5G • RAN
Beam Sweeping
Sequential Beam Sweeping
Sequential transmission or reception of reference signals across spatial directions to scan entire cell coverage.
Technical Explanation
Because high-frequency directional beams have narrow beamwidths, a single static beam cannot cover an entire cell. Beam sweeping sequentially radiates SS/PBCH blocks (SSB) or CSI-RS beams across all azimuth and elevation sectors within a burst window (e.g. 5 ms), allowing UEs in any sector to detect coverage.
Key Functions
- Transmits directional beams sequentially across all spatial sectors
- Sweeps up to 8 beams in FR1 (sub-6 GHz) and 64 beams in FR2 (mmWave)
- Enables cell discovery, initial synchronization, and paging delivery
Specifications
3GPP TS 38.213, TS 38.300
Interfaces
Uu
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