Systems and methods are disclosed for using a monitoring application to measure channel state information during idle cycles in a mission-critical application. A first wireless communication device determines whether there is a mission-critical data packet to be transmitted to a second wireless communication device. If not, the first wireless communication device determines whether a monitoring packet should be transmitted to the second wireless communication device. If the first wireless communication device determines a monitoring packet should be sent, the first wireless communication devices transmits a monitoring packet containing an identifier and a reference signal to the second wireless communication device.