Beam management: SSB beams and CSI-RS beams

Finding the Best Beam Pair

Beam management is the systematic process of discovering and maintaining the optimal beam pair between the gNB and UE. The process relies on two types of reference signals with different roles. SSB beams are wide beams used during initial access to sweep broad angular ranges and establish a coarse direction. CSI-RS beams are narrow beams used for refined spatial tracking once the general direction is known. The combination allows the network to quickly find users and then precisely focus energy for maximum throughput.