Abstract: Methods and apparatus for distinguishing between an antenna of a user equipment (UE) being blocked by a cover or by human tissue. The transmission power of uplink signals may be adjusted accordingly, with higher transmission power for open space (OS) or a cover and lower transmission power for tissue. One example method for wireless communications by a UE generally includes receiving a plurality of cross-polarization captures from multiple antenna arrays of the UE; detecting that the cross-polarization captures correspond to a first OS circle in an in-phase/quadrature (IQ) plane out of a set of possible OS circles for the UE; based on the detection, assigning the first OS circle as an active OS circle for the UE and deactivating other possible OS circles in the set; determining an environmental scenario corresponding to the active OS circle; and transmitting a signal using a transmission power based on the determined scenario.

Abstract: A method for communication includes obtaining a timing signal from a timing synchronization reference source, computing a system frame number (SFN)-direct frame number (DFN) offset, creating a timing fingerprint using the timing signal and the SFN-DFN offset, the timing fingerprint also comprising additional timing information, entering the timing fingerprint into a database, continually updating the timing fingerprint, determining whether the timing signal remains within a threshold, if the timing signal exceeds the threshold, iterating the timing fingerprint, verifying the timing fingerprint to determine whether there is a timing inconsistency between a most recent timing fingerprint and current time, if the timing fingerprint is verified, using the SFN-DFN offset to derive current DFN timing to decode a sidelink control information (SCI) communication, and if the SCI communication is decoded, using the timing signal for communicating over a sidelink communication channel.