AGGREGATION METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR MULTI-USER MIMO OR OFDMA OPERATION

• US 20160285526A1
• Filed: 03/28/2016
• Published: 09/29/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Atlas Global Technologies LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Newracom Inc.
• Inventors: HEDAYAT, Ahmad Reza
• Granted Patent: US 9,998,185 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0452 Multi-user MIMO systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2602 Signal structure
• 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 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0094 Indication of how sub-channels of the path are allocated

Abstract

In an example of multi-user wireless communications, an access point may send a downlink frame, including a first signaling field and a second signaling field, to multiple stations. The first and second signaling fields are located in a header of the downlink frame. The first signaling field indicates whether the downlink frame is associated with a multi-user (MU) multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transmission. The second signaling field includes an attribute of the MU-MIMO transmission or a non-MU-MIMO transmission. A resource unit of the downlink frame includes a MU-MIMO payload when the downlink frame is associated with the MU-MIMO transmission. A resource unit of the downlink frame includes a non-MU-MIMO payload when the downlink frame is associated with the non-MU-MIMO transmission. The stations may decode one or more portions of the downlink frame based on the attribute in the second signaling field. Other methods, apparatus, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A station for facilitating multi-user communication in a wireless network, the station comprising:

one or more memories; and

one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories, the one or more processors configured to cause;

receiving a downlink frame, the downlink frame comprising a first signaling field and a second signaling field;

determining whether the first signaling field indicates a multi-user (MU)-multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transmission in the downlink frame;

when the first signaling field indicates the MU-MIMO transmission, determining one or more attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission in the second signaling field;

when the first signaling field indicates a transmission that is a non-MU-MIMO transmission, determining one or more attributes of the non-MU-MIMO transmission in the second signaling field;

decoding one or more portions of the downlink frame based on the one or more attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission or the one or more attributes of the non-MU-MIMO transmission; and

providing the decoded one or more portions of the downlink frame for processing.

2. The station of claim 1, wherein the first signaling field is a high efficiency signal-A (HE SIG-A) field.

3. The station of claim 1, wherein the second signaling field is a high efficiency signal-B (HE SIG-B) field.

4. The station of claim 1, wherein the one or more attributes of the non-MU-MIMO transmission are a subset of the one or more attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission.

5. The station of claim 1, wherein the downlink frame comprises one or more resource units associated with a full bandwidth of the MU-MIMO transmission.

6. The station of claim 1, wherein the first signaling field comprises a single bit configured to be 1 for the MU-MIMO transmission and configured to be 0 for the non-MU-MIMO transmission.

7. The station of claim 1, wherein the second signaling field comprises attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission, and the attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission comprise a station identifier, a number of spatial streams (NSTS), modulation and coding scheme (MCS), and coding.

8. The station of claim 1, wherein the non-MU-MIMO transmission identifies an orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) transmission.

9. The station of claim 1, wherein the downlink frame comprises a plurality of resource units that are associated with respective sub-bandwidths of a full bandwidth of the non-MU-MIMO transmission.

10. The station of claim 1, wherein the first signaling field indicates whether each 20 MHz segment of the downlink frame is a MU-MIMO transmission.

11. The station of claim 1, wherein the first signaling field indicates a bandwidth and an indication whether each sub-channel in the downlink frame with a size of the bandwidth is a MU-MIMO transmission.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause one or more processors to perform operations, the operations comprising:

generating a downlink frame for a multi-user transmission, the downlink frame comprising a first signaling field and a second signaling field, wherein the first signaling field indicates whether the downlink frame is associated with a multi-user (MU)-multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transmission, wherein the second signaling field comprises one or more attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission when the downlink frame is associated with the MU-MIMO transmission, wherein the second signaling field comprises one or more attributes of a non-MU-MIMO transmission when the downlink frame is associated with the non-MU-MIMO transmission; and

providing the downlink frame for the multi-user transmission directed to a plurality of stations.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the first signaling field is a high efficiency signal-A (HE SIG-A) field, and the second signaling field is a high efficiency signal-B (HE SIG-B) field.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the one or more attributes of the non-MU-MIMO transmission are a subset of the one or more attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the downlink frame comprises one or more resource units associated with a full bandwidth of the MU-MIMO transmission.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the downlink frame comprises a MU-MIMO physical layer convergence procedure (PLCP) service data unit (PSDU) when the first signaling field indicates the MU-MIMO transmission.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the first signaling field indicates a bandwidth and an indication whether each sub-channel in the downlink frame with a size of the bandwidth is a MU-MIMO transmission.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the first signaling field indicates whether each 20 MHz segment of the downlink frame is a MU-MIMO transmission.

19. A computer-implemented method of facilitating multi-user communication in a wireless network, the method comprising:

receiving a downlink frame, the downlink frame comprising a first signaling field and a second signaling field;

determining whether the first signaling field indicates a multi-user (MU)-multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transmission in the downlink frame;

when the first signaling field indicates the MU-MIMO transmission, determining one or more attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission in the second signaling field;

decoding one or more portions of the downlink frame based on the one or more attributes of the MU-MIMO transmission; and

providing the decoded one or more portions of the downlink frame for processing.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19, further comprising:

when the first signaling field indicates a transmission that is a non-MU-MIMO transmission, determining one or more attributes of the non-MU-MIMO transmission in the second signaling field; and

decoding the one or more portions of the downlink frame based on the one or more attributes of the non-MU-MIMO transmission,

wherein the non-MU-MIMO transmission identifies an orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) transmission.