CLAIMS

1. A user device (UE) for a wireless communication with a plurality of wireless network elements, the user device (UE) comprising:

a plurality of antennas, the plurality of antennas configured to form a plurality of spatial or directional beams,

wherein the user device is configured to provide simultaneously a plurality of independent wireless communication links using the plurality of spatial or directional beams, wherein the user device is configured to provide a first wireless communication link with a first wireless network element using a first spatial or directional beam and to provide a second wireless communication link with a second wireless network element using a second spatial or directional beam.

2. The user device (UE) of claim 1 , wherein

the wireless network elements are part of one or more wireless communication networks, and

the one or more wireless communication networks include:

(a) wireless communication networks operated by the same NOs, or

(b) wireless communication networks operated by different MNOs, or

(c) wireiess communication networks having the same RAT, or

(d) wireless communication networks having different RATs, or

(e) combinations of (a), (b), (c) and/or (d),

the RAT may be one or more of: 3G, 4G LTE / LTE-A / LTE-A Pro, 5G/NR, LTE V2X including V2V / V2I / V2P, enhanced V2X, eV2X, of 5G/NR, IEEE 802.11 , IEEE 802.11 p DSRC or other technologies such as Bluetooth, WiFi variants like IEEE 802.1 1 ad, IEEE 802.1 lay, IEEE 802.11 ac and ETSI DECT variants.

3. The user device (UE) of claim 1 or 2, wherein

the wireless network elements operate using the same or different network resources provided by one or more wireless communication networks, like the same or different frequencies or the same or different frequency bands or parts of a frequency band.

4. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein

the plurality of antenna is configured to simultaneously form the plurality of spatial or directional beams at the same or at different frequencies to allow for a parallel transmission over a plurality of wireless communication links.

5. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein

the user device is configured to handle the connection to a first wireless network element via the first wireless communication link independent of the connection to a second wireless network element via the second wireless communication link to keep the wireless communication links at the same time active or ready to be activated over an elongated period of time, e.g. over several radio frames.

6. The user device (UE) of any of the preceding claims, wherein

the user device is configured to receive control information from or via one or more wireless network elements for coordinating data transmissions over the first and second wireless communication links.

7. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, comprising:

one or more of: electronics, software, sensors, actuators, or the like, and network connectivity configured to enable the user device to scan/search for, detect, initiate, establish, discontinue/terminate, handover, maintain or monitor a connection to the wireless network elements via the respective wireless communication links, e.g., to exchange data and/or to follow or track control channels.

8. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein

the user device is a stationary device or a mobile device,

the mobile device may include a handheld device, like a smartphone, a PDA, loT device, a computer and the like, a ground based vehicle, such as robots or cars, or an aerial vehicle, such as manned or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the latter also referred to as drones, and

the stationary device may be included in or attached to a physical device, a building or any item having embedded therein network connectivity to enable the device to scan/search for, detect, initiate, establish, discontinue/terminate, maintain or monitor a connection to the wireless network elements via the respective wireless communication links.

9. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein

the wireless network elements comprise one or more base stations (BS) and/or one or more link forwarding elements, e.g., a relaying device, for one or more further user devices (UE).

10. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein

the user device is configured to communicate with a certain destination, wherein the destination may be one or more of the wireless network elements or one or more entities coupled to one or more of the wireless network elements.

11. The user device (UE) of claim 10, wherein

the one or more entities may include one or more of:

a service provider providing a certain service, like URLLC services for remote machine operation or closed loop control, and

a mobile or stationary device, like a machine, a vehicle or a robot, coupled to or including a wireless network element, e.g., for providing a machine-to-machine (M2M), V2V, V2X communication.

12. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, comprising

at least one antenna array, the antenna array comprising the plurality of antennas, a precoder connected to the antenna array, the precoder configured to form by the antenna array the plurality of spatial or directional beams, and

a plurality of signal processing chains for the plurality of wireless communication links.

13. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to exploit a downlink, DL, signaling from the first and second wireless network elements to differentiate between the two or more wireless network elements and to synchronize and decode/process/handle the DL control channels in parallel and/or independently.

14. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to

transmit and/or receive a message over both the first wireless communication link and the second wireless communication link, and/or

split a message or duplicate a message or create a redundancy version of a message, and to transmit the parts of the message over the first and second wireless communication links at the same time in multiplex,

wherein the message may be of the type data message (PUSCH) or control message (PUCCH).

15. The user device (UE) of claim 14, wherein, in case a retransmission for the message is required, the user device is configured to transmit or request a retransmission message, like a H-ARQ retransmission message, over one or more of the different wireless communication links, the retransmission message including redundancy for data in the message, the redundancy including, e.g., chase combining or incremental redundancy.

16. The user device (UE) of claim 15, wherein, in case the wireless network elements or entities coupled to the wireless network elements are aware of the different wireless communication links, the retransmission message is coordinated transmitted over the different wireless communication links under control of the wireless network elements.

17. The user device (UE) of any one of claims 14 to 16, wherein the user device is configured

to form N, N>1 , spatial or directional beams for N different wireless communication links, and

to encode the message, generate N redundancy versions or duplicates of the codeword, and to transmit the codewords over the N different wireless communication links, and/or

to encode the message, to split a codeword for the message into N subcodewords, and to transmit N subcodewords over the N different wireless communication links.

18. The user device (UE) of any one of claims 14 to 17,

. wherein the wireless network elements are configured to collect the parts of the message, and to perform a joint processing of the parts of the message, the joint processing including a data exchange via a backhaul interface, or

wherein the wireless network elements are configured to forward the parts of the message to one or more entities connected to the one or more wireless communication networks, the one or more entities for collecting the parts of the message and performing a joint or distributed processing of the parts of the message.

19. The user device (UE) of any one of claims 14 to 18, wherein a part of the message does not allow retrieval of a content of the message.

20. The user device (UE) of any one of claims 14 to 19, wherein a content of the message is retrievable once a certain number of parts or all parts of the message are received.

21. The user device (UE) of any one of claims 14 to 20, wherein the user device is configured to encrypt the message.

22. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to copy a message or some part of a message or a redundancy version of the message to be transmitted, and to transmit the message and the copy / redundancy version of the message and the other part of the message over the first and second wireless communication link.

23. The user device (UE) of claim 22, wherein the user device is configured

to form N, N>1 , spatial or directional beams for N different wireless communication links,

to generate N redundancy versions, which can be copies, of the message, and to transmit the N redundancy versions over the N different wireless communication links.

24. The user device (UE) of claim 22 or 23, wherein the user device is configured to apply different coding schemes and/or interleaver patterns to each copy of the message, and to transmit the N codewords obtained after channel encoding over the N different wireless communication links.

25. The user device (UE) of any one of claims 22 to 24, wherein the wireless network elements are configured to exchange and jointly process, de-interleave and decode the received copies of the message.

26. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to

control or orchestrate uplink, UL, and/or downlink resources, and/or

control or orchestrate a link adaptation in an uplink communication and/or a downlink communication.

27. The user device (UE) of claim 26, wherein, for the user device is configured to access a link control in one or more of the wireless network elements, and/or control the transmission of any information for the link control in one or more of the wireless network elements such that a certain situation is avoided, like a simultaneous handover for two wireless communication links.

28. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to

choose, for a dedicated set of resources, like PRBs, a modulation, a coding, and a codeword-distribution over the wireless communication links.

29. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured

to request common UL/DL resource blocks from a plurality of the wireless network elements,

responsive to the grant from some of the wireless network elements, to trigger a CSI feedback from the wireless network elements that permitted grant,

using the reported CSI, like RI/PMI/CQI/PT, to schedule a set of beamforming matrices and wireless network elements according to a certain performance metric.

30. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to provide for an independent management of the wireless communication links, e.g., link feedback including CSI, CQI, PMI, and H-ARQ, handovers and the like.

31. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, comprising:

a plurality of signal processing chains for the plurality of wireless communication links,

wherein the plurality of signal processing chains may be configured to support per wireless communication link one of more of:

the DL time and frequency synchronization,

the handling of neighborhood lists,

the handling of the resource allocation, like for DL UL or H-ARQ, the UL timing advance, TA,

the power control,

trigger and handle handover procedures.

32. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to operate as an aggregation node for a plurality of further devices connected to the aggregation node.

33. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, comprising

a modulator/demodulator,

wherein the antenna array comprises at least one massive MIMO antenna array, and

wherein the user device is configured such that all or a group of the antennas within the massive MIMO antennas array receive/transmit the same RF signal from/to the modulator/demodulator.

34. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, comprising

a controller, the controller configured to dynamically increase/decrease

the number of antennas per wireless communication link, e.g., according a current data rate requirement for each wireless communication link, and/or

the number of wireless communication links, and/or

the number of antenna elements of an antenna array used to create a wireless communication link, and/or

the number of spatial beams per wireless communication link.

35. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user device is configured to

obtain information about a condition of the one or more wireless communication links, e.g., by measuring one or more parameters associated with the wireless communication links or monitoring a communication behavior, like the number of retransmission requests, and

transmit the information, e.g., in accordance with a schedule at predefined times or intervals, once a measurement has been completed, upon a request received at the user device.

36. The user device (UE) of claim 35, wherein the wireless network elements, responsive to the information from the user device, dynamically adapt the communication over the different wireless communication links.

37. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the wireless network elements comprise one or more user devices of any one of the preceding claims.

38. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein forming the spatial or directional beams includes one or more of the following:

- Analogue and/or digital beamforming,

Space time block codes (STBC),

Space frequency block codes (SFBC),

Cyclic delay diversity (CDD),

Multiplexing,

- Precoding using CSI or transmit precoding matrices.

39. The user device (UE) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the plurality of antennas comprises one or more of:

one or more antenna arrays, each including a plurality of antenna elements, - steerable antennas having fixed or adjustable beam patterns, e.g. gimbaled antennas, like horn antennas, controllable to be directed towards the respective network element associated with the respective wireless communication link.

40. A system, comprising:

one or more wireless communication networks, each wireless communication network including one or more wireless network elements; and

one or more user devices (UE) of one of the preceding claims, the user device for wireless communication with a plurality of wireless network elements of the one or more wireless communication networks.

41. The system of claim 40, wherein

only the user device includes an antenna array having the plurality of antennas, and the wireless network elements include sector antennas or omnidirectional antennas, or

the user device and the wireless network elements include antenna arrays to allow creating a multi-point-to-multi-point, P2MP, connectivity between the wireless network elements and the user device, or

the user device and the wireless network elements include antenna arrays to employ a high-order spatial multiplexing scheme for implementing between the user device and at least one of the wireless network elements a large number of parallel spatial layers for a high data rate over the wireless communication link between the user device and the wireless network element.

42. The system of claim 40 or 41 , wherein traffic over the wireless communication links, like end-to-end, E2E, traffic, may be orchestrated at the network side, at the user device, by a service, or a combination thereof, wherein the service may be located inside or outside the network or the user device.

43. The system of any one of claims 40 to 42, comprising a physical layer retransmission mechanism, like H-ARQ, including an indication of suitable wireless communication link for a retransmission.

44. The system of any one of claims 40 to 43, wherein the system is configured to trigger, request, and execute for each wireless transmission link an independent handover procedure to another wireless network element.

45. The system of any one of claims 40 to 44, wherein the system is configured perform an anticipatory handover and/or a new link establishment using knowledge about a predefined route of the user device and/or knowledge about available and anticipated wireless communication links to wireless network elements.

46. The system of any one of claims 40 to 45, wherein the system is configured to keep as many wireless transmission links in a connected mode as needed to satisfy a specific target data rate, latency, redundancy, reliability or the like.

47. The system of any one of claims 40 to 46, wherein the system is configured to operate using an extended neighborhood list, that may be provided by the network or by the internet, to enable the user device to connect beyond the range specified in classical neighborhood lists, to allow, e.g., for simultaneous links across two or more tiers of wireless network elements, different MNOs, different RAT etc.

48. A method for a wireless communication of a user device with a plurality of wireless network elements, the method comprising

forming, at the user device, a plurality of spatial or directional beams,

providing simultaneously a plurality of independent wireless communication links using the plurality of spatial or directional beams, wherein a first wireless communication link is provided between the user device and a first wireless network element using a first spatial or directional beam, and a second wireless communication link is provided between the user device and a second wireless network elements using a second spatial or directional beam.

49. A non-transitory computer program product comprising a computer readable medium storing instructions which, when executed on a computer, perform the method of claim 48.