BEACON ASSISTED CELL SEARCH IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSEM

摘要

Techniques for transmitting synchronization signals to assist user equipments (UEs) perform cell searches are described. In one design, a base station for a cell may generate and transmit a primary synchronization signal and a secondary synchronization signal, which may be used by the UEs for initial cell search at power up. The base station may also generate and transmit one or more beacon signals, which may be used by the UEs for neighbor cell search to detect for neighbor cells. The number of beacon signals to transmit and the set of subcarriers usable for each beacon signal may be determined based on the system bandwidth. Each beacon signal may be mapped to one subcarrier in the set of subcarriers in each beacon symbol period. This one subcarrier may be determined based on a beacon hopping pattern or a beacon code and may be dependent on a cell identifier (ID).