System and method for radio link monitoring and radio link recovery

A device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing programming for execution by the processor, the programming including instructions to:
• measure a reference signal received over one or more communication paths of a radio link extending between a user equipment (UE) and one or more network devices in a wireless network to generate reference signal measurements, the one or more communication paths being configured by the wireless network;
• select, from the one or more communication paths, at least one path for link quality assessment of a radio link operation based on the reference signal measurements and a configured criterion;
• generate a radio link indication based on an assessed link quality or a link recovery operation status associated with the selected at least one path;
• and
• send the radio link indication from a physical layer of the device to an upper layer of the device.

A method for radio link monitoring (RLM) in a device, comprising:

• measuring, by the device, reference signals received over one or more beams of a serving link between a user equipment (UE) and one or more network devices in a wireless network to generate reference signal measurements;
• selecting, from the one or more beams, at least one beam based on the measured reference signals in accordance with a network configured RLM criterion;
• deriving a serving link quality from the selected at least one beam according to the network configured RLM criterion;
• assessing the derived serving link quality by following the network configured RLM criterion to generate one or more first or periodic RLM indications;
• and
• sending the one or more first or periodic RLM indications to a same layer or an upper layer of the device.

A device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing programming for execution by the processor, the programming including instructions to:
• measure, by the device, reference signals received over one or more beams of a serving link between a user equipment (UE) and one or more network devices in a wireless network to generate reference signal measurements;
• select, from the one or more beams, at least one beam based on the measured reference signals in accordance with a network configured RLM criteria;
• derive a serving link quality from the selected at least one beam according to the network configured RLM criteria;
• assess the derived serving link quality by following the network configured RLM criteria to generate one or more first or periodic RLM indication(s);
• and
• send the one or more first or periodic RLM indication(s) to a same layer or an upper layer of the device.