System and method for managing neighbors in a communications system with beamforming

A method for operating a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:

• sending, by the UE, a first measurement report to a first transmit-receive point (TRP), the first measurement report including an identifier of a second TRP determined in accordance with first signals received from the second TRP, the second TRP being absent from a neighbor list configuration of the first TRP;
• receiving, by the UE, a request for a second measurement report, the second measurement report to include automatic neighbor relation (ANR) information associated with the second TRP, the ANR information including beam specific information;
• generating, by the UE, a subset of the ANR information in accordance with second signals received from the second TRP, the subset of the ANR information comprising at least one of a receive beam identifier used by the UE to receive transmissions from the second TRP, orientation information of the UE, or beamforming parameters of the second TRP;
• and
• sending, by the UE, the second measurement report to the first TRP, the second measurement report including the subset of the ANR information.

A first transmit-receive point (TRP) comprising:

• a non-transitory memory storage comprising instructions;
• and
• one or more processors in communication with the non-transitory memory storage,
• wherein the one or more processors execute the instructions to:
• receive a first measurement report from a user equipment (UE), the first measurement report including an identifier of a second TRP, the second TRP being absent from a neighbor list configuration of the first TRP,
• request a second measurement report to include automatic neighbor relation (ANR) information associated with the second TRP, wherein the ANR information includes beam specific information,
• receive, from the UE, the second measurement report including a first subset of the ANR information, wherein the first subset of the ANR information comprises at least one of a receive beam identifier used by the UE to receive transmissions from the second TRP, orientation information of the UE, or beamforming parameters of the second TRP, and
• determine a neighbor configuration with the second TRP in accordance with the first subset of the ANR information.

A user equipment (UE) comprising:

• a non-transitory memory storage comprising instructions;
• and
• one or more processors in communication with the non-transitory memory storage,
• wherein the one or more processors execute the instructions to:
• send a first measurement report to a first transmit-receive point (TRP), the first measurement report including an identifier of a second TRP determined in accordance with first signals received from the second TRP, the second TRP being absent from a neighbor list configuration of the first TRP,
• receive a request for a second measurement report, the second measurement report to include automatic neighbor relation (ANR) information associated with the second TRP,
• wherein the ANR information includes beam specific information,
• generate a subset of the ANR information in accordance with second signals received from the second TRP, wherein first subset of the ANR information comprises at least one of a receive beam identifier used by the UE to receive transmissions from the second TRP, orientation information of the UE, or beamforming parameters of the second TRP, and
• send the second measurement report to the first TRP, the second measurement report including the subset of the ANR information.