Uplink timing and timing advance determination for area-specific sounding reference signals (srs) for positioning

A user equipment (UE), comprising:

• one or more memories;
• one or more transceivers;
• and
• one or more processors communicatively coupled to the one or more memories and the one or more transceivers, the one or more processors configured to:
• transmit, via the one or more transceivers, one or more area-specific sounding reference signals (SRS) while operating in a radio resource control (RRC) non-connected state and while camped on a first cell of a first SRS validity area, wherein the one or more area-specific SRS are associated with a first uplink timing advance (TA);
• and
• transmit, via the one or more transceivers, one or more physical layer uplink channels while operating in the RRC non-connected state and while camped on the first cell of the first SRS validity area, wherein the one or more physical layer uplink channels are associated with a second uplink TA.

A method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising:

• receiving one or more sounding reference signal (SRS) configurations associated with one or more SRS validity areas, wherein each of the one or more SRS validity areas includes one or more cells;
• and
• transmitting, while operating in a radio resource control (RRC) non-connected state and while camped on a first cell of a first SRS validity area of the one or more SRS validity areas, one or more first area-specific SRS based on the one or more SRS configurations and an uplink timing of the UE,
• wherein the first value of the uplink TA is determined based on an uplink TA derivation rule, the uplink TA derivation rule comprising (1) a first uplink TA derivation rule comprising obtaining a value of the uplink TA from a most recent serving cell within a SRS validity area within which the UE is associated, (2) a second uplink TA derivation rule comprising permitting the UE to autonomously adjust values of the uplink TA, or (3) a third uplink TA derivation rule comprising obtaining the value of the uplink TA from a cell on which the UE is camped based on a random-access procedure with the cell, and
• wherein the uplink TA derivation rule is (1) applicable to all cells in a first sub-area of a plurality of sub-areas of the first SRS validity area containing the first cell, (2) indicated in the one or more SRS configurations, (3) determined based on whether the UE is configured to perform short data transmission (SDT), non-area-specific SRS transmission, or both, (4) determined based on whether the downlink reference timing would change more than a first threshold, or (5) determined based on whether the uplink timing of the UE would change more than a second threshold.