Efficient dl ofdma frequency selectivity harvesting

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016165607-A1
Application number	US-201514818214-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Aug 4, 2015
Priority date	Dec 8, 2014
Publication date	Jun 9, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method for communication in a wireless local area network comprises receiving a frame at a first device, the frame being transmitted by a second device. The method further comprises determining, by the first device using the frame, a channel strength for each of a plurality of sub-bands associated with a bandwidth of the frame. A sub-band of the plurality of sub-bands is selected based on the channel strength determinations made using the frame. The first and second devices communicate using the selected sub-band.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for communication in a wireless local area network, the method comprising:
receiving a frame at a first device, the frame being transmitted by a second device; and determining, by the first device using the frame, a channel strength for each of a plurality of sub-bands associated with a bandwidth of the frame, wherein the first and second devices communicate using a sub-band selected from the plurality of sub-bands, the sub-band being selected based on the channel strength determinations made using the frame.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second devices are part of a Basic Service Set (BSS), and
wherein the frame is an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) frame including an indication that the channel strengths are to be determined using the frame.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the frame is a pre-announced frame, the method further comprising:
receiving an announcement frame by the first device prior to receiving the pre-announced frame, the announcement frame indicating that the channel strengths are to be determined using the pre-announced frame.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the announcement frame includes a Null Data Packet Announcement (NDPA) frame, and
wherein a Sounding Dialog Token field of the NDPA frame indicates that the channel strengths are for use in a subsequent OFDMA frame exchange.

5 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the first and second devices are part of a Basic Service Set (BSS), the first device being a station and the second device being an access point, and
wherein the announcement frame includes an indication that a group of one or more devices associated with the BSS are to determine respective channel strengths using the pre-announced frame.

6 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the announcement frame includes an indication of whether the first device is to transmit a report prepared according to the determined channels strengths in response to the pre-announced frame or transmit the report in response to a poll frame, or an indication that the report may be included in a field of a Medium Access Control (MAC) header of a subsequent frame transmitted by the first device.

7 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the announcement frame includes an indication of whether the first device is to transmit a report prepared using an average of channel strengths for a sub-band across multiple transmitting antennas, multiple receiving antennas, or combinations of multiple transmitting antennas and multiple receiving antennas.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report indicating the channel strength for each of a set of sub-bands of the plurality of sub-bands to the second device by the first device, wherein the selected sub-band is based on the sub-band CSI report received by the second device.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report including a combined strength determined using channel strengths of the plurality of sub-bands, wherein the selected sub-band is based on the combined strength.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report including a channel strength measure determined using channel strengths of the plurality of sub-bands, wherein the selected sub-band is based on the channel strength measure.

11 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report including a first channel strength of the channel strengths for the sub-bands only when the first channel strength is greater than a second channel strength of the channel strengths for the sub-bands, the first channel strength satisfies a predetermined criteria, the predetermined criteria relating to one or more of a Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI), a Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR), a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS), and a Number of Spatial Streams (NSS), or a previous frame received from the second device includes an indication that the sub-band CSI report is to include the first channel strength.

12 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report according to one or more of the channel strengths; receiving, by the first device, a polling frame; and transmitting the sub-band CSI report in response to the polling frame.

13 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report according to one or more of the channel strengths; and transmitting the sub-band CSI report in response to the frame.

14 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report according to one or more of the channel strengths; and transmitting the sub-band CSI report in a field of a High Throughput (HT) Control field of a Medium Access Control (MAC) frame.

15 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a sub-band channel state information (CSI) report according to one or more of the channel strengths; and transmitting the sub-band CSI report in a management frame including an indication that the management frame includes the sub-band CSI report, wherein the management frame is an Action frame or an Action No ACK frame.

16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the frame is a beacon frame transmitted by the second device.

17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the frame is a Power Save (PS)-Poll frame or a Quality of Service (QoS) Null frame.

18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the bandwidth is a widest allowed bandwidth, the widest allowed bandwidth being a maximum bandwidth that can be received by the second device, transmitted by the first device, and sensed by the first and second devices during active channel sensing.

19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein the frame is an ACK frame or a Block ACK (BA) frame.

20 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the frame is transmitted in response to an indication included in a preceding unicast frame transmitted by the second device.

Assignees

• Newracom Inc

Inventors

• Hedayat Ahmad Reza

Classifications

• H04W72/0446

  Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames · CPC title

• H04W72/0453 Primary

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

• H04B7/0626

  Channel coefficients, e.g. channel state information [CSI] · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04W52/0229

  where the received signal is a wanted signal · CPC title