Beam failure recovery mechanism for multi-beam operation

A user equipment (UE), comprising:

• a radio frequency (RF) receiver that receives beam failure recovery configuration from a base station over an established data connection using a serving beam pair link in a beamforming communication network;
• a beam monitor that monitors a plurality of reference signals associated with different downlink beams based on the beam failure recovery configuration;
• a radio frequency (RF) transmitter that transmits a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) message indicating a UE-identified candidate beam pair link to the base station when a triggering condition for beam failure recovery is satisfied, wherein the triggering condition comprises detecting a beam failure of the serving beam pair link(s) for a predefined evaluation period and identifying a candidate beam pair link, wherein the beam failure is detected when a block error ratio (BLER) of the serving beam pair link is below a threshold;
• and
• the beam monitor that monitors a response from the base station associated with the UE-identified candidate beam pair link.

A method, comprising:

• transmitting beam failure recovery configuration from a base station to a user equipment (UE) over an established data connection using a serving beam pair link in a beamforming communication network;
• receiving a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) message indicating UE-identified candidate beam pair link from the UE when a triggering condition for beam failure recovery is satisfied, wherein the triggering condition comprises detecting a beam failure of the serving beam pair link(s) for a predefined evaluation period and identifying a candidate beam pair link, wherein the beam failure is detected when a block error ratio (BLER) of the serving beam pair link is below a threshold;
• and
• transmitting a response from the base station to the UE, wherein the response is associated with the UE-identified candidate beam pair link.