SIGNAL UNIT INCLUDING A FIELD INDICATIVE OF A ZERO-LENGTH PAYLOAD

• US 20130170411A1
• Filed: 09/05/2012
• Published: 07/04/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Vermani, Sameer, Taghavi Nasrabadi, Mohammad Hossein, Merlin, Simone, Abraham, Santosh Paul
• Granted Patent: US 9,100,275 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/310
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0001 Systems modifying transmission characteristics according to link quality, e.g. power backoff adaptive data allocation for multicarrier modulation H04L5/0044; controlling transmission power for radio systems H04W52/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/16 in which the return channel carries supervisory signals, e.g. repetition request signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00

Abstract

A method includes receiving, at a first wireless device from a second wireless device, a signal (SIG) unit including a first field. The method also includes determining whether the first field has a particular value that is indicative of a zero-length payload and decoding the SIG unit based at least in part on the determination.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, at a first wireless device from a second wireless device, a signal (SIG) unit comprising a first field;

determining whether the first field has a particular value that is indicative of a zero-length payload; and

decoding the SIG unit based at least in part on the determination.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first field comprises a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the particular value of the MCS field indicates that the SIG unit includes information regarding an alternative acknowledgement (ACK) frame.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the alternative ACK frame is entirely represented by physical layer (PHY) data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first field comprises a length field.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the length field comprises information regarding an acknowledgment (ACK) frame, a beacon frame, or a link adaptation frame.

7. A method comprising:

generating, at a second wireless device, a signal (SIG) unit to be transmitted to a first wireless device, wherein the SIG unit comprises a first field that has a particular value indicating a zero-length payload; and

transmitting the SIG unit to the first wireless device.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the first field comprises a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein a particular value of the MCS field indicates that the SIG unit includes information regarding an alternative acknowledgement (ACK) frame.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the alternative ACK frame is entirely represented by physical layer (PHY) data.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the first field comprises a length field.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the length field comprises information regarding an acknowledgment (ACK) frame, a beacon frame, or a link adaptation frame.

13. An apparatus comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a signal (SIG) unit comprising a first field; and

a processor configured to;

determine whether the first field has a particular value that is indicative of a zero-length payload; and

decode the SIG unit based at least in part on the determination.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the first field comprises a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field, and wherein the particular value of the MCS field indicates that the SIG unit includes information regarding an acknowledgement (ACK) frame that is entirely represented by physical layer (PHY) data.

15. An apparatus comprising:

a processor configured to generate a signal (SIG) unit to be transmitted to a wireless device, wherein the SIG unit comprises a first field that has a particular value indicating a zero-length payload; and

a transmitter configured to transmit the SIG unit to the wireless device.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the first field comprises a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field, and wherein the particular value of the MCS field indicates that the SIG unit includes information regarding an acknowledgement (ACK) frame that is entirely represented by physical layer (PHY) data.

17. An apparatus comprising:

means for receiving a signal (SIG) unit comprising a first field;

means for determining whether the first field has a particular value that is indicative of a zero-length payload; and

means for decoding the SIG unit based at least in part on the determination.

18. An apparatus comprising:

means for generating a signal (SIG) unit to be transmitted to a wireless device, wherein the SIG unit comprises a first field that has a particular value indicating a zero-length payload; and

means for transmitting the SIG unit to the wireless device.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

receive a signal (SIG) unit comprising a first field;

determine whether the first field has a particular value that is indicative of a zero-length payload; and

decode the SIG unit based at least in part on the determination.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

generate a signal (SIG) unit to be transmitted to a wireless device, wherein the SIG unit comprises a first field that has a particular value indicating a zero-length payload; and

transmit the SIG unit to the wireless device.