Discovering physical cell identifiers in wireless communications

An apparatus for discovering physical cell identifiers in wireless communications, comprising:

• a transceiver for transmitting or receiving one or more signals via one or more antennas;
• a memory configured to store instructions;
• and
• a processor coupled to the transceiver and the memory, the processor being configured to execute the instructions to:
• determine to discover a physical cell identifier of one or more cells in a zone based at least in part on detecting a condition and acquiring synchronization with the zone;
• transmit a chirp signal to the one or more cells in the zone based at least in part on determining to discover the physical cell identifier;
• receive, in response to the chirp signal, a cell-specific signal from at least one cell of the one or more cells in the zone;
• associate the cell-specific signal with one of a plurality of cell-specific signal hypotheses;
• and
• determine the physical cell identifier of the at least one cell as one of a plurality of physical cell identifiers that corresponds to the one of the plurality of cell-specific signal hypotheses.

A method for facilitating discovery of physical cell identifiers in wireless communications, comprising:

• transmitting a unified synchronization signal with one or more cells in a zone of cells;
• determining to transmit a cell-specific signal based at least in part on receiving a chirp signal from a wireless device indicating to transmit the cell-specific signal;
• associating the cell-specific signal to a physical cell identifier;
• and
• transmitting the cell-specific signal as scrambled as part of operating in the zone of cells.

An apparatus for facilitating discovery of physical cell identifiers in wireless communications, comprising:

• a transceiver for transmitting or receiving one or more signals via one or more antennas;
• a memory configured to store instructions;
• and
• a processor coupled to the transceiver and the memory, the processor being configured to execute the instructions to:
• transmit a unified synchronization signal with one or more cells in a zone of cells;
• determine to transmit a cell-specific signal based at least in part on receiving a chirp signal from a wireless device indicating to transmit the cell-specific signal;
• associate the cell-specific signal to a physical cell identifier;
• and
• transmit, via the transceiver, the cell-specific signal as scrambled as part of operating in the zone of cells.