Conditional inheritance in management frame for multi-link aggregation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12289201-B2
Application number	US-202217735067-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 2, 2022
Priority date	Feb 28, 2018
Publication date	Apr 29, 2025
Grant date	Apr 29, 2025

Abstract

This disclosure provides systems, methods, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for implementing multi-link aggregation and conditional inheritance in a first basic service set (BSS). In one aspect, an apparatus may establish a first communication link with a first station (STA) of the first BSS using a first frequency band. The apparatus may determine a first link profile for a second communication link by customizing one or more management elements of management information associated with the first communication link. The apparatus may configure a first non-inheritance element of the first link profile associated with the second communication link to indicate usage of at least one management element of the management information by the second communication link is disabled. The apparatus may generate a management frame that comprises at least the first link profile, and may output the management frame for transmission.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for multi-link communication in a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising:
establishing multi-link communication between a first WLAN apparatus and a second WLAN apparatus, the multi-link communication including a first communication link and a second communication link; and
transmitting a management frame from the first WLAN apparatus to the second WLAN apparatus, wherein the management frame includes management elements associated with the first communication link and a link profile associated with the second communication link, wherein the link profile includes a non-inheritance element indicating which management elements associated with the first communication link are not inherited for the second communication link.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the link profile further includes one or more management elements for the second communication link that differ from corresponding ones of the management elements associated with the first communication link.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first communication link and the second communication link are associated with different frequency bands or different channels.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a communication from the second WLAN apparatus requesting establishment of the second communication link associated with the link profile; and
establishing the second communication link for the multi-link communication in response to the communication.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the second communication link is dynamically enabled or disabled by the first WLAN apparatus or the second WLAN apparatus in association with an amount of active traffic between the first WLAN apparatus and the second WLAN apparatus.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the second communication link is established without performing a separate wireless association process between the first WLAN apparatus and the second WLAN apparatus for the second communication link.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the management elements associated with the first communication link that are not indicated in the non-inheritance element are inherited for the second communication link unless the link profile includes a corresponding management element specific to the second communication link.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the non-inheritance element includes a list of those management elements associated with the first communication link that are not inherited for the second communication link.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the non-inheritance element includes a list of element identifications (IDs) to identify which ones of the element IDs in the management elements associated with the first communication link are not inherited for the second communication link.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the management frame is a beacon frame, a probe response frame, an association response frame, or a re-association response frame.

11. A method for multi-link communication in a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising:
establishing a first communication link between a first WLAN apparatus and a second WLAN apparatus;
receiving, via the first communication link, a management frame from an access point (AP) of the second WLAN apparatus, wherein the management frame includes management elements associated with the first communication link and a link profile associated with a second communication link available for the multi-link communication, wherein the link profile includes a non-inheritance element indicating which management elements associated with the first communication link are not inherited for the second communication link; and
establishing the second communication link using the link profile, wherein the first communication link and the second communication link enable the multi-link communication between the first WLAN apparatus and the second WLAN apparatus.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the link profile further includes one or more management elements for the second communication link that differ from corresponding ones of the management elements associated with the first communication link.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
communicating a request to the second WLAN apparatus to indicate the first WLAN apparatus supports establishing the second communication link; and
receiving the management frame in response to the request.

14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising dynamically enabling or disabling the second communication link in association with an amount of active traffic between the first WLAN apparatus and the second WLAN apparatus.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the management frame is a beacon frame, a probe response frame, an association response frame, or a re-association response frame, and wherein the non-inheritance element of the link profile includes a list of element identifications (IDs) to identify which ones of the element IDs in the management elements associated with the first communication link are not inherited for the second communication link.

16. A first wireless local area network (WLAN) apparatus for wireless communication, the first WLAN apparatus comprising:
a processor configured to manage multi-link communication between the first WLAN apparatus and a second WLAN apparatus, the multi-link communication associated with a first communication link and a second communication link; and
a communication unit configured to output a management frame for transmission from the first WLAN apparatus to the second WLAN apparatus via the first communication link, wherein the management frame includes management elements associated with the first communication link and a link profile associated with the second communication link, wherein the link profile includes a non-inheritance element indicating which management elements associated with the first communication link are not inherited for the second communication link.

17. The first WLAN apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the link profile further includes one or more management elements for the second communication link that differ from corresponding ones of the management elements associated with the first communication link.

18. The first WLAN apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the management elements associated with the first communication link that are not indicated in the non-inheritance element are inherited for the second communication link unless the link profile includes a corresponding management element specific to the second communication link.

19. The first WLAN apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the non-inheritance element includes a list of element identifications (IDs) to identify which ones of the element IDs in the management elements associated with the first communication link are not inherited for the second communication link.

20. A method for multi-link communication in a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising:
receiving, by a first WLAN apparatus, a probe request frame from a second WLAN apparatus; and
transmitting a probe response frame in response to the probe request frame, wherein the probe response frame includes management elements associated with a first communication link and a multi-link element carrying a profile associated with a second communication link, and wherein the profile includes a non-inheritance element indicating which management elements associated with the first communication link are not inherited for the second communication link.

21. The

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Xiao Yongchun
• Patil Abhishek Pramod
• Homchaudhuri Sandip
• Gidvani Ravi
• Asterjadhi Alfred
• Cherian George

Classifications

• H04W48/12

  using downlink control channel · CPC title

• H04W28/06

  Optimizing {the usage of the radio link}, e.g. header compression, information sizing {, discarding information (system modifying transmission characteristic according to link quality by modifying frame length H04L1/0007; dynamic adaptation of the packet size for flow control or congestion control H04L47/365)} · CPC title

• H04W74/006 Primary

  in the downlink, i.e. towards the terminal · CPC title

• H04W88/08

  Access point devices · CPC title

• H04W72/0453

  Resources in frequency domain, e.g. a carrier in FDMA · CPC title