QUALCOMM Incorporated
Techniques for non-zero-power beams in wireless systems

Abstract:

Some wireless communication networks may improve communication reliability and/or throughput using multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) schemes. MIMO operation may in turn be supported by the use of channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS), which may allow communicating devices to estimate and leverage multipath channel conditions. However, the signaling used to support such communications may consume significant resources. In accordance with the described techniques, a user equipment (UE) may identify non-zero-power beams based on received CSI-RS. The non-zero-power beams may contribute to the final precoding vector. Rather than transmitting beam coefficients relating to zero-power beams, the UE may instead indicate a presence of these zero-power beams to the base station (e.g., by indicating a number of non-zero-power beams). Such techniques may reduce overhead of the communications or otherwise benefit the system.