High speed media access control

• US 20050135284A1
• Filed: 10/13/2004
• Published: 06/23/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Walton, Jay Rodney, Nanda, Sanjiv, Meylan, Arnaud
• Granted Patent: US 8,483,105 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/294
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0025 Transmission of mode-switching indication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0073 Special arrangements for feedback channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0078 Avoidance of errors by organising the transmitted data in a format specifically designed to deal with errors, e.g. location forward error control, e.g. FEC, CRC H04L1/004; adaptive formatting H04L1/0006; mappings H04L27/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0618 Space-time coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1621 Group acknowledgement, i.e. the acknowledgement message defining a range of identifiers, e.g. of sequence numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1671 the supervisory signal being transmitted together with control information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/403 with centralised control, e.g. polling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/24 Negotiation of communication capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/04 Error control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/06 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 Class Codes: H04W 48/08 Access restriction or access information delivery, e.g. discovery data delivery signalling during connection H04W76/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/383 power control in peer-to-peer links
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/06 using polling

Abstract

Embodiments disclosed herein for MAC processing for efficient use of high throughput systems and that may be backward compatible with various types of legacy systems. In one aspect, a data transmission structure comprises a consolidated poll and one or more frames transmitted in accordance with the consolidated poll. In another aspect, a Time Division Duplexing (TDD) data transmission structure comprises a pilot, a consolidated poll, and zero or more access point to remote station frames in accordance with the consolidated poll. In one aspect, frames are transmitted sequentially with no or substantially reduced interframe spacing. In another aspect, a guard interframe spacing may be introduced between frames transmitted from different sources, or with substantially different power levels. In another aspect, a single preamble is transmitted in association with one or more frames. In another aspect, a block acknowledgement is transmitted subsequent to the transmission of one or more sequential frames.

Claims

1. A data transmission structure comprising:

a consolidated poll; and

one or more frames transmitted in accordance with the consolidated poll.

2. A Time Division Duplexing (TDD) data transmission structure comprising:

a pilot;

a consolidated poll; and

zero or more access point to remote station frames in accordance with the consolidated poll.

3. The TDD data transmission structure of claim 2, further comprising zero or more remote station to access point frames in accordance with the consolidated poll.

4. The TDD data transmission structure of claim 2, further comprising zero or more remote station to remote station frames in accordance with the consolidated poll.

5. The TDD data transmission structure of claim 2, further comprising zero or more random access segments in accordance with the consolidated poll.

6. An apparatus, operable with a shared medium for receiving and transmitting, comprising:

a transmitter for transmitting a plurality of frames, each frame transmitted sequentially with substantially reduced inter-frame spacing.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the transmitter further transmits a block acknowledgement request corresponding to one or more previously transmitted frames.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein each frame comprises a preamble.

9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the transmitter further transmits a preamble, prior to the plurality of frames, and wherein the plurality of frames are transmitted without inter-frame preamble.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the inter-frame spacing comprises gaps of less than approximately 10 microseconds.

11. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the inter-frame spacing comprises gaps of between approximately zero and 800 nanoseconds.

12. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the inter-frame spacing comprises gaps computed as a function of transmission time jitter between two remote stations.

13. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the inter-frame spacing between a first frame and a second frame comprises a gap of a first duration when the source transmitter for the first and second frames is the same transmitter, and the inter-frame spacing between the first frame and the second frame comprises a gap of a second duration when the source transmitter of the first frame is not the source transmitter of the second frame, the second duration longer than the first duration.

14. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the inter-frame spacing between a first frame and a second frame comprises a gap of a first duration when the power control setting for the first frame is substantially the same as the power control setting for the second frame, and the inter-frame spacing between the first frame and the second frame comprises a gap of a second duration when the power control setting for the first frame is not substantially the same as the power control setting for the second frame, the second duration longer than the first duration.

15. A wireless communication system, operable with a shared medium for receiving and transmitting, comprising:

a first station; and

a second station for transmitting sequential frames of data to the first station, first ones of the frames transmitted with no interframe spacing, and second ones of frames transmitted with substantially reduced interframe spacing.

16. An apparatus, operable to transmit and receive data on a shared medium, the medium operable for reception and transmission by one or more remote stations, comprising:

a receiver for receiving one or more messages from one or more remote stations, each message comprising an indication of data for transmission, respectively; and

a transmitter for transmitting a consolidated poll indicating a transmission time and transmission duration for one or more remote stations to transmit on the shared medium, the consolidated poll generated in response to one or more of the one or more messages received.

17. An apparatus comprising:

a receiver for receiving a consolidated poll;

a processor for determining a transmission opportunity in accordance with the consolidated poll; and

a transmitter for transmitting during the transmission opportunity.

18. An apparatus comprising:

means for transmitting a pilot;

means for transmitting a consolidated poll; and

means for transmitting one or more frames in accordance with the consolidated poll.

19. A method comprising:

transmitting a pilot;

transmitting a consolidated poll; and

transmitting one or more frames in accordance with the consolidated poll.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein one or more frames are transmitted from an access point to one or more remote stations, respectively.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein one or more frames are transmitted from one or more remote stations, respectively, to an access point.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein one or more frames are transmitted from a first remote station to a second remote station.

23. A wireless communication system comprising:

a first station;

a second station; and

means for transmitting one or more frames from the first station to the second station, respective frames transmitted with substantially no interframe spacing.

24. Computer readable media operable to perform the following step:

transmitting one or more frames from a first station to a second station, respective frames transmitted with substantially no interframe spacing.

25. A method comprising:

transmitting one or more frames from a first station to a second station, respective frames transmitted with substantially no interframe spacing.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising inserting a guard interframe spacing between a first frame and a second frame when the power level for transmission of the second frame is substantially different than the power level for transmission of the first frame.

27. The method of claim 25, further comprising transmitting one or more frames from the first station to a third station, respective frames transmitted with substantially no interframe spacing.

28. The method of claim 25, further comprising transmitting one or more frames from a fourth station to one or more fifth stations, respective frames transmitted substantially no interframe spacing.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein a guard interframe spacing is inserted between frames transmitted by the first station and the fourth station.

30. The method of claim 25, further comprising transmitting a block acknowledgement in response to the one or more transmitted frames.

31. The method of claim 25, further comprising transmitting a preamble prior to transmitting the one or more frames, and wherein the one or more frames are transmitted without a corresponding preamble.

32. The method of claim 25, further comprising transmitting a consolidated poll, and wherein the one or more frames are transmitted in accordance with the consolidated poll.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein the one or more frames are transmitted with essentially no interframe spacing between the consolidated poll and the one or more frames.

34. The method of claim 32, wherein the one or more frames are transmitted with substantially reduced interframe spacing between the consolidated poll and the one or more frames.