Downlink beam management using a configurable deflector

A method for wireless communication at a base station, comprising:

• transmitting, to a channel engineering device, control signaling indicating a plurality of configurations for deflecting a set of downlink reference signal transmissions received from the base station;
• transmitting, to the channel engineering device, the set of downlink reference signal transmissions based at least in part on transmitting the control signaling indicating the plurality of configurations;
• and
• receiving, from the UE, a report indicating a configuration of the plurality of configurations for the channel engineering device to use to deflect subsequent transmissions from the base station to the UE based at least in part on transmitting the set of downlink reference signal transmissions.

A method for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE), comprising:

• receiving, from a channel engineering device, a set of downlink reference signal transmissions from a base station each deflected by the channel engineering device using a corresponding configuration of a plurality of configurations;
• performing measurements on each of the set of downlink reference signal transmissions deflected by the channel engineering device based at least in part on the receiving;
• and
• transmitting, to the channel engineering device, a report on the measurements performed on each of the set of downlink reference signal transmissions, wherein a resource on which the report is transmitted indicates a configuration of the plurality of configurations for the channel engineering device to use to deflect subsequent transmissions from the base station to the UE.

An apparatus for wireless communication at a channel engineering device, comprising:

• a processor,
• memory coupled with the processor;
• and
• instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
• receive, from a base station, control signaling indicating a plurality of configurations for deflecting a set of downlink reference signal transmissions received from the base station;
• deflect each downlink reference signal transmission of the set of downlink reference signal transmissions according to a corresponding configuration of the plurality of configurations;
• and
• receive, from the base station, an indication of a configuration of the plurality of configurations for the channel engineering device to use to deflect subsequent transmissions from the base station to a user equipment (UE) based at least in part on deflecting each downlink reference signal transmission from the base station.