Apparatus, system and method of discovery over a directional wireless communication band

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017265122-A1
Application number	US-201615281096-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 30, 2016
Priority date	Mar 14, 2016
Publication date	Sep 14, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

For example, a first wireless station may be configured to transmit a beacon frame over a directional wireless communication band during a Beacon Transmission Interval (BTI), the beacon frame including a field including a type value to indicate a type of one or more wireless stations to respond to the beacon frame; and to process a Sector Sweep (SSW) frame from a second wireless station of a type corresponding to the type value during an Association Beamforming Training (A-BFT) period following the BTI.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An apparatus comprising logic and circuitry configured to cause a first wireless station to:
transmit a beacon frame over a directional wireless communication band during a Beacon Transmission Interval (BTI), the beacon frame comprising a field comprising a type value to indicate a type of one or more wireless stations to respond to the beacon frame; and process a Sector Sweep (SSW) frame from a second wireless station of a type corresponding to the type value during an Association Beamforming Training (A-BFT) period following the BTI.

2 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the type value comprises a value to indicate an Access point (AP) station is to respond to the beacon frame.

3 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the type value comprises a value to indicate a non-Access point (non-AP) station is to respond to the beacon frame.

4 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the type value comprises a value to indicate a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Group Owner (GO) is to respond to the beacon frame.

5 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the type value comprises a value to indicate a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) device is to respond to the beacon frame.

6 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the type value comprises a Service Set (SS) value.

7 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the beacon frame comprises a discovery beacon frame.

8 . The apparatus of claim 1 configured to cause the first wireless station to transmit the beacon frame during an active scan.

9 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the SSW frame comprises a Basic Service Set (BSS) type field to indicate a BSS type.

10 . The apparatus of claim 9 configured to cause the first wireless station to select whether or not to transmit a probe request to the second wireless station based on the BSS type field.

11 . The apparatus of claim 1 configured to cause the first wireless station to transmit a probe request comprising a receiver address (RA) field comprising a unicast address of the second wireless station.

12 . The apparatus of claim 11 configured to cause the first wireless station to transmit the probe request comprising a first Service Set Identifier (SSID) value, and to process a probe response from the second wireless station, the probe response comprising a second SSID value to indicate that a configuration of the second wireless station does not correspond to the first SSID value.

13 . The apparatus of claim 1 comprising one or more directional antennas, a memory, and a processor.

14 . An apparatus comprising logic and circuitry configured to cause a first wireless station to:
process a beacon frame from a second wireless station over a directional wireless communication band during a Beacon Transmission Interval (BTI), the beacon frame comprising a field comprising a type value to indicate a type of one or more wireless stations to respond to the beacon frame; and based on the type value, select whether to allow the first wireless station to transmit a Sector Sweep (SSW) frame to the second wireless station during an Association Beamforming Training (A-BFT) period following the BTI.

15 . The apparatus of claim 14 configured to allow the first wireless station to transmit the SSW frame to the second wireless station during the A-BFT, when a type of the first wireless station corresponds to the type value.

16 . The apparatus of claim 14 configured to cause the first wireless station to transmit a probe response to the second wireless station in response to a probe request comprising a receiver address (RA) field comprising a unicast address of the first wireless station.

17 . The apparatus of claim 16 configured to cause the first wireless station to transmit the probe response, even when a configuration of the first wireless station does not correspond to a Service Set Identifier (SSID) value in the probe request.

18 . The apparatus of claim 17 configured to cause the first wireless station to include in the probe response a predefined SSID value to indicate that the configuration of the first wireless station does not correspond to the SSID value in the probe request.

19 . The apparatus of claim 14 configured to cause the first wireless station to mandatorily transmit a probe response in response to any probe request, which comprises a receiver address (RA) field comprising a unicast address of the first wireless station, and to allow the first wireless station to select whether or not to respond to a probe request, which comprises a broadcast address in the RA field.

20 . The apparatus of claim 14 comprising one or more directional antennas, a memory, and a processor.

21 . A product comprising one or more tangible computer-readable non-transitory storage media comprising computer-executable instructions operable to, when executed by at least one computer processor, enable the at least one computer processor to implement operations at a first wireless station, the operations comprising:
processing a Sector Sweep (SSW) frame from a second wireless station; transmitting an SSW feedback frame to the second wireless station; transmitting a probe request comprising a receiver address (RA) field comprising a unicast address of the second wireless station, and a first Service Set Identifier (SSID) value; and processing a probe response from the second wireless station, in response to the probe request, the probe response comprises a second SSID value to indicate that a configuration of the second wireless station does not correspond to the first SSID value.

22 . The product of claim 21 , wherein the second SSID value comprises a wildcard SSID value, or an empty string.

23 . A product comprising one or more tangible computer-readable non-transitory storage media comprising computer-executable instructions operable to, when executed by at least one computer processor, enable the at least one computer processor to implement operations at a first wireless station, the operations comprising:
transmitting a Sector Sweep (SSW) frame to a second wireless station; processing an SSW feedback frame from the second wireless station; processing a probe request from the second wireless station comprising a receiver address (RA) field comprising a unicast address of the first wireless station, and a Service Set Identifier (SSID) value; and transmitting a probe response to the second wireless station, in response to the probe request, even when a configuration of the first wireless station does not correspond to the SSID value in the probe request.

24 . The product of claim 23 , wherein the probe response comprises a predefined SSID value to indicate that the configuration of the first wireless station does not correspond to the SSID value in the probe request.

25 . The product of claim 23 , wherein the operations comprise mandatorily transmitting a probe response in response to any probe request, which comprises an RA field comprising a unicast address of the first wireless station, and selecting whether or not to respond to a probe request, which comprises a broadcast address in the RA field.

Assignees

• Intel Ip Corp

Inventors

• Levy Elad
• Trainin Solomon B
• Maor Idan

Classifications

• H04W48/10 Primary

  using broadcasted information · CPC title

• H04W48/16

  Discovering, processing access restriction or access information · CPC title

• H04W88/08

  Access point devices · CPC title

• H04W8/26

  Network addressing or numbering for mobility support · CPC title