Random-access response with analog beamforming

Abstract

A system and method of Random-Access Response, RAR, messaging when a base station employs narrow beamforming. Multiple RAR messages are successively transmitted from the base station to a User Equipment, UE, before any response to a RAR message is received from the UE. Thus, despite any calibration mismatch between Uplink, UL, and Downlink, DL, beams in the beamformed system, a RAR message is not only received by the UE, but is received over the most-suitable DL beam for that UE. Each RAR message may contain a message-specific scheduling-delay indicator in the UL grant carried in the RAR message to provide an adjustable time delay for the UE's uplink transmission scheduled by the UL grant. Multiple RAR transmissions can schedule a single UL transmission at a specific time instance or different UL transmissions at different time intervals. The UE may report to the base station the best DL RAR transmission detected by the UE.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.