Link aggregation in wireless local area networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9565594-B2
Application number	US-201414229571-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 28, 2014
Priority date	Mar 28, 2014
Publication date	Feb 7, 2017
Grant date	Feb 7, 2017

Abstract

Methods, systems, and devices are described for establishing a virtual communication link including at least a first and second physical link between two devices. A single virtual packet queue of a device may receive one or more data packets to be transmitted via the virtual communication link. The single virtual packet queue may attach a virtual sequence number to each of the one or more data packets and send the one or more data packets to one or more of the first or the second physical link according to the assigned virtual sequence numbers. The one or more packets may then be communicated via the first and/or second physical links according to link specific sequence numbers, such as medium access control (MAC) sequence numbers, assigned to the one or more data packets by the first and/or second physical links.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of wireless communication comprising:
establishing a virtual communication link comprising a first physical link and a second physical link different from the first physical link, the establishing comprising communicating at least one vendor specific information element (IE) in an independent action frame, wherein the at least one vendor specific IE comprises at least one of a link aggregation request parameter or a link aggregation response parameter,
wherein the link aggregation request parameter comprises at least one from the group consisting of a number of auxiliary links, a virtual sequence number starting sequence number, a buffer size, a requesting device's MAC address of at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, a channel number of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, a bandwidth of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, and a number of chains of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, and
wherein the link aggregation response parameter comprises at least one from the group consisting of a plurality of result codes, a receiver reordering buffer size, a responding device's MAC address of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, a bandwidth supported by the responding device, and a number of chains in the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link supported by the responding device;
attaching a virtual sequence number to a data packet for each data packet in a virtual packet queue for the virtual communication link;
for each data packet in the virtual packet queue:
sending, from the virtual packet queue, the data packet to one of a first physical link interface or a second physical link interface according to the attached virtual sequence number; and
assigning, by the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface, a link specific sequence number to the data packet, wherein the data packet is communicated via the corresponding one of the first physical link or the second physical link according to the link specific sequence number;

receiving, at the virtual packet queue, the data packet from the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface based on a transmission failure for the data packet and
re-sending the data packet after the data packet is received from the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface via the other of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface according to the attached virtual sequence number of the data packet.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the link specific sequence number comprises a medium access control (MAC) sequence number assigned to the data packet by the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface, the method further comprising:
transmitting the data packet over the corresponding one of the first physical link or the second physical link according to the MAC sequence number assigned to the data packet by the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the independent action frame comprises one of an add block acknowledgment (ADDBA) frame or a delete block acknowledgment (DELBA) frame.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising communicating a plurality of data packets including the data packet, wherein communicating the plurality of data packets is performed in a single communication session.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first physical link comprises a 2.4 GHz band link and the second physical link comprises a 5 GHz band link.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
re-configuring the virtual communication link to include a third physical link; and
communicating the data packet via the re-configured virtual communication link using the virtual sequence number already assigned to the data packet.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
re-configuring the virtual communication link by at least one of communicating at least one vendor specific reconfiguration IE in a second independent action frame or attaching an auxiliary request parameter to the data packet.

8. A wireless communication device, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory in electronic communication with the processor, the memory embodying instructions, the instruction being executable by the processor to cause the device to:
establish a virtual communication link comprising a first physical link and a second physical link different from the first physical link, the establishing comprising communicating at least one vendor specific information element (IE) in an independent action frame, wherein the at least one vendor specific IE comprises at least one of a link aggregation request parameter or a link aggregation response parameter,
wherein the link aggregation request parameter comprises at least one from the group consisting of a number of auxiliary links, a virtual sequence number starting sequence number, a buffer size, a requesting device's MAC address of at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, a channel number of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, a bandwidth of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, and a number of chains of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, and
wherein the link aggregation response parameter comprises at least one from the group consisting of a plurality of result codes, a receiver reordering buffer size, a responding device's MAC address of the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link, a bandwidth supported by the responding device, and a number of chains in the at least one of the first physical link or the second physical link supported by the responding device;
attach a virtual sequence number to a data packet for each data packet in a virtual packet queue for the virtual communication link;
for each data packet in the virtual packet queue;
send from the virtual packet queue, the data packet to one of a first physical link interface or a second physical link interface according to the attached virtual sequence number; and
assign, by the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface, a link specific sequence number to the data packet, wherein the data packet is communicated via the corresponding one of the first physical link or the second physical link according to the link specific sequence number;

receive, at the virtual packet queue, the data packet from the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface based on a transmission failure for the data packet; and
re-send the data packet after the data packet is received from the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface via the other of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface according to the attached virtual sequence number of the data packet.

9. The device of claim 8 , wherein the link specific sequence number comprises a medium access control (MAC) sequence number assigned to the data packet by the one of the first physical link interface or the second physical link interface.

10. The device of claim 8 , wherein the instruction are further executable by the processor to cause the device to:
communicate a plurality of data packets including the data packet in a single communication session.

11. The device of claim 8 , wh

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Du Shu
• Duvvuri Srinivasa Kumar
• Cho James Simon
• Mehta Vipin Kumar
• Frederiks Guido Robert
• Jayaraman Arunkumar
• Smith Matthew Daniel

Classifications

• H04W28/065

  using assembly or disassembly of packets · CPC title

• H04W92/10

  between terminal device and access point, i.e. wireless air interface · CPC title

• H04W28/14 Primary

  using intermediate storage · 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

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title