Systems and method of describing slot information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12302293-B2
Application number	US-202117397392-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 9, 2021
Priority date	Aug 24, 2020
Publication date	May 13, 2025
Grant date	May 13, 2025

Abstract

Disclosed herein are systems and methods related to describing slot information. In one aspect, a first wireless communication device determines a bitmap having a value for each of a plurality of slots for wireless traffic. The bitmap may indicate a status or type of a corresponding slot. The first wireless communication device may send, using a wireless local area network (WLAN) based protocol, to a second wireless communication device, a message comprising the bitmap. The message may further comprise a duration of each of the plurality of slots, a period of the plurality of slots, and a persistency of the plurality of slots.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
determining, by a first wireless communication device, a bitmap having a value for each of a plurality of slots for wireless traffic, to indicate a status or type of a corresponding slot, wherein a first bit of the bitmap set to 1 indicates that a slot corresponding to the first bit has a status or type that is different from a status or type of a second slot corresponding to a second bit of the bitmap that is set to 0; and
sending, by the first wireless communication device to a second wireless communication device using a wireless local area network (WLAN) based protocol, a message comprising the bitmap,
wherein the message further comprises a duration of each of the plurality of slots, a period of the plurality of slots, and a persistency of the plurality of slots, and
wherein the status or type of the corresponding slot indicates that the corresponding slot is at least one of: full or not accepting wireless traffic from a new device, for trigger-only frame sequence, occupied by overlap basic service set (OBSS) traffic, or assigned to peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the status or type of the corresponding slot indicates that the corresponding slot is occupied, is being requested by the first wireless communication device, or is being assigned by the first wireless communication device.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the value for each of the plurality of slots is carried in 1 bit.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the value for each of the plurality of slots is carried in 4 bits.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
when the period has a positive integer value, the positive integer value indicates a number of slots as the period, and
when the period has a value of 0, the plurality of slots is non-periodic.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the persistency indicates a duration over which information in the message is valid.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the message further comprises at least one of: an indication of a length of the bitmap, or an indication of whether the bitmap is present in the message.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the message comprises a beacon frame, a probe response, a reporting frame, a frame for advertising slot configuration, a slot request frame, a slot response frame, a frame for slot termination, or a frame to conduct inter basic service set (inter-BSS) access coordination.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the message is a slot request frame, the message further comprising at least one of: a request type, a flexible slot offset indicator, an indicator of slot exclusivity or sharing, a minimum number of slots requested, a minimum resource unit (RU) to be used, or a minimum number of spatial streams (NSS) to be used.

10. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
monitoring, by the first wireless communication device, a utilization of the plurality of slots; and
determining, by the first wireless communication device, the bitmap to update an assignment of at least one of the plurality of slots.

11. A first wireless communication device comprising:
at least one processor configured to determine a bitmap having a value for each of a plurality of slots for wireless traffic, to indicate a status or type of a corresponding slot, wherein a first bit of the bitmap set to 1 indicates that a slot corresponding to the first bit has a status or type that is different from a status or type of a second slot corresponding to a second bit of the bitmap that is set to 0; and
a transceiver configured to send, to a second wireless communication device using a wireless local area network (WLAN) based protocol, a message comprising the bitmap,
wherein the message further comprises a duration of each of the plurality of slots, a period of the plurality of slots, and a persistency of the plurality of slots, and
wherein the status or type of the corresponding slot indicates that the corresponding slot is at least one of: full or not accepting wireless traffic from a new device, for trigger-only frame sequence, occupied by overlap basic service set (OBSS) traffic, or assigned to peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic.

12. The first wireless communication device of claim 11 , wherein the status or type of the corresponding slot indicates that the corresponding slot is occupied, is being requested by the first wireless communication device, or is being assigned by the first wireless communication device.

13. The first wireless communication device of claim 12 , wherein the value for each of the plurality of slots is carried in 1 bit.

14. The first wireless communication device of claim 11 , wherein the value for each of the plurality of slots is carried in 4 bits.

15. The first wireless communication device of claim 11 , wherein:
when the period has a positive integer value, the positive integer value indicates a number of slots as the period, and
when the period has a value of 0, the plurality of slots is non-periodic.

16. The first wireless communication device of claim 11 , wherein the persistency indicates a duration over which information in the message is valid.

17. The first wireless communication device of claim 11 , wherein the message further comprises at least one of: an indication of a length of the bitmap, or an indication of whether the bitmap is present in the message.

18. The first wireless communication device of claim 11 , wherein the message comprises a beacon frame, a probe response, a reporting frame, a frame for advertising slot configuration, a slot request frame, a slot response frame, a frame for slot termination, or a frame to conduct inter basic service set (inter-BSS) access coordination.

Assignees

• Facebook Tech Llc
• Meta Platforms Tech Llc

Inventors

• Hu Chunyu

Classifications

• H04W72/569

  of the traffic information · CPC title

• H04W72/21

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

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04W72/1263

  Mapping of traffic onto schedule, e.g. scheduled allocation or multiplexing of flows · CPC title

• H04W72/40

  Resource management for direct mode communication, e.g. D2D or sidelink · CPC title