Fast and robust cell search for 5G and millimeter-wave wireless communication systems using joint frequency raster and receive beam search

A wireless device (WD) comprising:

• a multiple antenna subsystem, frequency tuner subsystem and beamformer subsystem connected to and configured by a digital controller to wirelessly make initial access with an access node (AN) by:
• continuously sweeping a plurality of receive beams over one or more receiver sweep periods at the WD to generate a composite sample waveform of a plurality of synchronization signal blocks (SSB) transmitted by the AN in different transmit beams;
• generating a composite received signal strength metric value from a batch of samples collected over the plurality of receive beams detected in the one or more receiver sweep periods to detect one or more SSBs in the composite sample waveform;
• jointly searching the composite sample waveform for an optimal receive beam and an optimal SSB receive frequency band of every detected SSB;
• and
• locking the WD onto the optimal receive beam and optimal SSB receive frequency band to perform a cell search.

A communication device for making initial access with a base station in a multiple antenna wireless communication system, comprising:

• a multi-antenna array;
• a beamformer module connected to apply a plurality of receive beamforming weights to the multi-antenna array to directionally orient each of a plurality of receive beams in a different direction to continuously sweep the plurality of receive beams over a receiver sweep period to generate a composite sample waveform of a plurality of synchronization signal blocks (SSB) transmitted by the base station with different transmit beams during the first synchronization signal block (SSB) burst to the communication device;
• and
• a digital signal processing controller configured to generate a composite received signal strength metric value from a batch of samples collected over the plurality of receive beams detected in the receiver sweep period to determine the presence of the SSB and to jointly search the composite sample waveform to identify an optimal SSB receive frequency band and an optimal receive beam based on a ranking of a plurality of received signal strength metric values, where each received signal strength metric value is computed for each receive beam and SSB receive frequency band from samples of each transmitted SSB measured in said receive beam and SSB frequency band.