In current cellular or wireless technologies, the system controls are dominated by downlink (DL) measurements (UE measure and report). For example, the clustering or grouping of transmission points (TPs) for downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) transmissions is typically established based on user equipment (UE) measurements from DL reference signals, e.g., from each cell. This requires each cell to provide dedicated DL reference signals, which leads to complicated DL reference signal design and significant signaling overhead, and other issues for current or future wireless network technologies, such as in heterogeneous network (HetNet) where Pico cells may not provide reference signals. Further, using DL-based measurement, UL coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission may experience timing advance (the length of time a signal takes to reach TPs from a UE) issues within serving TPs. Another issue is that a dynamic (e.g., upon demand) TP optimization scheme requires frequent UE measurement and feedback, which is challenging for DL pilot design with more antennas. Moreover, the current UL sounding reference signal (SRS) is coupled with cell/TP identity and set up after TP clustering has been completed. Thus, mobile users have to change sounding signal configurations when switching cells. There is a need for a scheme to resolve or handle the issues above.