SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INCORPORATING DYNAMIC ORTHOGONAL FREQUENCY-DIVISION MULTIPLEXING INTO WIRELESS NETWORK PROTOCOLS

• US 20080232490A1
• Filed: 01/18/2008
• Published: 09/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Proximetry, Inc. (relayr, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Proximetry, Inc. (relayr, Inc.)
• Inventors: Emmelmann, Marc P., Gross, James Richard
• Granted Patent: US 8,072,957 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/260
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0007 the frequencies being orthogonal, e.g. OFDM(A), DMT
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0037 Inter-user or inter-terminal allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/18 Negotiating wireless communication parameters

Abstract

A method for incorporating dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“OFDM”) in wireless networks is provided. Information about a wireless channel between a transmitter and one or more receivers communicating according to a wireless protocol is acquired. Dynamic OFDM allocations are generated based on the acquired information about the wireless channel. The dynamic OFDM allocations are transmitted to the one or more receivers according to the wireless protocol.

Claims

1. A method for implementing dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“

OFDM”

) in a wireless network, comprising;

acquiring information about a wireless channel between a transmitter and one or more receivers communicating according to a wireless protocol;

generating dynamic OFDM allocations based on the acquired information about the wireless channel; and

transmitting the dynamic OFDM allocations to the one or more receivers according to the wireless protocol.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising establishing a control handshake between the transmitter and the one or more receivers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein establishing a control handshake comprises transmitting a request to send frame to the one or more receivers and receiving one or more clear to send frames from the one or more receivers.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein acquiring information about the wireless channel comprises acquiring wireless channel state information from the one or more clear to send frames.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein generating dynamic OFDM allocations comprises selecting a modulation type, a transmit power, and a coding scheme for a plurality of OFDM sub-carriers specified by the wireless protocol.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising assigning the same transmit power for the plurality of OFDM sub-carriers specified by the wireless protocol.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising assigning the same modulation type for the plurality of OFDM sub-carriers specified by the wireless protocol.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising generating dynamic OFDM data to achieve a substantially equal throughput for the one or more receivers.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising assigning different sets of OFDM sub-carriers to different receivers.

10. The method of claim 5, further comprising encoding data in a data frame according to the dynamic OFDM allocations.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein transmitting the dynamic OFDM allocations comprises modifying a header specified by the wireless protocol to package the dynamic OFDM allocations for transmission to the one or more receivers.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein modifying the header comprises introducing a signaling field in the header to indicate dynamic OFDM allocations to the one or more receivers.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising transmitting the data frame to the one or more receivers.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving one or more acknowledgment packets from the one or more receivers.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising resetting a network allocation vector.

16. The method of claim 2, further comprising transmitting a CTS-to-self frame prior to the request to send frame to indicate support for dynamic OFDM communications over the wireless channel.

17. A computer readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions to:

establish a control handshake between a transmitter and one or more receivers communicating according to a wireless protocol governing communications across a wireless channel;

acquire information about the wireless channel based on the control handshake;

generate dynamic orthogonal frequency-division (“

OFDM”

) data based on the acquired information; and

transmit the dynamic OFDM data to the one or more receivers.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the wireless protocol comprises the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 18, further comprising executable instructions to manage a network allocation vector based on the acquired information.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the executable instructions to generate the dynamic OFDM data comprises executable instructions to generate dynamic OFDM allocations to code the dynamic OFDM data.

21. The computer readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein the dynamic OFDM allocations comprise a modulation type, a transmit power, and a coding scheme for a plurality of OFDM sub-carriers specified by the wireless protocol.

22. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, wherein the modulation type is selected from a list comprising BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM.

23. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, wherein the executable instructions to transmit the dynamic OFDM data to the one or more receivers comprises executable instructions to modify a physical layer convergence protocol header to indicate dynamic OFDM allocations for the dynamic OFDM data.

24. A transmitter for transmitting dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“

OFDM”

) data to one or more receivers communicating according to a wireless protocol across a wireless channel, comprising;

a module for acquiring information about the wireless channel;

a module for generating dynamic OFDM allocations based on the acquired information;

a module for coding data according to the dynamic OFDM allocations; and

a module for packaging the dynamic OFDM allocations and the coded data in a data frame based on the wireless protocol.

25. The transmitter of claim 24, wherein the wireless protocol comprises the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols.

26. The transmitter of claim 24, wherein the module for acquiring information about the wireless channel acquires the information based on a control handshake between the transmitter and the one or more receivers.

27. A receiver for receiving dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“

OFDM”

) data from a transmitter communicating according to a wireless protocol across a wireless channel, comprising;

a module for decoding a header based on the wireless protocol to extract dynamic OFDM allocations; and

a module for decoding a data frame based on the wireless protocol to extract data coded according to the dynamic OFDM allocations.

28. The receiver of claim 27, wherein the wireless protocol comprises the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols.