System and method for communications beam recovery

A user equipment (UE), comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing programming, the programming including instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the UE to perform operations including:
• receiving, from a network device, a beam failure recovery configuration message, the beam failure recovery configuration message indicating synchronization signals for beam failure recovery, the beam failure recovery configuration message indicating reference signals for beam failure recovery, and the beam failure recovery configuration message indicating time-domain or frequency-domain locations of random access channel (RACH) resources for beam failure recovery that are associated with the synchronization signals for beam failure recovery, at least one reference signal of the reference signals for beam failure recovery not being associated with the RACH resources for beam failure recovery;
• selecting the at least one reference signal of the reference signals for beam failure recovery based on quality measurements of the reference signals for beam failure recovery;
• and
• sending, to the network device, an indication of at least one synchronization signal of the synchronization signals for beam failure recovery over the RACH resources for beam failure recovery, the at least one reference signal for beam failure recovery being quasi-co-located with the at least one synchronization signal for beam failure recovery identified by the indication sent over the RACH resources for beam failure recovery.

A method, comprising:

• receiving, by a user equipment (UE) from a network device, a beam failure recovery configuration message, the beam failure recovery configuration message indicating synchronization signals for beam failure recovery, the beam failure recovery configuration message indicating reference signals for beam failure recovery, and the beam failure recovery configuration message indicating time-domain or frequency-domain locations of random access channel (RACH) resources for beam failure recovery that are associated with the synchronization signals for beam failure recovery, at least one reference signal of the reference signals for beam failure recovery not being associated with the RACH resources for beam failure recovery;
• selecting, by the UE, the at least one reference signal of the reference signals for beam failure recovery based on quality measurements of the reference signals for beam failure recovery;
• sending, by the UE to the network device, an indication of at least one synchronization signal of the synchronization signals for beam failure recovery over the RACH resources for beam failure recovery;
• and
• receiving, by the UE from the network device, a beam failure recovery message over a control channel, the beam failure recovery message configuring the UE to perform a beam failure recovery procedure, wherein the control channel is quasi-co-located with the at least one synchronization signal identified by the indication received over the RACH resources for beam failure recovery.