Relay user equipment (ue) radio resource control (rrc) connection status indicator

A relay user equipment (UE) device comprising:

• a transmitter configured to transmit a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection status indicator indicating a current connection status of the first candidate relay UE device to a base station, the RRC connection status indicator transmitted over a sidelink communication link to at least one remote UE device.

A base station comprising:

• a transceiver comprising a transmitter and a receiver, the transceiver configured to communicate with a remote user equipment (UE) device over a direct communication link,
• the receiver configured to receive, from the remote UE device measurement report comprising link quality measurements of signals received from candidate relay UE devices at the remote UE devices, link quality measurements only including link quality measurements of signals received from candidate relay UE devices in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection status of connected (RRC CONN) with the base station;
• a controller configured to identify one of the candidate relay UE devices as a target relay UE device, the transmitter further configured to transmit an RRC reconfiguration message to the remote UE device to switch the remote UE device from the direct communication link to an indirect communication link through the target relay UE device.