Apparatus, system and method of wireless communication to a plurality of stations

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9985901-B2
Application number	US-201514998372-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 26, 2015
Priority date	May 27, 2015
Publication date	May 29, 2018
Grant date	May 29, 2018

Abstract

Some demonstrative embodiments include apparatuses, devices, systems and methods of wireless communication to a plurality of wireless stations. For example, a wireless station may be configured to assign to a plurality of data units a respective plurality of increasing sequence numbers (SNs); and to transmit one or more directional transmission sequences in one or more respective directions over a directional frequency band.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising a memory and a processor, the processor configured to cause a wireless station to:
assign to a plurality of data units a respective plurality of increasing sequence numbers (SNs); and
transmit one or more directional transmission sequences in one or more respective directions over a directional frequency band, a directional transmission sequence of the one or more directional transmission sequences comprising:
a block acknowledgement request (BAR) addressed to a group of stations, the BAR comprising a repetition number (RN) indicating a remaining number of said one or more directional transmission sequences; and
a sequence of a plurality of group addressed frames addressed to the group of stations, wherein a frame of the plurality of group addressed frames comprises:
a respective data unit of the plurality of data units;
a SN corresponding to the data unit; and
the RN.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the BAR comprises a Transmit Address (TA) field comprising an address of the wireless station.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the BAR comprises a highest SN transmitted before the BAR in a direction of the BAR.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the wireless station to transmit the BAR prior to the sequence of the plurality of group addressed frames.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the wireless station to transmit the BAR after the sequence of the plurality of group addressed frames.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the wireless station to transmit a Self-Clear-To-Send (Self-CTS) frame at the beginning of the directional transmission sequence.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the wireless station to limit a number of frames in the plurality of group addressed frames based on a window size published by a control station.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more directional transmission sequences comprise a plurality of directional transmission sequences in a respective plurality of directions, each of the plurality of directional transmission sequences comprising a repetition of the plurality of data units.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the plurality of directions comprise at least a first direction and a second direction, the first direction covering at least one first station of the group of stations, and the second direction covering at least one second station of the group of stations.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the directional frequency band is a Directional Multi-Gigabit (DMG) band.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising a radio to transmit the one or more directional transmission sequences.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising one or more directional antennas.

13. 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 one or more operations at a wireless station, the operations comprising:
assigning to a plurality of data units a respective plurality of increasing sequence numbers (SNs); and
transmitting one or more directional transmission sequences in one or more respective directions over a directional frequency band, a directional transmission sequence of the one or more directional transmission sequences comprising:
a block acknowledgement request (BAR) addressed to a group of stations, the BAR comprising a repetition number (RN) indicating a remaining number of said one or more directional transmission sequences; and
a sequence of a plurality of group addressed frames addressed to the group of stations, wherein a frame of the plurality of group addressed frames comprises:
a respective data unit of the plurality of data units;
a SN corresponding to the data unit; and
the RN.

14. The product of claim 13 , wherein the one or more directional transmission sequences comprise a plurality of directional transmission sequences in a respective plurality of directions, each of the plurality of directional transmission sequences comprising a repetition of the plurality of data units.

15. The product of claim 14 , wherein the plurality of directions comprise at least a first direction and a second direction, the first direction covering at least one first station of the group of stations, and the second direction covering at least one second station of the group of stations.

16. An apparatus comprising a memory and a processor, the processor configured to cause a first wireless station to:
process reception of a plurality of frames from a second wireless station via at least one direction of a directional frequency band, a frame of the plurality of frames comprises a data unit, a serial number (SN) corresponding to the data unit, and a repetition number (RN) to indicate a number of remaining repeated transmissions of the data unit;
process reception of at least one Block Acknowledgement Request (BAR) frame from the second wireless station, the BAR comprising a RN value and a SN value; and
process the plurality of frames based on the RN value and the SN value of the BAR.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the first wireless station to buffer data units of the plurality of frames, and to selectively release the data units for processing based at least on the RN value and the SN value of the BAR.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the first wireless station to determine a buffer size to buffer the data units based on a window size published by a control station.

19. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the first wireless station to determine a directionality to receive the plurality of frames based on a Transmit Address (TA) field of a BAR received prior to the plurality of frames.

20. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the BAR comprises a highest SN transmitted from the second wireless station before the BAR in a direction of the BAR.

21. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the first wireless station to process reception of the BAR prior to the plurality of frames.

22. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the processor is configured to cause the first wireless station to process reception of the BAR after to the plurality of frames.

23. The apparatus of claim 16 comprising one or more directional antennas.

24. 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 one or more operations at a first wireless station, the operations comprising:
processing reception of a plurality of frames from a second wireless station via at least one direction of a directional frequency band, a frame of the plurality of frames comprises a data unit, a serial number (SN) corresponding to the data unit, and a repetition number (RN) to indicate a number of remaining repeated transmissions of the data unit;
processing reception of at least one Block Acknowledgement Request (BAR) frame from the second wireless station, the BAR comprising a RN val

Assignees

• Intel Ip Corp

Inventors

• Trainin Solomon B
• Brainman Igor
• Glik Michael

Classifications

• H04B7/0408

  using two or more beams, i.e. beam diversity · CPC title

• H04B7/0491

  using two or more sectors, i.e. sector diversity · CPC title

• H04L12/1863

  comprising mechanisms for improved reliability, e.g. status reports (arrangements for detecting or preventing errors by carrying supervisory signal the return channel H04L1/16) · CPC title

• H04L2001/0093

  Point-to-multipoint · CPC title

• H04L1/1685

  the supervisory signal being transmitted in response to a specific request, e.g. to a polling signal · CPC title