System and Method for Device Discovery for Device-to-Device Communication in a Cellular Network

Abstract

An embodiment of a system enables a user equipment to employ a buddy list to initiate a D2D discovery process. The user equipment constructs a buddy list including other user equipments with which the user equipment would desire to communicate employing a D2D communication link. The user equipment transmits the buddy list to a serving base station. The user equipment transmits a request to the serving base station that it desires to communicate over a D2D communication link with a second user equipment that is on the buddy list. The user equipment receives D2D link setup information from the serving base station for the communication link with the second user equipment. The user equipment transmits a beacon signal employing the D2D link setup information.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.