COMMUNICATION METHODS AND APPARATUS RELATED TO WIRELESS TERMINAL MONITORING FOR AND USE OF BEACON SIGNALS
First Claim
1. A method of operating a wireless communications device, comprising:
- monitoring during a first period of time to detect at least a portion of a beacon signal including at least one beacon symbol in a first communications band; and
making a decision whether or not to transmit a first signal based on the result of said monitoring, said first signal including at least one of a beacon symbol and user data.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Wireless devices, e.g., in a cognitive radio network, discover and use locally available usable spectrum for communication. Beacon signaling facilitates available spectrum discovery and spectrum usage coordination. A wireless terminal, which may have entered a new area and powered up, monitors to detect for the presence of beacon signals in a first communications band. The wireless terminal makes a decision as to whether or not to transmit based on the monitoring result. In addition, when beacon signals are detected, decoded information recovered by the wireless terminal from the received beacon signals is used in making the transmission decision. The decoded information includes, e.g., type information indicating that a second band is allowed to be used for peer-peer communications and/or identification information identifying at least one of a wireless communications device which transmitted the beacon signal and a current user of the wireless communications device which transmitted the beacon signal.
-
Citations
65 Claims
-
1. A method of operating a wireless communications device, comprising:
-
monitoring during a first period of time to detect at least a portion of a beacon signal including at least one beacon symbol in a first communications band; and
making a decision whether or not to transmit a first signal based on the result of said monitoring, said first signal including at least one of a beacon symbol and user data. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
-
-
21. A wireless communications device, comprising:
-
a beacon detection module for detecting receipt of at least one beacon symbol communicated in a first communications band; and
a beacon based decision module for determining whether or not to transmit a first signal based on an output of said beacon detection module, said output being a function of whether or not a beacon symbol was detected during a time period, said first signal including at least one of a beacon symbol and user data. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
-
-
41. A wireless communications device, comprising:
-
means for detecting receipt of at least one beacon symbol communicated in a first communications band; and
means for determining whether or not to transmit a first signal based on an output of said means for detecting receipt of at least one beacon signal, said output being a function of whether or not a beacon symbol was detected during a time period, said first signal including at least one of a beacon symbol and user data. - View Dependent Claims (42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49)
-
-
50. A computer readable medium embodying machine executable instruction for controlling a wireless communications device to implement a method, the method comprising:
-
monitoring during a first period of time to detect at least a portion of a beacon signal including at least one beacon symbol in a first communications band; and
making a decision whether or not to transmit a first signal based on the result of said monitoring, said first signal including at least one of a beacon symbol and user data. - View Dependent Claims (51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57)
-
-
58. An apparatus comprising:
a processor configured to;
monitor during a first period of time to detect at least a portion of a beacon signal including at least one beacon symbol in a first communications band; and
make a decision whether or not to transmit a first signal based on the result of said monitoring, said first signal including at least one of a beacon symbol and user data. - View Dependent Claims (59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65)
Specification