Systems and methods for initializing HARQ-ACK procedure by a specific DCI for beam indication

A method comprising:

• transmitting, by a wireless communication node to a wireless communication device, a downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state, wherein the DCI foregoes scheduling of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, wherein the DCI is scrambled by a configured scheduling radio network temporary identifier (CS-RNTI), wherein, according to an absence of scheduling the PDSCH transmission, a redundancy value (RV) field in the DCI is set to bit values each being ‘1’, and a new data indicator (NDI) field in the DCI is set to a value of ‘0’;
• transmitting, by the wireless communication node to the wireless communication device, a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, the RRC indicating one or more signals to which the TCI state is applied according to the TCI field in the DCI;
• and
• receiving, by the wireless communication node from the wireless communication device, an uplink channel that carries hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information corresponding to the DCI, wherein the HARQ-ACK information is determined according to the DCI, and wherein the uplink channel carrying the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the DCI is received according to the absence of scheduling the PDSCH transmission in the DCI.

A wireless communication device, comprising:

• at least one processor configured to:
• receive, via a transceiver from a wireless communication node, a downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state, wherein the DCI foregoes scheduling of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission;
• determine one or more signals to which the TCI state is applied, according to a TCI field in the DCI, and according to a radio resource control (RRC) signaling from the wireless communication node;
• according to an absence of scheduling the PDSCH transmission in the DCI:
• determine, according to an absence of scheduling the PDSCH transmission, that the DCI is scrambled by a configured scheduling radio network temporary identifier (CS-RNTI), that a redundancy value (RV) field in the DCI is set to bit values each being ‘1’, and that a new data indicator (NDI) field in the DCI is set to a value of ‘0’;
• determine hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information according to the DCI;
• and
• transmit, via the transceiver to the wireless communication node, an uplink channel that carries the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the DCI.

A wireless communication node, comprising:

• at least one processor configured to:
• transmit, via a transceiver to a wireless communication device, a downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of a transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state, wherein the DCI foregoes scheduling of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, wherein the DCI is scrambled by a configured scheduling radio network temporary identifier (CS-RNTI), wherein, according to an absence of scheduling the PDSCH transmission, a redundancy value (RV) field in the DCI is set to bit values each being ‘1’, and a new data indicator (NDI) field in the DCI is set to a value of ‘0’;
• transmit, via the transceiver to the wireless communication device, a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, the RRC indicating one or more signals to which the TCI state is applied according to the TCI field in the DCI;
• and
• receive, via the transceiver from the wireless communication device, an uplink channel that carries hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information corresponding to the DCI, wherein the HARQ-ACK information is determined according to the DCI, and wherein the uplink channel carrying the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the DCI is received according to the absence of scheduling the PDSCH transmission in the DCI.