Measurement adaptation based on channel hardening

1. A method, performed by a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:

obtaining an indication that a channel hardening (CH) condition is present;

based on the indication that the CH condition is present, obtaining a CH parameter;

determining that the obtained CH parameter is less than a first CH threshold;

in response to determining that the obtained CH parameter is less than the first CH threshold, changing a measurement parameter based on the obtained CH parameter; and

adapting a measurement procedure in accordance with the changed measurement parameter.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the measurement procedure is a radio resource management (RRM) measurement which involves measuring a quantity including one or more of a channel quality indicator (COI), a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), and a carrier received signal strength indicator (RSSI).

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the measurement parameter is selected from the group consisting of a measurement period, a sample length, a length of coherent averaging, a measurement bandwidth, a set of reference signals, and a number of beams to average.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, as a result of obtaining the indication that the CH condition is present, periodically changing the measurement parameter based on the obtained CH parameter.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising determining that the CH condition is not present and, as a result of determining that the CH condition is not present, ceasing to periodically change the measurement parameter based on the obtained CH parameter.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein changing a measurement parameter based on the obtained CH parameter comprises determining that a CH condition is not present and as a result of the CH condition not being present, changing the measurement parameter.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein determining that the CH condition is not present comprises determining that the CH parameter exceeds a second CH threshold.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving from a network node an indication that the UE is allowed to perform optimizations based on the CH parameter.

9. A method performed by a network node, the method comprising:

obtaining a channel hardening (CH) parameter corresponding to a user equipment (UE); and

sending to the UE an indication that the UE is allowed to perform optimizations based on the obtained CH parameter.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising collecting statistics regarding CH conditions at the UE.

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising signaling to the UE the CH parameter.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein obtaining the CH parameter comprises receiving the CH parameter from the UE.

13. The method of claim 9 , further comprising adapting transmission of synchronization and reference signals based on the obtained CH parameter.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein adapting transmission of synchronization and reference signals based on the obtained CH parameter comprises reducing transmission of synchronization signal blocks (SSBs) and channel state information reference signals (CSI-RSs) based on the UE being in a CH condition.

15. A user equipment (UE) configured to:

obtain an indication that a channel hardening (CH) condition is present;

based on the indication that the CH condition is present, obtain a CH parameter;

determine that the obtained CH parameter is less than a first CH threshold;

in response to the obtained CH parameter being less than the first CH threshold, change a measurement parameter based on the obtained CH parameter; and

adapt a measurement procedure in accordance with the changed parameter.

16. The UE according to claim 15 , wherein the measurement procedure is a radio resource management (RRM) measurement which involves measuring a quantity including one or more of a channel quality indicator (COI), a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), and a carrier received signal strength indicator (RSSI).

17. A network node configured to:

obtain a channel hardening (CH) parameter corresponding to a user equipment (UE); and

send to the UE an indication that the UE is allowed to perform optimizations based on the obtained CH parameter.

18. The network node according to claim 17 , wherein the network node is further configured to collect statistics regarding CH conditions at the UE.