (PDCP)  840 , a service data adaptation protocol layer (SDAP)  847 , a radio resource control layer (RRC)  855 , and a non-access stratum (NAS) layer  857 , in addition to other higher layer functions not illustrated. The protocol layers may include one or more service access points (for example, items  859 ,  856 ,  849 ,  845 ,  835 ,  825 , and  815  in  FIG. 8 ) that may provide communication between two or more protocol layers. 
     The PHY  810  may transmit and receive physical layer signals  805  that may be received from or transmitted to one or more other communication devices. The physical layer signals  805  may comprise one or more physical channels, such as those discussed herein. The PHY  810  may further perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (for example, for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as the RRC  855 . The PHY  810  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. In embodiments, an instance of PHY  810  may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of MAC  820  via one or more physical layer service access points (PHY-SAP)  815 . According to some embodiments, requests and indications communicated via PHY-SAP  815  may comprise one or more transport channels. 
     Instance(s) of MAC  820  may process requests from, and provide indications to an instance of RLC  830  via one or more medium access control service access points (MAC-SAP)  825 . These requests and indications communicated via the MAC-SAP  825  may comprise one or more logical channels. The MAC  820  may perform mapping between the 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  810  via the transport channels, de-multiplexing MAC SDUs to one or more logical channels from TBs delivered from the PHY  810  via transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction through hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ), and logical channel prioritization. 
     Instance(s) of RLC  830  may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of PDCP  840  via one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAP)  835 . These requests and indications communicated via RLC-SAP  835  may comprise one or more RLC channels. The RLC  830  may operate in a plurality of modes of operation, including: Transparent Mode™, Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC  830  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  830  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 AM data transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment. 
     Instance(s) of PDCP  840  may process requests from and provide indications to instance(s) of RRC  855  and/or instance(s) of SDAP  847  via one or more packet data convergence protocol service access points (PDCP-SAP)  845 . These requests and indications communicated via PDCP-SAP  845  may comprise one or more radio bearers. The PDCP layer  804  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 (for example, ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.). 
     Instance(s) of SDAP  847  may process requests from and provide indications to one or more higher layer protocol entities via one or more service data adaptation protocol service access points (SDAP-SAP)  849 . These requests and indications communicated via SDAP-SAP  849  may comprise one or more quality of service (QoS) flows. The SDAP  847  may map QoS flows to data radio bearers (DRBs), and vice versa, and may also mark QoS flow IDs (QFIs) in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity  847  may be configured for an individual PDU session. In the UL direction, the NG-RAN  110  may control the mapping of QoS Flows to DRB(s) in two different ways, reflective mapping or explicit mapping. For reflective mapping, the SDAP  847  of a UE  101 / 102  may monitor the QoS flow ID(s) of the DL packets for each DRB, and may apply the same mapping for packets flowing in the UL direction. For a DRB, the SDAP  847  of the UE  101 / 102  may map the UL packets belonging to the QoS flows(s) corresponding to the QoS flow ID(s) and PDU Session observed in the DL packets for that DRB. To enable reflective mapping, the NG-RAN may mark DL packets over the Uu interface with a QoS flow ID. The explicit mapping may involve the RRC  855  configuring the SDAP  847  with an explicit QoS flow to DRB mapping rule, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP  847 . 
     The, RRC  855  may configure, via one or more management service access points (M-SAP), aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY  810 , MAC  820 , RLC  830 , PDCP  840  and SDAP  847 . In embodiments, an instance of RRC  855  may process requests from and provide indications to one or more NAS entities  857  via one or more RRC service access points (RRC-SAP)  856 . The main services and functions of the RRC  855  may include broadcast of system information (for example, included in Master Information Blocks (MIBs) or System Information Blocks (SIBs) related to the NAS), broadcast of system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of an RRC connection between the UE  101 / 102  and RAN  110  (for example, 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. The MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or more information elements (IEs), which may each comprise individual data fields or data structures. 
     The NAS  857  may form the highest stratum of the control plane between the UE  101 / 102  and the AMF  221 . The NAS  857  may support the mobility of the UEs  101 / 102  and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE  101  and a P-GW in LTE systems. 
     According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities of arrangement  800  may be implemented in UE  101 / 102 , RAN node  111 / 112 , AMF  221  (or MME in LTE implementations), UPF  202  (or S-GW and P-GW in LTE implementations), or the like to be used for control plane or user plane communications protocol stack between the aforementioned devices. In such embodiments, one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more of UE  101 / 102 , gNB  111 / 112 , AMF  221 , etc. may communicate with a respective peer protocol entity that may be implemented in or on another device using the services of respective lower layer protocol entities to perform such communication. In some embodiments, a gNB-central unit (gNB-CU) of the gNB  111 / 112  may host the RRC  855 , SDAP  847 , and PDCP  840  of the gNB that controls the operation of one or more gNB-distributed units (DUs), and the gNB-DUs of the gNB  111 / 112  may each host the RLC  830 , MAC  820 , and PHY  810  of the gNB  111 / 112 . 
     In a first example, a control plane protocol stack may comprise, in order from highest layer to lowest layer, NAS  857 , RRC  855 , PDCP  840 , RLC  830 , MAC  820 , and PHY  810 . In this example, upper layers  860  may be built on top of the NAS  857 , which includes an internet protocol layer (IP)  861 , an Stream Control Transmission Protocol layer (SCTP)  862 , and an application layer signaling protocol (AP)  863 . 
     In NR implementations, the AP  863  may be an NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP)  863  for the NG interface  113 A defined between the NG-RAN node  111 / 112  and the AMF  221 , or the AP  863  may be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP)  863  for the Xn interface  113 X that is defined between two or more RAN nodes  111 ,  112 . 
     The NG-AP  863  may support the functions of the NG interface  113 A and may comprise Elementary Procedures (EPs). An NG-AP EP may be a unit of interaction between the NG-RAN node  111 , 112  and the AMF  221 . The NG-AP  863  services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services (for example, services related to a UE  101 ,  102 ) and non-UE-associated services (for example, services related to the whole NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node  111 ,  112  and AMF  221 ). These services may include functions including, but not limited to: a paging function for the sending of paging requests to NG-RAN nodes  111 ,  112  involved in a particular paging area; UE Context management function for allowing the AMF  221  to establish, modify, and/or release a UE Context in the AMF  221  and the NG-RAN node  111 / 112 ; mobility function for UEs  101 / 102  in ECM-CONNECTED mode for intra-system HOs to support mobility within NG-RAN and inter-system HOs to support mobility from/to EPS systems; NAS Signaling Transport function for transporting or rerouting NAS messages between UE  101 / 102  and AMF  221 ; a NAS node selection function for determining an association between the AMF  221  and the UE  101 / 102 ; NG interface management function(s) for setting up the NG interface and monitoring for errors over the NG interface; warning message transmission function provides means to transfer warning messages via NG interface or cancel ongoing broadcast of warning messages; Configuration Transfer function for requesting and transferring of RAN configuration information (e.g., Self-Organizing Network (SON) information, performance measurement (PM) data, etc.) between two RAN nodes  111 ,  112  via CN  120 ; and/or other like functions. 
     The XnAP  863  may support the functions of the Xn interface  113 X and may comprise XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. The XnAP basic mobility procedures may comprise procedures used to handle UE mobility within the NG RAN  110  (or E-UTRAN  110 ), such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, dual connectivity related procedures, and the like. The XnAP global procedures may comprise procedures that are not related to a specific UE  101 / 102 , such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RAN update procedures, cell activation procedures, and the like. 
     In LTE implementations, the AP  863  may be an S1 Application Protocol layer (S1-AP)  863  for the S1 interface  113 A defined between an E-UTRAN node  111 / 112  and an MME, or the AP  863  may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP)  863  for the X2 interface  113 X that is defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes  111 ,  112 . 
     The S1 Application Protocol layer (S1-AP)  863  may support the functions of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP discussed previously, the S1-AP may comprise S1-AP EPs. An S1-AP EP may be a unit of interaction between the E-UTRAN node  111 / 112  and an MME within an LTE CN  120 . The S1-AP  863  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. 
     The X2AP  863  may support the functions of the X2 interface  113 X and may comprise X2AP basic mobility procedures and X2AP global procedures. The X2AP basic mobility procedures may comprise procedures used to handle UE mobility within the E-UTRAN  110 , such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, dual connectivity related procedures, and the like. The X2AP global procedures may comprise procedures that are not related to a specific UE  101 / 102 , such as X2 interface setup and reset procedures, load indication procedures, error indication procedures, cell activation procedures, and the like. 
     The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP/IP layer)  862  may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (for example, NGAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). The SCTP  863  may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node  111  and the AMF/MME based, in part, on the IP protocol, supported by the IP  861 . The Internet Protocol layer (IP)  861  may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functionality. In some implementations the IP layer  861  may use point-to-point transmission to deliver convey PDUs. In this regard, the RAN node  111 / 112  may comprise L2 and L1 layer communication links (for example, wired or wireless) with the MME/AMF to exchange information. 
     In a second example, a user plane protocol stack may comprise, in order from highest layer to lowest layer, SDAP  847 , PDCP  840 , RLC  830 , MAC  820 , and PHY  810 . The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between the UE  101 / 102 , the RAN node  111 / 112 , and UPF  202  in NR implementations or an S-GW and P-GW in LTE implementations. In this example, upper layers  851  may be built on top of the SDAP  847 , and may include a user datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP/IP)  852 , a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for the user plane layer (GTP-U)  853 , and a User Plane Protocol Data Unit layer (UP PDU)  863 . 
     The transport network layer  854  (also referred to as a “transport layer”) may be built on IP transport, and the GTP-U  851  may be used on top of the UDP/IP layer  703  (comprising a UDP layer and IP layer) to carry user plane PDUs (UP-PDUs). The IP layer (also referred to as the “Internet layer”) may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functionality. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example. 
     The GTP-U  853  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/IP  852  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  111  and the S-GW may utilize an S1-U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising an L1 layer  811 , an L2 layer, the UDP/IP layer  852 , and the GTP-U  853 . The S-GW and the P-GW may utilize an S5/S8a interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising an L1 layer, an L2 layer, the UDP/IP layer  852 , and the GTP-U  853 . As discussed previously, NAS protocols may support the mobility of the UE  101 / 102  and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE  101  and the P-GW. 
     Moreover, although not shown by  FIG. 8 , an application layer may be present above the AP  863  and/or the transport network layer  854 . The application layer may be a layer in which a user of the UE  101 / 102  interacts with software applications being executed, for example, by application circuitry  305 / 405 . The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for software applications to interact with communications systems of the UE  101 / 102 , such as the baseband circuitry  304 / 404 . In some implementations the IP layer and/or the application layer may provide the same or similar functionality as layers 5-7, or portions thereof, of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (for example, OSI Layer 7—the application layer, OSI Layer 6—the presentation layer, and OSI Layer 5—the session layer). 
       FIGS. 9-13  illustrate processes  900 - 1300 , respectively, for providing an updated UE Radio Capability or indicating a UE&#39;s usage setting according to various embodiments. For illustrative purposes, the operations of processes  900 - 1300  are described as being performed by the various devices discussed with regard to  FIGS. 1-7 . Some of the processes  900 - 1300  may include communications between various devices, and it should be understood that such communications may be facilitated by the various circuitry as described with regard to  FIGS. 1-7  using the various messages/frames, protocols, entities, layers, etc. discussed with regard to  FIG. 8 . Moreover, while particular examples and orders of operations are illustrated in  FIGS. 9-13 , the depicted orders of operations should not be construed to limit the scope of the embodiments in any way. Rather, the depicted operations may be re-ordered, broken into additional operations, combined, and/or omitted altogether while remaining within the spirit and scope of the present disclosure. 
       FIG. 9  shows an example conditional handover procedure  900  in accordance with various embodiments. Procedure  900  depicts an example where the UE  101  may perform a condition handover (CHO) from a single serving or source RAN node  111  and a single target RAN node  112  may communicate with a UE  101 ; however, in many scenarios there may be many cells or beams that the UE  101  reported as possible candidates based on its preceding RRM measurements. 
     Procedure  900  may begin at operation  902  where the UE  101  receives user plane (UP) data from the source RAN node  111 , and at operation  904 , the UE  101  may transmit a measurement report (MR) to the source RAN node  111 . In embodiments, the UE  101  may be configured with a “low” threshold to trigger generation and transmission of an early MR to increase the reliability of the conditional handover (CHO) command to be sent at operation  914 . At operation  906 , the source RAN node  111  may determine whether the UE  101  should perform an HO based on the early MR obtained at operation  904 . At operation  908 , the source RAN node  111  may send an early HO request to the target RAN node  112 , which may include or indicate that the HO is to be a conditional HO (CHO) and may also include an exit condition for discarding the HO request. At operation  912 , the target RAN node  112  may indicate acceptance of the CHO by sending a CHO acknowledgement (ACK) message to the source RAN node  111 . In some embodiments, the CHO ACK message may be or may include a pre-built RRC configuration message to be sent to the UE  101 . 
     At operation  914 , the source RAN node  111  may transmit a CHO command to the UE  101 , which may be included in an RRC message such as a RRC Connection Reconfiguration message. In some embodiments, the source RAN node  111  may send the pre-built RRC message obtained from the target RAN node  112  at operation  912 . In various embodiments, the CHO command may include or indicate a “high” threshold condition such that when the condition is met, then the UE  101  will trigger or initiate a HO procedure with the target RAN node  112  (for example, by performing synchronization with the target RAN node  112 , random access procedure, etc.). In various embodiments, the CHO command may include or indicate a CHO exit condition such that, when the exit condition is met, the UE  101  will discard the CHO command, and in some embodiments, send a new MR to the source RAN node  111 . 
     At operation  916 , the UE  101  may determine whether the exit condition has been fulfilled. If the exit condition has been fulfilled (or alternatively, the CHO condition has not been fulfilled), the UE  101  may discard the CHO command at operation  918 , and in some embodiments, the UE  101  may send a new MR to the source RAN node  111  at operation  920 . If the exit condition has not been fulfilled (or alternatively, the CHO condition has been fulfilled), the UE  101  may proceed to operation  922  to trigger the HO to the target RAN node  111  by performing synchronization and random access procedures with the target RAN node  112  at operation  924 . At operation  926 , the UE  101  may receive an HO confirmation from the target RAN node  112  and may begin receiving UP data from the target RAN node  112  at operation  930 . Meanwhile, at operation  928  the target RAN node  112  may send a confirmation to the source RAN node  111  that the HO has taken place so that the source RAN node  111  may, for example, release resources that were allocated to the UE  101 . 
       FIG. 10  shows an example conditional handover (CHO) procedure  1000  in accordance with various embodiments. By way of example, process  1000  is discussed as being performed by an UE  101  for a CHO from a source RAN node  111  to a target RAN node  112 ; however, other similar devices/entities may also perform process  1000 . 
     Procedure  1000  may begin at operation  1005 , where communication circuitry of the UE  101  (see for example, RFEM  415  of  FIG. 4 ) may receive a first radio resource control (RRC) message from a source RAN node  111 . At operation  1010 , processor circuitry of the UE  101  (see for example, baseband circuitry  404  of  FIG. 4 ) may identify a configuration in the first RRC message, where the configuration may indicate a threshold signal strength/quality for performing measurement reporting. 
     At operation  1015 , the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may determine whether the threshold has been reached. If at operation  1015  the processor circuitry determines that the threshold has not been reached, the processor circuitry may loop back to estimate the signal strength/quality. If at operation  1015  the processor circuitry determines that the threshold has been reached, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1020  to measure and/or estimate the signal strength/quality of configured measurement objects (for example, cells or beams indicated by the configuration in the first RRC message). At operation  1020 , the processor circuitry may generate a measurement report, and the communication circuitry may transmit the measurement report (MR) to the source RAN node  111 . 
     At operation  1025 , the communication circuitry of the UE  101  may receive a second RRC message, and at operation  1030  the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may identify a CHO command in the second RRC message, wherein the CHO command may indicate a CHO condition for executing a handover and an exit condition for exiting the handover. The particular CHO condition and/or exit condition included in the CHO command may be based on a determination of how long the network should reserve resources for the UE  101  in consideration of handover performance. 
     At operation  1035 , the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may determine whether the exit condition has been fulfilled. If at operation  1035  the processor circuitry determines that the exit condition has been fulfilled, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1040  to discard the CHO command. If at operation  1035  the processor circuitry determines that the exit condition has not been fulfilled, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1045  to determine whether the CHO condition has been fulfilled. If at operation  1045 , the processor circuitry of the UE  101  determines that the CHO condition has not been fulfilled, the processor circuitry may loop back to operation  1035  to determine whether the exit condition has been fulfilled. If at operation  1045  the processor circuitry determines that the CHO condition has been fulfilled, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1050  to execute a handover to the target RAN node  112  (or target beam) indicated by the CHO command. After performance of operation  1040  or  1050 , process  900  may end or repeat as necessary. 
     In embodiments, after the UE  101  receives the CHO command, the UE  101  may be considered as having entered the CHO condition. After entering the CHO condition, the UE  101  may wait for a target RAN node  112  (or target beam) to satisfy the CHO condition to trigger a handover with the target RAN node  112  (or target beam). However, when the CHO condition is not fulfilled, the exit condition may be considered to be fulfilled, and the network may be able to release the resources allocated to the UE  101  for the handover. 
     In some embodiments, the exit condition indicated by the CHO command may be a timer based exit condition, and at operation  1035 , the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may start the timer in response to receipt of the CHO command. When the timer expires before the CHO condition is fulfilled, the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may consider the exit condition to be fulfilled and may proceed to discard the CHO command at operation  1040 . The specific timer value used for the exit condition may be based on a tradeoff between the time needed to resource resources for the HO and providing a sufficient amount of time so that the UE  101  may properly perform the HO in order to avoid radio link failures (RLFs). 
     In some embodiments, the exit condition may be event based, wherein a target cell or beam is offset lower than a serving cell or beam and/or below a threshold. This exit condition may be used by the UE  101  at operation  1035  to determine whether a handover to the target cell or beam is still desirable, and if not, then the CHO command may be discarded at operation  1040 . Such embodiments may allow reserved resources to be released only when the target channel quality or signal strength is no longer optimal. 
       FIG. 11  shows an example CHO procedure  1100  that may be performed by a source RAN node, in accordance with various embodiments. By way of example, process  1100  is discussed as being performed by RAN node  111  acting as a serving node for a CHO of a UE  101  from the source RAN node  111  to a target RAN node  112 ; however, other similar devices/entities may also perform process  1100 . 
     Process  1100  may begin at operation  1105  where communication circuitry of the source RAN node  111  (see for example, RFEM  315  of  FIG. 3 ) may receive a measurement report (MR) from a UE  101 . At operation  1110 , processor circuitry of the source RAN node  111  (see for example, baseband circuitry  304  or application circuitry  305  of  FIG. 3 ) may determine whether the UE  101  should be handed over to a target RAN node  112  (or a target beam). At operation  1115 , the communication circuitry of the source RAN node  111  (see for example, network controller circuitry  335  of  FIG. 3 ) may send a CHO request to the target RAN node  112 , and at operation  1120 , the communication circuitry of the source RAN node  111  may obtain a CHO acknowledgement message from the target RAN node  112 . In embodiments, the CHO acknowledgement message may be or may include an RRC message to be sent to the UE  101 . At operation  1125 , the communication circuitry of the source RAN node  111  (see for example, RFEM  315  of  FIG. 3 ) may send the RRC message to the UE. In embodiments, the RRC message may include a CHO command to indicate a CHO condition for executing a handover with the target RAN node  112  and an exit condition for exiting the handover. 
     At operation  1130 , the processor circuitry of the source RAN node  111  may determine whether the CHO has been exited. If at operation  1130  the processor circuitry determines that the CHO has been exited, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1135  to control or instruct the communication circuitry of the source RAN node  111  to signal, to the target RAN node  112 , an indication to release resources that are reserved for the UE  101 . If at operation  1130  the processor circuitry determines that the CHO has not been exited, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1140  to release the resources that have been used to send user plane data to the UE  101 . In some embodiments, performance of operation  1140  may be based on receiving an indication from the UE  101  or the target RAN node  112  that the CHO has been successfully completed. 
       FIG. 12  shows an example CHO procedure  1200  that may be performed by a target RAN node, in accordance with various embodiments. By way of example, process  1200  is discussed as being performed by RAN node  112  for a CHO of a UE  101  from a source RAN node  111  to the target RAN node  112 ; however, other similar devices/entities may also perform process  1200 . 
     Process  1200  may begin at operation  1205  where communication circuitry of the target RAN node  112  (see for example, network controller circuitry  335  of  FIG. 3 ) may receive a CHO request from the source RAN node  111  (see for example, operation  1115  of  FIG. 11 ). In embodiments, the CHO request message may indicate a UE  101  that is to be handed over to the target RAN node  112 . At operation  1210 , the processor circuitry of the target RAN node  112  (see for example, baseband circuitry  304  or application circuitry  305  of  FIG. 3 ) may build an RRC message to be sent to the UE  101  if/when the processor circuitry of the target RAN node  112  accepts the CHO request. The processor circuitry of the target RAN node  112  may accept or deny the CHO request based on whether the target RAN node  112  and/or the UE  101  support conditional handovers. Assuming that the processor circuitry of the target RAN node  112  accepts the CHO request at operation  1210 , the communication circuitry of the target RAN node  112  may send a CHO acknowledgement message to the source RAN node  111  at operation  1215 . In embodiments, the CHO acknowledgement message may comprise or may include the built RRC message. 
     At operation  1220 , the processor circuitry of the target RAN node  112  may determine whether the CHO has been exited. If at operation  1220  the processor circuitry determines that the CHO has been exited, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1225  release resources (for example, random access channel resources) that are reserved for the UE  101 . If at operation  1220  the processor circuitry determines that the CHO has not been exited, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1230  to perform various handover operations with the UE  101  (for example, synchronization and random access procedures). In some embodiments, after the handover is successfully completed, the communication circuitry of the target RAN node  112  may signal an indication to the source RAN node  111  that the CHO has been successfully completed. 
     In some embodiments, at operations  1220 - 1225 , the source RAN node  111  may instruct the target RAN node  112  to release the target resources (for example, RACH resources) when the exit condition is fulfilled or when the CHO condition is not fulfilled. In such embodiments, the source RAN node  111  may signal this instruction to the target RAN node  112  using a suitable X2/Xn message. In some embodiments, a timer may be set by the target RAN node  112  and when the timer expires, the resource(s) may be autonomously released. The timer may be set in response to receipt of the early CHO request at operation  1145  or after the CHO acknowledgement is sent at operation  1215 . In cases where the timer has expired before the UE  101  performs or initiates a handover, the source RAN node  111  may send another message to the target RAN node  112  to reserve the resource again. In other embodiments, the source RAN node  111  may explicitly signal an indication to the target RAN node  112  to release the resource(s) that are reserved for the UE  101 . 
       FIG. 13  shows an example mobility state estimation (MSE) process  1300  in accordance with various embodiments. By way of example, process  1300  is discussed as being performed by an UE  101 ; however, other similar devices/entities may also perform process  1300 . 
     Process  1300  may begin at operation  1305  where the communication circuitry of the UE  101  may receive a configuration message that includes mobility state estimation (MSE) parameters, and at operation  1310  the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may determine a plurality of MSE thresholds, where each of the MSE thresholds correspond with an MSE value. In some implementations, the MSE parameters may be included in system information broadcast by a serving RAN node  111 / 112 . In some implementations, the configuration message may be included in an RRC message. In one example, the configuration message may be a system information block type 3 (SIB3) IE that includes a speedStateReselectionPars field, and the speedStateReselectionPars field may include a mobilityStateParameters IE. In another example, a measurement configuration (MeasConfig) IE may include a speedStatePars IE, and the speedStatePars may include the mobilityStateParameters IE. In yet another example, the speedStatePars IE may be included in a variable measurement configuration (VarMeasConfig) IE. An example of the mobilityStateParameters IE is shown by table 3(a), and the mobility state parameters of mobilityStateParameters IE are described in table 3(b). 
     
       
         
           
               
             
               
                 TABLE 3(a) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 MobilityStateParameters information element 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 -- ASN1START 
                   
               
               
                 MobilityStateParameters ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                   t-Evaluation 
                  ENUMERATED { 
               
               
                   
                   s30, s60, s120, s180, s240, spare3, spare2, spare1}, 
               
               
                   t-HystNormal 
                  ENUMERATED { 
               
               
                   
                   s30, s60, s120, s180, s240, spare3, spare2, spare1}, 
               
               
                   n-CellChangeMedium 
                  INTEGER (1..16), 
               
               
                   n-CellChangeHigh 
                  INTEGER (1..16), 
               
               
                   n-TRPChangeMedium 
                  INTEGER (1..M), 
               
               
                   n-TRPChangeHigh 
                  INTEGER (1..N) 
               
               
                 } 
                   
               
               
                 -- ASN1STOP 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 3(b) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Parameter 
                 Description 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 t-Evaluation 
                 the duration for evaluating criteria to enter  
               
               
                   
                 mobility states in seconds; value in seconds,  
               
               
                   
                 where s30 corresponds to 30 seconds and  
               
               
                   
                 so on; corresponds to the parameter T CRmax . 
               
               
                 t-HystNormal 
                 An additional duration for evaluating criteria  
               
               
                   
                 to enter normal mobility state in seconds;  
               
               
                   
                 value in seconds, where s30 corresponds to  
               
               
                   
                 30 seconds and so on; corresponds to the 
               
               
                   
                 parameter T CRmaxHyst . 
               
               
                 n-CellChangeHigh 
                 the number of cell changes to enter a high  
               
               
                   
                 mobility state; corresponds to the parameter  
               
               
                   
                 N CR _H. 
               
               
                 n-CellChangeMedium 
                 the number of cell changes to enter a medium  
               
               
                   
                 mobility state; corresponds to the parameter  
               
               
                   
                 N CR _M. 
               
               
                 n-TRPChangeHigh 
                 the number of TRP changes to enter a high  
               
               
                   
                 mobility state. 
               
               
                 n-TRPChangeMedium 
                 the number of TRP changes to enter a medium  
               
               
                   
                 mobility state. 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     Furthermore, the SIB3 IE, the MeasConfig IE, or the VarMeasConfig IE may also include a SpeedStateScaleFactors IE in a timeToTrigger-SF field, which may concern or include factors (for example, scaling factors) to be applied when the UE  101  is in medium or high speed state. These scaling factors may be used for scaling one or more mobility control related parameters. An example of the SpeedStateScaleFactors IE is shown by table 4(a), and the scaling factor (SF) parameters of the SpeedStateScaleFactors IE are described by table 4(b). 
     
       
         
           
               
             
               
                 TABLE 4(a) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 SpeedStateScaleFactors information element 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 -- ASN1START 
                   
               
               
                 SpeedStateScaleFactors ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                   sf-Medium 
                  ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0}, 
               
               
                   sf-High 
                  ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0}, 
               
               
                 } 
                   
               
               
                 -- ASN1STOP 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 4(b) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Parameter 
                 Description 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 sf-High 
                 The concerned mobility control related parameter is  
               
               
                   
                 multiplied with this factor if the UE is in High Mobility  
               
               
                   
                 state; Value oDot25 corresponds to 0.25, oDot5  
               
               
                   
                 corresponds to 0.5, oDot75 corresponds to 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                 sf-Medium 
                 The concerned mobility control related parameter is  
               
               
                   
                 multiplied with this factor if the UE is in Medium  
               
               
                   
                 Mobility state as defined in TS 36.304 [4]. Value oDot25  
               
               
                   
                 corresponds to 0.25, oDot5 corresponds to 0.5, oDot75  
               
               
                   
                 corresponds to 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     In other embodiments, where weighted cell counts based on the number of TRP/beam switches within a cell are used, additional or alternative scaling factors may be configured. These scaling factors may be used so that cell size may be taken may be taken into account for the mobility state estimation. Taking cell size into account for the mobility state estimation may be useful for networks or deployment areas that have multiple cells with different cell sizes. Using cell size estimates may also be useful since the number of beam or TRP switches may not accurately reflect the actual mobility state of the UE  101 . 
     In such embodiments, the network may configure individual beam switching MSE thresholds and/or individual TRP switching MSE thresholds for individual cells, as well as individual scaling factors for the individual beam/TRP switching MSE thresholds. The scaling factors may be based on the network&#39;s knowledge of the cell size of an individual cell, a threshold number of beam switches that may (or should) be required to traverse an individual cell, and/or a known or estimated location of the UE  101  within a particular cell. 
     For example, the network may know that a particular cell is relatively large and may set a relatively large beam switching threshold for this cell since a UE is likely to undergo a large number of beam switches as the UE traverses the cell. However, a UE in a particular cell may switch beams numerous times for reasons other than traversing the cell, for example, due to poor channel conditions, coverage holes, etc. In this regard, the scaling factors may be used to adjust (for example, increase or decrease) the TRP or beam switching thresholds. Additionally, the particular scaling factors that are used may be based on the location of the UE  101  within a cell, for example, the scaling factors for UEs located at a cells edge may be greater than the scaling factors for UEs that are closer to the center of the cell. An example of the mobilityStateParameters IE for such embodiments is shown by table 5(a), and the mobility state parameters of this version of the mobilityStateParameters IE are described in table 5(b). Additionally, an example of the SpeedStateScaleFactors IE for these embodiments shown by table 6(a), and the SF parameters of the SpeedStateScaleFactors IE for such embodiments are described by table 6(b). 
     
       
         
           
               
             
               
                 TABLE 5(a) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 MobilityStateParameters information element 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 -- ASN1START 
                   
               
               
                 MobilityStateParameters ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                   t-Evaluation 
                  ENUMERATED { 
               
               
                   
                   s30, s60, s120, s180, s240, spare3, spare2, spare1}, 
               
               
                   t-HystNormal 
                  ENUMERATED { 
               
               
                   
                   s30, s60, s120, s180, s240, spare3, spare2, spare1}, 
               
               
                   n-CellChangeMedium 
                  INTEGER (1..16), 
               
               
                   n-CellChangeHigh 
                  INTEGER (1..16), 
               
               
                   weightedCellCountList 
                  SET { 
               
               
                     weightedCellCountCell 
                   SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                       physCellID 
                    PhysCellId 
               
               
                       n-BeamChange-High 
                      INTEGER (1..N), 
               
               
                       n-BeamChange-Medium 
                      INTEGER (1..N), 
               
               
                       n-TRPChange-High 
                      INTEGER (1..M), 
               
               
                       n-TRPChange-Medium 
                      INTEGER (1..M) 
               
               
                     } 
                   
               
               
                   } 
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
               
               
                 -- ASN1STOP 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 5(b) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Parameter 
                 Description 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 t-Evaluation 
                 The duration for evaluating criteria to enter  
               
               
                   
                 mobility states in seconds; value in seconds,  
               
               
                   
                 where s30 corresponds to 30 seconds and so  
               
               
                   
                 on; corresponds to the parameter T CRmax . 
               
               
                 t-HystNormal 
                 An additional duration for evaluating criteria  
               
               
                   
                 to enter normal mobility state in seconds;  
               
               
                   
                 value in seconds, where s30 corresponds to  
               
               
                   
                 30 seconds and so on; corresponds to the 
               
               
                   
                 parameter T CRmaxHyst . 
               
               
                 n-CellChangeHigh 
                 The number of cell changes to enter a high  
               
               
                   
                 mobility state; corresponds to the parameter  
               
               
                   
                 N CR _H. 
               
               
                 n-CellChangeMedium 
                 The number of cell changes to enter a medium  
               
               
                   
                 mobility state; corresponds to the parameter  
               
               
                   
                 N CR _M. 
               
               
                 weightedCellCountList 
                 List of cells to consider for weighted cell  
               
               
                   
                 count for Mobility State Estimation. 
               
               
                 weightedCellCountCell 
                 Individual cell to consider for weighted cell  
               
               
                   
                 count for Mobility State Estimation. 
               
               
                 physCellID 
                 Physical cell identity of the cell to be  
               
               
                   
                 considered for Mobility State Estimation. 
               
               
                 n-BeamChange- 
                 The number of beam switches to enter a  
               
               
                 Medium 
                 medium mobility state. 
               
               
                 n-BeamChange-High 
                 The number of beam switches to enter a high  
               
               
                   
                 mobility state. 
               
               
                 n-TRPChange- 
                 The number of TRP switches in the given cell  
               
               
                 Medium 
                 to enter a medium mobility state. 
               
               
                 n-TRPChange-High 
                 The number of TRP switches in the given cell  
               
               
                   
                 to enter a high mobility state. 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     
       
         
           
               
             
               
                 TABLE 6(a) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 SpeedStateScaleFactors information element 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                   
               
            
           
           
               
               
            
               
                 -- ASN1START 
                   
               
               
                 SpeedStateScaleFactors ::= 
                 SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                   sf-Medium 
                  ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0}, 
               
               
                   sf-High 
                  ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0}, 
               
               
                   weightedCellCountList 
                 SET { 
               
               
                     weightedCellCountCell 
                  SEQUENCE { 
               
               
                       sf-BeamChange-Medium 
                     ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0, ...}, 
               
               
                       sf-BeamChange-High 
                     ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0, ...}, 
               
               
                       sf-TRPChange-Medium 
                     ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0, ...}, 
               
               
                       sf-TRPChange-High 
                     ENUMERATED {oDot25, oDot5, oDot75, lDot0, ...}, 
               
               
                     } 
                   
               
               
                 } 
                   
               
               
                 -- ASN1STOP 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 6(b) 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Parameter 
                 Description 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 sf-High 
                 The concerned mobility control related parameter is  
               
               
                   
                 multiplied with this factor if the UE is in High  
               
               
                   
                 Mobility state; Value oDot25 corresponds to 0.25,  
               
               
                   
                 oDot5 corresponds to 0.5, oDot75 corresponds to  
               
               
                   
                 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                 sf-Medium 
                 The concerned mobility control related parameter is  
               
               
                   
                 multiplied with this factor if the UE is in Medium  
               
               
                   
                 Mobility state as defined in TS 36.304 [4]. Value  
               
               
                   
                 oDot25 corresponds to 0.25, oDot5 corresponds to 
               
               
                   
                 0.5, oDot75 corresponds to 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                 sf-TRPChange- 
                 Scaling factor to be applied to the TRP switch count  
               
               
                 Medium 
                 for Mobility State Estimation. The concerned  
               
               
                   
                 mobility control related parameter is multiplied with  
               
               
                   
                 this factor if the UE is in Medium Mobility state; 
               
               
                   
                 value oDot25 corresponds to 0.25, oDot5 corresponds  
               
               
                   
                 to 0.5, oDot75 corresponds to 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                 sf-TRPChange- 
                 Scaling factor to be applied to the TRP switch count  
               
               
                 High 
                 for Mobility State Estimation. The concerned mobility  
               
               
                   
                 control related parameter is multiplied with this factor  
               
               
                   
                 if the UE is in High Mobility state; value oDot25  
               
               
                   
                 corresponds to 0.25, oDot5 corresponds to 0.5,  
               
               
                   
                 oDot75 corresponds to 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                 sf- 
                 Scaling factor to be applied to the beam switch count  
               
               
                 BeamChange- 
                 for Mobility State Estimation. The concerned  
               
               
                 Medium 
                 mobility control related parameter is multiplied with  
               
               
                   
                 this factor to if the UE is in Medium Mobility state; 
               
               
                   
                 value oDot25 corresponds to 0.25, oDot5 corresponds  
               
               
                   
                 to 0.5, oDot75 corresponds to 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                 sf- 
                 Scaling factor to be applied to the beam switch count  
               
               
                 BeamChange- 
                 for Mobility State Estimation. The concerned mobility  
               
               
                 High 
                 control related parameter is multiplied with this factor  
               
               
                   
                 if the UE is in High Mobility state; value oDot25  
               
               
                   
                 corresponds to 0.25, oDot5 corresponds to 0.5,  
               
               
                   
                 oDot75 corresponds to 0.75 and so on. 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     In the examples of tables 5(a) and 6(a), some of the information included in the mobilityStateParameters IE and/or the SpeedStateScaleFactors IE may be omitted based on the particular MSE embodiment that is used for performing the MSE. These MSE embodiments are discussed in more detail infra with respect to operation  1325 . 
     At operation  1315 , the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may increment a mobility counter for each handover or cell reselection that occurs, for each transmission-reception point (TRP) switch that occurs, and/or for each beam switch that occurs. In embodiments, the processor circuitry  101  may implement an individual counters for each handover/cell reselection, TRP switch, and beam switch. 
     In first MSE embodiments, the mobility counter may only be used to count the number of handovers or cell reselections, and the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may increment the mobility counter when a new cell ID is obtained during an attachment procedure. 
     In second MSE embodiments, a mobility counter may only be used to count the number of TRP switches, and the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may increment the mobility counter when a TRP identifier is obtained during a TRP switching procedure or after successful completion the TRP switching procedure. 
     In third MSE embodiments, a first mobility counter may be used to count the number of cell reselections/handovers and a second mobility counter may be used to count a number of beam switches that occur. In these embodiments, the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may increment the first mobility counter may increment the mobility counter when a new cell ID is obtained during an attachment procedure or after successful completion of a handover or cell reselection procedure, and the processor circuitry may increment the second mobility counter after successful completion of a beam switching or beam recovery procedure. 
     In fourth MSE embodiments, a first mobility counter may be used to count the number of cell reselections/handovers and a second mobility counter may be used to count a number of TRP switches that occur. In these embodiments, the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may increment the first mobility counter may increment the mobility counter when a new cell ID is obtained during an attachment procedure or after successful completion of a handover or cell reselection procedure, and the processor circuitry may increment the second mobility counter after successful completion of a TRP switching procedure. 
     In fifth MSE embodiments, a first mobility counter may be used to count the number of cell reselections/handovers, a second mobility counter may be used to count a number of TRP switches that occur, and a third mobility counter may be used to count a number of beam switches that occur. In these embodiments, the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may increment the first mobility counter may increment the mobility counter when a new cell ID is obtained during an attachment procedure or after successful completion of a handover or cell reselection procedure; the processor circuitry may increment the second mobility counter after successful completion of a TRP switching procedure; and the processor circuitry may increment the third mobility counter after successful completion of a beam switching or beam recovery procedure. 
     Referring back to  FIG. 13 , at operation  1320 , the processor circuitry of the UE  101  may determine whether the MSE time period has expired, which may be based on the value of the t-Evaluation and/or the t-HystNormal parameters discussed previously. If at operation  1320  the processor circuitry determines that the time period has not expired, the processor circuitry may loop back to operation  1315  to increment the mobility counter(s) based on cell, TRP, and/or beam switches. If at operation  1320  the processor circuitry determines that the time period has not expired, the processor circuitry may proceed to operation  1325  to estimate a current mobility state based on the MSE thresholds, the value(s) of the mobility state counter(s), and/or the estimated cell size. 
     According to the first MSE embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state in a similar manner as in LTE implementations, except that the cell reselections are based on the number of cell IDs that the UE  101  obtains. For example, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the medium mobility when the number of cell reselections during time period of t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-CellChangeMedium, but does not exceed the value of n-CellChangeHigh; and may estimate the mobility state to be the high mobility state when the number of cell reselections during the time period t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-CellChangeHigh. The processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the normal mobility state when the neither of the medium or high mobility states are determined, such as when the number of cell reselections during time period of t-Evaluation is less than or equal to the value of n-CellChangeMedium. In the first MSE embodiments, operation  1325  may be omitted. 
     According to the second MSE embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state in a similar manner as in the first MSE examples, except that the mobility state may be based on the number TRP switches. For example, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the medium mobility when the number of cell reselections during time period of t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-TRPChangeMedium, but does not exceed the value of n-TRPChangeHigh; and may estimate the mobility state to be the high mobility state when the number of cell reselections during the time period t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-TRPChangeHigh. The processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the normal mobility state when the neither of the medium or high mobility states are determined, such as when the number of cell reselections during time period of t-Evaluation is less than or equal to the value of n-TRPChangeMedium. In the second MSE embodiments, operation  1325  may be omitted. 
     According to the third MSE embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state based on the beam switch count of current serving cell. In these embodiments, the processor circuitry may apply the sf-BeamChange-High and the sf-BeamChange-Medium to the beam switch count of the beam mobility counter, and may compare these values to the n-BeamChange-High and the n-BeamChange-Medium values, respectively. For example, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the medium mobility when the number of beam switches that is adjusted using the sf-BeamChange-Medium during time period of t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-BeamChange-Medium, but does not exceed the value of n-BeamChange-High (which may or may not be adjusted using the sf-BeamChange-High). The processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the high mobility state when the number of beam switches that is adjusted using the sf-BeamChange-High during the time period t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-BeamChange-High. The processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the normal mobility state when the neither of the medium or high mobility states are determined, such as when the number of beam switches during time period of t-Evaluation is less than or equal to the adjusted value of n-BeamChange-Medium. In the third MSE embodiments, operation  1325  may be omitted since the individual scaling factors are based on the cell size. Additionally, the TRP related thresholds and scaling factors may be omitted from the mobilityStateParameters IE and/or the SpeedStateScaleFactors IE in the third embodiments. 
     According to the fourth MSE embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state based on the TRP switch count of current serving cell. In these embodiments, the processor circuitry may apply the sf-TRPChange-High and the sf-TRPChange-Medium to the TRP switch count of the TRP mobility counter, and may compare these values to the n-TRPChange-High and the n-TRPChange-Medium values, respectively. For example, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the medium mobility when the number of TRP switches that is adjusted using the sf-TRPChange-Medium during time period of t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-TRPChange-Medium, but does not exceed the value of n-TRPChange-High (which may or may not be adjusted using the sf-TRPChange-High). The processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the high mobility state when the number of TRP switches that is adjusted using the sf-TRPChange-High during the time period t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-TRPChange-High. The processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the normal mobility state when the neither of the medium or high mobility states are determined, such as when the number of beam switches during time period of t-Evaluation is less than or equal to the value of the adjusted n-TRPChange-Medium. In the fourth MSE embodiments, operation  1325  may be omitted since the individual scaling factors are based on the cell size. Additionally, the beam related thresholds and scaling factors may be omitted from the mobilityStateParameters IE and/or the SpeedStateScaleFactors IE in the fourth embodiments. 
     The fifth MSE embodiments may include a combination of the third and fourth MSE embodiments discussed previously. In the fifth embodiments, the processor circuitry may apply the sf-BeamChange-High and the sf-BeamChange-Medium to the beam switch count of the beam mobility counter, where the adjusted values may be compared to the n-BeamChange-High and the n-BeamChange-Medium values, respectively; and the processor circuitry may apply the sf-TRPChange-High and the sf-TRPChange-Medium to the TRP switch count of the TRP mobility counter, where these adjusted values may be compared to the n-TRPChange-High and the n-TRPChange-Medium values, respectively. 
     In these embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the medium mobility when both the adjusted number of TRP switches and the adjusted number of beam switches during time period of t-Evaluation exceeds the value of n-TRPChange-Medium and the value of n-BeamChange-Medium, respectively, and do not exceed the (adjusted or non-adjusted) value of n-TRPChange-High and the (adjusted or non-adjusted) value of n-BeamChange-High, respectively. Additionally, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the high mobility state when both the adjusted number of TRP switches and the adjusted number of beam switches during the time period t-Evaluation exceeds the adjusted value of n-TRPChange-High and the adjusted value of n-BeamChange-High, respectively. Similar to the other MSE embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the mobility state to be the normal mobility state when neither the high mobility state nor the medium mobility stated are determined. 
     According to sixth MSE embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the cell size at operation  1325 , which may be used to adjust the mobility state estimation. In these embodiments, the processor circuitry may estimate the cell size based on the number of TRPs of a particular cell and/or the number of beam switches that were counted at operation  1315 . In embodiments, the configuration message may indicate the number of TRPs for corresponding cell IDs or measurement objects. The number of TRPs per cell ID may be included in the MeasConfig IE, the mobilityStateParameters IE, or some other suitable IE or data structure. 
     As discussed previously, cell size estimation at operation  1325  may be based on the number of TRPs within a cell and/or the number of beam switches that take place within the cell. In some cases, the UE could estimate that a particular cell is relatively large when a large number of beam switches take place within that cell. In other words, in some embodiments, an estimated cell size may increase as the number of counted beam switches increases. In other cases, the UE may count relatively few beam or TRP switches, which may be due to the UE moving along the cell&#39;s edge. These cases may exist where a RAN node is deployed in such a manner that the trajectory for UE handovers to that cell is at the cell edge, which may be indicative of a relatively small cell. 
     In addition to the above, the above beam and TRP related embodiments may be performed by the UE  101  when the UE  101  is in a connected mode (for example, an RRC_CONNECTED mode, or the like). However, when the UE  101  is in an idle mode for example, an RRC_IDLE mode, or the like), the UE  101  may not be able to perform or have knowledge of the TRP or beam related information. In these cases, the UE  101  may know the change of the highest signal values in each block within L blocks, and may use the L index change as the beam change or switch as the beam information discussed previously. In alternative embodiments, the processor circuitry may use the beam switching count regardless of the current network beams. 
     Some non-limiting examples are provided infra. The following examples pertain to further embodiments. Specifics in the examples may be used anywhere in one or more embodiments discussed previously. All optional features of devices described herein may also be implemented with respect to one or more methods or processes, and vice versa. 
     Example 1 may include one or more computer-readable storage media, “CRSM”, having instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a user equipment, “UE”, is to cause the UE to: identify, from a received radio resource control, “RRC”, message, a conditional handover, “CHO”, command, wherein the CHO is to indicate a first condition and a second condition, wherein the first condition is to indicate a condition to execute a handover, “HO”, of the CHO and the second condition is to indicate a condition to not execute the HO; and perform an HO procedure when the first condition is met before the second condition is met; and discard the CHO when the second condition is met and the first condition is not met. 
     Example 2 may include the one or more CRSM of example 1 and/or some other examples herein, wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: initiate a validity timer; and perform the HO procedure when the first condition is met before expiration of the validity timer, wherein the second condition comprises expiration of the validity timer. 
     Example 3 may include the one or more CRSM of example 2 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the validity timer corresponds with an individual target cell or an individual target beam, and execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: perform the HO procedure with the individual target cell or the individual target beam when the first condition is met before expiration of the validity timer. 
     Example 4 may include the one or more CRSM of example 2 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the validity timer corresponds with a plurality of target cells or a plurality of target beams, and execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: perform the HO procedure with a target cell of the plurality of target cells or a target beam of the plurality of target beams when the first condition is met for the target cell or the target beam before expiration of the validity timer. 
     Example 5 may include the one or more CRSM of any one of examples 2-4 and/or some other examples herein, wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: initiate the validity timer in response to receipt of the CHO; initiate the validity timer when a serving cell signal strength or serving beam signal strength is below a threshold indicated by the RRC message; or initiate the validity timer when a difference between a serving cell signal strength and a target cell signal or a difference between a serving beam signal strength and a target beam signal strength is within a range indicated by the RRC message. 
     Example 6 may include the one or more CRSM of example 1 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the second condition is met when a difference between a source cell signal-to-noise-and-interference, “SINR”, and a target cell SINR becomes less than a measurement report threshold, or when a difference between a source beam SINR and a target beam SINR becomes less than another measurement report threshold. 
     Example 7 may include the one or more CRSM of example 1 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the second condition is met when a target cell SINR is less than or equal to a source cell SINR or when a target beam SING is less than or equal to a source beam SINR. 
     Example 8 may include the one or more CRSM of example 1, 6, or 7 and/or some other examples herein, wherein, when the second condition is met, execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: control radio control circuitry to perform one or more measurements of one or more cells or one or more beams; and control transmission of a measurement report to indicate signal strengths of the one or more cells or the one or more beams. 
     Example 9 may include the one or more CRSM of example 8 and/or some other examples herein, wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: detect, based on the one or more measurements, a new cell that is not among the one or more cells or a new beam that is not among the one or more beams; and when a signal strength or signal quality of the new cell or the new beam is greater than or equal to a signal strength or signal quality of a service cell or serving beam, discard the CHO, and control transmission of another measurement report to indicate the signal strength or the signal quality of the new cell or the new beam. 
     Example 10 may include the one or more CRSM of any one of examples 1-9, wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: control transmission of a scheduling request, a random access response, or an RRC connection reestablishment message when the second condition is met. 
     Example 11 may include the one or more CRSM of examples 10 and/or some other examples herein, wherein, when the first condition is met, execution of the instructions is to cause the UE to: control transmission of a message to a source cell or a transmission-reception point that is to provide a source beam after performance of the HO procedure, wherein the message is to indicate successful performance of the HO procedure. 
     Example 12 may include an apparatus to be employed as a user equipment, “UE”, the apparatus comprising: processing means for: identifying, from a received configuration message, a plurality of mobility state estimation, “MSE”, thresholds, wherein each MSE threshold of the plurality of MSE thresholds corresponds to an MSE value, and determine an MSE of the UE to be an individual MSE value when a value of a mobility counter is less than or equal to an MSE threshold that corresponds with the individual MSE value; and communication means for receiving the configuration message. 
     Example 13 may include the apparatus of example 12 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: incrementing the mobility counter when a handover or cell reselection is to occur with a cell having a cell identifier (cellID) that is different than a cellID of a current serving cell. 
     Example 14 may include the apparatus of example 12 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: incrementing the mobility counter when beam selection or beam switching occurs. 
     Example 15 may include the apparatus of example 12 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: incrementing the mobility counter in response to receipt of one or more beams from a transmission-reception point, “TRP”, that is different than a TRP from which the UE received another one or more beams. 
     Example 16 may include the apparatus of example 15 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: identifying, from the received configuration message, a number of beam switches or a number of TRP switches for each cell of a plurality of cells; and identifying, from the received configuration message, a scaling factor associated with a corresponding cell of the plurality of cells, wherein the scaling factor is to be applied to the MSE thresholds associated with the corresponding cell, and wherein the scaling factor for each cell is based on the number of beam switches that occur in each cell or the number of TRP switches of each cell. 
     Example 17 may include the apparatus of any one of examples 13-16 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: identifying, from the received RRC message, a number of TRPs for each cell of a plurality of cells; estimating a cell size for each cell based on the number of TRPs for each cell; and determining the MSE of the UE based on the estimated cell size. 
     Example 18 may include an apparatus to be employed as a radio access network node, the apparatus comprising: processing means for: determining a plurality of mobility state estimation, “MSE”, thresholds, wherein each MSE threshold of the plurality of MSE thresholds corresponds to an MSE value, and generating a configuration message to indicate the plurality of MSE thresholds; and communication means for signaling the configuration message to a user equipment. 
     Example 19 may include the apparatus of example 18 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: determining a number of transmission-reception points, “TRPs”, for each cell of a plurality of cells, wherein the number of TRPs for each cell are to be used for estimating a size of each cell; and generating the configuration message to indicate the number of TRPs for each cell. 
     Example 20 may include the apparatus of example 18 or 19 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: determining a threshold number of beam switches or a threshold number of TRP switches for each cell of a plurality of cells based on a size of each cell; and generating the configuration message to indicate the threshold number of beam switches or the threshold number of TRP switches. 
     Example 21 may include the apparatus of example 20 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the processing means is for: determining a plurality of scaling factors that are associated with a corresponding cell of the plurality of cells, wherein each of the plurality of scaling factors are to be applied to the threshold number of beam switches or the threshold number of TRP switches of corresponding cell; and generating the configuration message to indicate the plurality of scaling factors. 
     Example 22 may include an apparatus to be employed as a radio access network node, the apparatus comprising: radio control circuitry to receive a measurement report from a user equipment, “UE”; and processor circuitry communicatively coupled with the radio control circuitry, the processor circuitry to generate a conditional handover, “CHO”, request message when the UE is to be handed over to a target radio access network node; and network controller circuitry communicatively coupled with the processor circuitry, the network controller circuitry to: send the CHO request message to the target radio access network node, and obtain, from the target radio access network node, a radio resource control, “RRC”, message to be sent to the UE, wherein the RRC message is to include a CHO command, and wherein the CHO command is to indicate a CHO condition and an exit condition, wherein the CHO condition is to indicate a condition, which when fulfilled, is cause the UE to initiate a handover, “HO”, with the target radio access network node, and the exit condition is to indicate a condition, which when fulfilled, is to cause the UE to discard the CHO command. 
     Example 23 may include the apparatus of example 22 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the radio control circuitry is to transmit the RRC message to the UE in response to receipt of the RRC message by the network controller circuitry. 
     Example 24 may include the apparatus of example 22 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the radio control circuitry is to receive a message from the UE to indicate successful completion of the HO with the target radio access network node, or the network controller circuitry is to obtain a message from the target radio access network node to indicate successful completion of the HO with the UE. 
     Example 25 may include the apparatus of any one of examples 22-24 and/or some other examples herein, the processor circuitry is to determine that the UE is to be handed over to the target radio access network node based on signal strength or signal quality measurements included in the measurement report. 
     Example 26 may include a method to be performed by a user equipment, “UE”, the method comprising: identifying or causing to identify, from a received radio resource control, “RRC”, message, a conditional handover, “CHO”, command, wherein the CHO is to indicate a first condition and a second condition, wherein the first condition is to indicate a condition to execute a handover, “HO”, of the CHO and the second condition is to indicate a condition to not execute the HO; performing or causing to perform an HO procedure when the first condition is met before the second condition is met; and discarding or causing to discard the CHO when the second condition is met and the first condition is not met. 
     Example 27 may include the method of example 26 and/or some other examples herein, further comprising: initiating or causing to initiate a validity timer; and performing or causing to perform the HO procedure when the first condition is met before expiration of the validity timer, wherein the second condition comprises expiration of the validity timer. 
     Example 28 may include the method of example 27 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the validity timer corresponds with an individual target cell or an individual target beam, and the method comprises: performing or causing to perform the HO procedure with the individual target cell or the individual target beam when the first condition is met before expiration of the validity timer. 
     Example 29 may include the method of example 27 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the validity timer corresponds with a plurality of target cells or a plurality of target beams, and the method comprises: performing or causing to perform the HO procedure with a target cell of the plurality of target cells or a target beam of the plurality of target beams when the first condition is met for the target cell or the target beam before expiration of the validity timer. 
     Example 30 may include the method of any one of examples 27-29 and/or some other examples herein, further comprising: initiating or causing to initiate the validity timer in response to receipt of the CHO; initiating or causing to initiate the validity timer when a serving cell signal strength or serving beam signal strength is below a threshold indicated by the RRC message; or initiating or causing to initiate the validity timer when a difference between a serving cell signal strength and a target cell signal or a difference between a serving beam signal strength and a target beam signal strength is within a range indicated by the RRC message. 
     Example 31 may include the method of example 26 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the second condition is met when a difference between a source cell signal-to-noise-and-interference, “SINR”, and a target cell SINR becomes less than a measurement report threshold, or when a difference between a source beam SINR and a target beam SINR becomes less than another measurement report threshold. 
     Example 32 may include the method of example 26 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the second condition is met when a target cell SINR is less than or equal to a source cell SINR or when a target beam SING is less than or equal to a source beam SINR. 
     Example 33 may include the method of examples 26-32 and/or some other examples herein, wherein, when the second condition is met, and the method comprises: performing or causing to perform one or more measurements of one or more cells or one or more beams; and transmitting or causing to transmit a measurement report to indicate signal strengths of the one or more cells or the one or more beams. 
     Example 34 may include the method of example 33 and/or some other examples herein, further comprising: detecting or causing to detect, based on the one or more measurements, a new cell that is not among the one or more cells or a new beam that is not among the one or more beams; and when a signal strength or signal quality of the new cell or the new beam is greater than or equal to a signal strength or signal quality of a service cell or serving beam, discarding or causing to discard the CHO, and transmitting or causing to transmit another measurement report to indicate the signal strength or the signal quality of the new cell or the new beam. 
     Example 35 may include the method of any one of examples 26-24, further comprising: transmitting or causing to transmit a scheduling request, a random access response, or an RRC connection reestablishment message when the second condition is met. 
     Example 36 may include the method of examples 35 and/or some other examples herein, wherein, when the first condition is met, the method comprises: transmitting or causing to transmit a message to a source cell or a transmission-reception point that is to provide a source beam after performance of the HO procedure, wherein the message is to indicate successful performance of the HO procedure. 
     Example 37 may include a method to be performed by a user equipment, “UE”, the apparatus comprising: identifying or causing to identify, from a received configuration message, a plurality of mobility state estimation, “MSE”, thresholds, wherein each MSE threshold of the plurality of MSE thresholds corresponds to an MSE value; determining or causing to determine an MSE of the UE to be an individual MSE value when a value of a mobility counter is less than or equal to an MSE threshold that corresponds with the individual MSE value; and receiving or causing to receive the configuration message. 
     Example 38 may include the method of example 37 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the method comprises: incrementing or causing to increment the mobility counter when a handover or cell reselection is to occur with a cell having a cell identifier (cellID) that is different than a cellID of a current serving cell. 
     Example 39 may include the method of example 38 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the method comprises: incrementing or causing to increment the mobility counter when beam selection or beam switching occurs. 
     Example 40 may include the method of example 38 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the method comprises: incrementing or causing to increment the mobility counter in response to receipt of one or more beams from a transmission-reception point, “TRP”, that is different than a TRP from which the UE received another one or more beams. 
     Example 41 may include the method of example 40 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the further comprising: identifying or causing to identify, from the received configuration message, a number of beam switches or a number of TRP switches for each cell of a plurality of cells; and identifying or causing to identify, from the received configuration message, a scaling factor associated with a corresponding cell of the plurality of cells, wherein the scaling factor is to be applied to the MSE thresholds associated with the corresponding cell, and wherein the scaling factor for each cell is based on the number of beam switches that occur in each cell or the number of TRP switches of each cell. 
     Example 42 may include the method of any one of examples 38-41 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the method comprises: identifying or causing to identify, from the received RRC message, a number of TRPs for each cell of a plurality of cells; estimating or causing to estimate a cell size for each cell based on the number of TRPs for each cell; and determining or causing to determine the MSE of the UE based on the estimated cell size. 
     Example 43 may include a method to be performed by a radio access network node, the method comprising: determining or causing to determine a plurality of mobility state estimation, “MSE”, thresholds, wherein each MSE threshold of the plurality of MSE thresholds corresponds to an MSE value; generating or causing to generate a configuration message to indicate the plurality of MSE thresholds; and signaling or causing to signal the configuration message to a user equipment. 
     Example 44 may include the method of example 43 and/or some other examples herein, further comprising: determining or causing to determine a number of transmission-reception points, “TRPs”, for each cell of a plurality of cells, wherein the number of TRPs for each cell are to be used for estimating a size of each cell; and generating or causing to generate the configuration message to indicate the number of TRPs for each cell. 
     Example 45 may include the method of example 43 or 44 and/or some other examples herein, further comprising: determining or causing to determine a threshold number of beam switches or a threshold number of TRP switches for each cell of a plurality of cells based on a size of each cell; and generating or causing to generate the configuration message to indicate the threshold number of beam switches or the threshold number of TRP switches. 
     Example 46 may include the method of example 45 and/or some other examples herein, further comprising: determining or causing to determine a plurality of scaling factors that are associated with a corresponding cell of the plurality of cells, wherein each of the plurality of scaling factors are to be applied to the threshold number of beam switches or the threshold number of TRP switches of corresponding cell; and generating or causing to generate the configuration message to indicate the plurality of scaling factors. 
     Example 47 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-46, or any other method or process described herein. Example 48 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-46, or any other method or process described herein. Example 49 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-46, or any other method or process described herein. Example 50 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1-46, or portions or parts thereof. Example 51 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1-46, or portions thereof. Example 52 may include a signal as described in or related to any of examples 1-46, or portions or parts thereof. Example 53 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown and described herein. Example 54 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein. Example 55 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein. Example 56 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein. 
     The foregoing description of the above examples provides illustration and description for the example embodiments disclosed herein, but the above Examples are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the invention to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings and/or may be acquired from practice of various implementations of the embodiments discussed herein.

Metadata:
Filing Date: 20180222
Publication Date: 20221122
Grant Date: 20221122
Priority Date: 20170227
Inventors: YIU, Candy
ALI, Ansab
Assignee: APPLE INC
CPC Classifications: [{"code": "H04W36/0072", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/00837", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/165", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W48/18", "inventive": false, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/00833", "inventive": false, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/00837", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/165", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/00837", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/0072", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/00838", "inventive": false, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/32", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/0072", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/165", "inventive": false, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/00838", "inventive": false, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}]
Family ID: 61599603