Apparatus and method for scheduled uplink multi-user access with concurrent peer-to-peer communications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11700603-B2
Application number	US-201916262402-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 30, 2019
Priority date	Jun 28, 2018
Publication date	Jul 11, 2023
Grant date	Jul 11, 2023

Abstract

Some embodiments include an apparatus and method for enabling concurrent peer-to-peer (P2P) communications via a scheduled resource unit (RU) allocated by an access point (AP). For example, the AP may use a trigger frame to schedule uplink (UL) multi-user (MU) access for a first station of a plurality of stations by allocating an RU to the first station. Instead of using the allocated RU for UL infrastructure communications with the AP, the first station may utilize the allocated RU for a P2P communications with a second station. In some embodiments the AP facilitates RU utilization for P2P communications between stations. In some embodiments, the first station uses the allocated RU and the AP may be unaware of the P2P communications.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic device, comprising:
a transceiver configured to transmit and receive wireless communications; and
one or more processors communicatively coupled to the transceiver and configured to:
exchange a resource unit (RU) Usage Agreement with a second electronic device of N peer devices, wherein the electronic device can process N RUs at a time, where N is an integer;
receive, from an access point, a trigger frame that identifies an RU allocated to the electronic device for transmitting infrastructure traffic to the access point;
determine, based at least on an RU usage policy comprising the RU Usage agreement, whether to use the allocated RU to transmit peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic to the second electronic device; and
transmit, using the transceiver, the P2P traffic to the second electronic device utilizing the allocated RU based at least on the determination.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
receive a first indication from the access point of a peer-to-peer (P2P) concurrency capability; and
transmit a second indication to the access point that the electronic device is capable of P2P operation using uplink (UL) multi-user (MU) communications.

3. The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
transmit a buffer status report (BSR) to the access point that indicates a presence of second P2P traffic; and
receive a second trigger frame based at least in part on the BSR, wherein the second trigger frame indicates that a second RU is allocated to be used for the second P2P traffic.

4. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the P2P traffic uses a Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) protocol, an Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL) protocol, or a Wi-Fi Direct protocol.

5. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
use a block acknowledgement request (BAR) to poll an acknowledgement for the P2P traffic transmitted utilizing the allocated RU.

6. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the RU usage policy is based at least on: infrastructure traffic priority or P2P traffic priority.

7. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the RU usage policy is based at least on a size of: infrastructure traffic queued or P2P traffic queued.

8. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the RU usage policy is based at least on a maximum queuing time for: the infrastructure traffic or the P2P traffic.

9. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the RU usage policy is based at least on a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) of the RU allocation, or a duration of the RU allocation.

10. An electronic device, comprising:
a transceiver configured to transmit and receive wireless communications; and
one or more processors communicatively coupled to the transceiver and configured to:
establish one or more peer-to-peer (P2P) connections;
populate a P2P resource unit (RU) mapping table that includes: one or more identifiers corresponding to one or more respective peer devices, and one or more RU allocations with decoding parameters corresponding to the one or more identifiers, wherein the one or more respective peer devices are associated with the one or more established connections;
receive a trigger frame that includes information used to populate the P2P RU mapping table; and
decode frames of the one or more RU allocations using corresponding decoding parameters.

11. The electronic device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
monitor a wireless local area network (WLAN) for the trigger frame, wherein the decoded frames of the one or more RU allocations comprise a selected subset of one or more RU allocations in the trigger frame received, and wherein the selected subset of one or more RU allocations is based on a parallel processing capability of the electronic device.

12. The electronic device of claim 11 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
determine that the decoded frames are addressed to the electronic device; and
in response to the determination, process the decoded frames.

13. The electronic device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
determine that the electronic device can process N RUs at a time, where N is an integer; and
exchange an RU Usage Agreement with a peer device of N peer devices, wherein the N peer devices correspond to the one or more respective peer devices of the P2P RU mapping table.

14. The electronic device of claim 13 , wherein to exchange the RU Usage Agreement, the one or more processors are further configured to:
transmit to the peer device, an RU Usage Agreement request frame that includes an RU Usage Agreement information element (IE); and
receive from the peer device, an RU Usage Agreement response frame that includes a status of the RU Usage Agreement request frame.

15. The electronic device of claim 14 , wherein the RU Usage Agreement IE comprises at least one of: a first indication that the electronic device is capable of using a corresponding RU allocation for the peer device to receive a P2P communication; or a second indication that the electronic device is capable of using an RU allocation for the electronic device to transmit a P2P communication.

16. The electronic device of claim 14 , wherein the RU Usage Agreement IE indicates a particular frequency segment in which an RU allocation may be used.

17. The electronic device of claim 14 , wherein the RU Usage Agreement IE indicates a specific basic service set ID (BSSID) in which an RU allocation may be used.

18. A method, comprising:
exchanging a resource unit (RU) Usage Agreement with a second electronic device of N peer devices, wherein the electronic device can process N RUs at a time, where N is an integer;
receiving, from an access point, a trigger frame that identifies an RU allocated to the electronic device for transmitting infrastructure traffic to the access point;
determining, based at least on an RU usage policy comprising the RU Usage Agreement, whether to use the allocated RU to transmit peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic to the second electronic device; and
transmitting, based at least on the determination, the P2P traffic to the second electronic device utilizing the allocated RU.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the method further comprises:
receiving a first indication from the access point of a P2P concurrency capability; and
transmitting a second indication to the access point that the electronic device is capable of P2P operation using uplink (UL) multi-user (MU) communications.

20. The method of claim 19 , the method further comprises:
transmitting a buffer status report (BSR) to the access point that indicates a presence of second P2P traffic; and
receiving a second trigger frame based at least in part on the BSR, wherein the second trigger frame indicates that a second RU is allocated to be used for the second P2P traffic.

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Li Guoqing
• Kurian Lawrie
• Liu Yong
• Haque Tashbeeb
• Rajagopalan Anand
• Bahini Dagbegnon H
• Kumar Rajneesh

Classifications

• H04W72/21

  in the uplink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards the network · CPC title

• H04W92/18

  between terminal devices · CPC title

• H04W72/23

  in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal · CPC title

• H04W72/569

  of the traffic information · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title