Repeater configuration for initial access

1. A method of a repeater node, the method comprising:

receiving, from a base station, a first configuration for establishing a forwarding link with a user equipment (“UE”) and for switching ON and OFF a radio frequency (“RF”) circuit at the repeater node according to a synchronization signal block (“SSB”) transmission, the first configuration comprising an indication to perform a beam sweep procedure associated with a set of SSBs, wherein at least a subset of the set of SSBs are received in one spatial direction without sweeping and performing the beam sweep procedure on the subset of the set of SSBs on different time resources;

receiving, from the base station, a second configuration comprising one or more parameters for the UE to establish access to a wireless network, wherein the second configuration comprises a physical random access channel (“PRACH”) configuration comprising PRACH-related time parameters for forwarding the PRACH configuration from the UE to the base station; and

transmitting feedback to the base station that indicates reception of one or more of the first configuration and the second configuration.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first configuration comprises one or more parameters for transmission power setup for downlink (“DL”) and uplink (“UL”) at the repeater node.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first configuration comprises one or more parameters for Uu link frame timing information as a reference to a control link timing.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first configuration comprises one or more parameters including an operational carrier frequency and an initial bandwidth for switching a corresponding radio frequency (“RF”) circuit at the repeater node.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first configuration comprises locations of SSB in an SSB burst and a periodicity of SSB bursts.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first configuration comprises a bitmap for active SSBs that can be forwarded by the repeater node.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first configuration comprises SSB beam mapping between transmitted SSB beams from the base station and forwarded SSB beams from the repeater node.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein spatial information of the SSB beam mapping is received as an initial angle relative to a reference angle and an offset angle applied to each forwarded SSB.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first configuration comprises an indication of SSB burst alternation of SSB beams such that beam mapping between transmitted SSB beams from the base station and forwarded and swept SSB beams from the repeater node is alternating for each SSB burst such that SSB beams from the repeater node and from the base station covers a required area.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the PRACH configuration comprises an indication of a PRACH index, the repeater node extracting time related parameters comprising a number of PRACH slots and starting symbols according to a predefined table stored at the repeater node.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the PRACH configuration comprises an indication of a random access channel (“RACH”) occasion mapping to SSB such that the repeater node switches on for receiving PRACH from the UE and forwarding PRACH to the base station at corresponding time slots related to each SSB index.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second configuration comprises a random access response (“RAR”) time window configuration for monitoring the RAR such that the repeater node switches on for receiving and forwarding the RAR during the configured time window.

13. The method in claim 1 , further comprising sending, in a repeater feedback control channel, the feedback indicating reception of one or more of the first configuration and the second configuration.

14. The method in claim 13 , further comprising sending a single feedback bit in response to receiving the first configuration and another feedback bit in response to receiving the second configuration.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving a retransmission of one of the first configuration and the second configuration from the base station in response to sending a negative acknowledgement (“NACK”) indicating that one of the first configuration and the second configuration is not received.

16. A repeater node, comprising:

at least one memory; and

at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the repeater node to:

receive, from a base station, a first configuration for establishing a forwarding link with a user equipment (“UE”) and for switching ON and OFF a radio frequency (“RF”) circuit at the repeater node according to a synchronization signal block (“SSB”) transmission, the first configuration comprising an indication to perform a beam sweep procedure associated with a set of SSBs, wherein at least a subset of the set of SSBs are received in one spatial direction without sweeping and performing the beam sweep procedure on the subset of the set of SSBs on different time resources;

receive, from the base station, a second configuration comprising one or more parameters for the UE to establish access to a wireless network, wherein the second configuration comprises a physical random access channel (“PRACH”) configuration comprising PRACH-related time parameters for forwarding the PRACH configuration from the UE to the base station; and

transmit feedback to the base station that indicates reception of one or more of the first configuration and the second configuration.

17. A base station, comprising:

at least one memory; and

at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the base station to:

transmit, to a repeater node, a first configuration for establishing a forwarding link with a user equipment (“UE”) and for switching ON and OFF a radio frequency (“RF”) circuit at the repeater node according to a synchronization signal block (“SSB”) transmission, the first configuration comprising an indication to perform a beam sweep procedure associated with a set of SSBs, wherein at least a subset of the set of SSBs are received in one spatial direction without sweeping and performing the beam sweep procedure on the subset of the set of SSBs on different time resources;

transmit, to the repeater node, a second configuration comprising one or more parameters for the UE to establish access to a wireless network via the repeater node, wherein the second configuration comprises a physical random access channel (“PRACH”) configuration comprising PRACH-related time parameters for forwarding the PRACH configuration from the UE to the base station; and

receive feedback from the repeater node that indicates reception of one or more of the first configuration and the second configuration.