APPARATUS, COMPUTER READABLE MEDIUM, AND METHOD FOR PRE-ASSOCIATION FRAME EXCHANGE USING RANDOM ACCESS IN A HIGH EFFICIENCY WIRELESS LOCAL-AREA NETWORK

• US 20160323879A1
• Filed: 09/23/2015
• Published: 11/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel IP Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Ghosh, Chittabrata, Stacey, Robert J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,832,792 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0007 the frequencies being orthogonal, e.g. OFDM(A), DMT
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/0833 Random access procedures, e.g. with 4-step access
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

Methods, apparatuses, and computer readable media for pre-association frame exchange using random access are disclosed. An apparatus of a high-efficiency wireless local-area network (HEW) master station is disclosed. The apparatus includes transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry which may be configured to generate a trigger frame for uplink random access (TF-R), and transmit the TF-R. The transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry may be further configured to receive one or more responses in accordance with orthogonal frequency division multiple-access (OFDMA) to the trigger frame from one or more pre-association stations where the responses comprise pre-association identifiers corresponding to the one or more pre-association stations. Moreover, the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry may be further configured to generate one or more acknowledgements to the one or more pre-association stations, and transmit the acknowledgements in accordance with OFDMA to the one or more pre-association stations.

Claims

1. An apparatus of a high-efficiency wireless local-area network (HEW) master station, the HEW master station comprising transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry configured to:

transmit a trigger frame for uplink random access (TF-R);

receive one or more responses to the trigger frame in accordance with orthogonal frequency division multiple-access (OFDMA) from one or more pre-association stations, wherein each response comprises a pre-association identifier corresponding to one of the one or more pre-association stations; and

transmit one or more acknowledgements to the one or more pre-association stations in accordance with OFDMA.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more acknowledgements are a block acknowledgement frame comprising the pre-association identifier for each of the one or more pre-association stations.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the block acknowledgement frame further comprises a field to indicate whether the block acknowledgment frame is for stations with pre-association identifiers or stations with association identifiers.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the field is to be ignored if all the one or more responses are from pre-association stations.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the block acknowledgement frame further comprise a field to indicate that the block acknowledgement frame is a block acknowledgement frame to an uplink management frame from unassociated stations.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry is configured to:

receive data frames from stations with association identifiers and refrain from receiving data frames from stations with pre-association identifiers.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the TF-R comprises at least one pre-association identifier corresponding to one of the one or more pre-association stations, and wherein the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry are further configured to:

transmit the TF-R on one or more channels with the at least one pre-association identifier in accordance with OFDMA.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the TF-R comprises an indication of one or more channels for the one or more pre-association stations to transmit on and a duration of a random access transmission opportunity.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the TF-R indicates that only pre-association stations are to transmit in the random access transmission opportunity.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the pre-association identifiers are generated by the one or more pre-association stations.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more pre-association stations randomly generate the corresponding pre-association identifier if a back-off counter decrements to a predetermined value, wherein the back-off counter is for accessing a channel in accordance with OFDMA.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more responses are pre-association uplink management frames.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the pre-association identifier corresponding to one of the one or more pre-association stations is transmitted within a duration field of the pre-association uplink management frames.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry is further configured to:

generate the one or more acknowledgements to the one or more pre-association stations with a media access control address of the corresponding one or more pre-association stations.

15. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

memory coupled to the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry; and

, one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors, the instructions to configure the one or more processors to cause a high-efficiency wireless local-area network (HEW) master station to:

transmit a trigger frame for uplink random access (TF-R);

receive one or more responses to the trigger frame in accordance with orthogonal frequency division multiple-access (OFDMA) from one or more pre-association stations, wherein each response comprises a pre-association identifier corresponding to one of the one or more pre-association stations; and

transmit one or more acknowledgements to the one or more pre-association stations in accordance with OFDMA.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the one or more acknowledgements are a block acknowledgement frame comprising the pre-association identifier for each of the one or more pre-association stations.

18. An apparatus of a high-efficiency wireless local-area network (HEW) station, the HEW station comprising transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry configured to:

receive an acknowledgement frame comprising one or more identifiers; and

determine whether the acknowledgement frame is for a station with a pre-association identifier or a station with an association identifier based on a field of the acknowledgement that indicates whether the acknowledgment is for the station with the pre-association identifier or the station with the association identifier.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the acknowledgement frame is a block acknowledgement frame comprising a field to indicate whether the block acknowledgment frame is for stations with pre-association identifiers or stations with association identifiers.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the field is one of a traffic identifier field or a block acknowledgment bitmap field of the block acknowledgement frame in accordance with Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11.

21. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein a value of the field of 1111 indicates the block acknowledgement frame is for the station with the pre-association identifier, and wherein a pre-association identifier and an association identifier are to be indicated in a same field of the acknowledgment frame.

22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein a master station is configured to receive data frames from stations with association identifiers and refrain from receiving data frames from stations with pre-association identifiers.

23. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising:

memory coupled to the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry; and

, one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry and processing circuitry.

24. A method performed by a high-efficiency wireless local-area network (HEW) station, the method comprising:

transmitting a trigger frame for uplink random access (TF-R);

receiving one or more responses to the trigger frame in accordance with orthogonal frequency division multiple-access (OFDMA) from one or more pre-association stations, wherein each response comprises a pre-association identifier corresponding to one of the one or more pre-association stations; and

transmitting one or more acknowledgements to the one or more pre-association stations in accordance with OFDMA.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the one or more acknowledgements are a block acknowledgement frame comprising for each of the one or more pre-association stations a corresponding pre-association identifier.