NON-CONTIGUOUS RESOURCE UNITS FOR WIRELESS LOCAL-AREA NETWORKS (WLANs)

• US 20200137836A1
• Filed: 12/27/2019
• Published: 04/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2019
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Chen, Xiaogang, Li, Qinghua, Jiang, Feng, Kenney, Thomas J., Kojokaro, Chen, Avital, Ziv
• Granted Patent: US 11,438,968 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/318 Received signal strength
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/003 Adaptive formatting arrangements particular to signalling, e.g. variable amount of bits
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/001 the frequencies being arranged in component carriers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/245 taking into account received signal strength
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0473 the resource being transmission power
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 Allocation or use of connection identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/10 adapted for operation in multiple networks, e.g. multi-mode access points

Abstract

Methods, apparatuses, and computer readable media for non-contiguous resource units for wireless local-area networks (WLANs). An apparatus of an access point (AP) or station (STA) comprising processing circuitry configured to decode or encode a physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU) in accordance with an aggregated (A) resource unit (RU)(A-RU) where the A-RU includes RUs, the RUs including tones that are contiguous, and where at least two of the RUs are non-contiguous with one another.

Claims

1. An apparatus of a station (STA) or an access point (AP), the apparatus comprising memory;

and processing circuitry coupled to the memory, the processing circuitry configured to;

encode for transmission a physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU) in accordance with an aggregated (A) resource unit (RU)(A-RU), wherein the A-RU comprises RUs, the RUs comprising tones that are contiguous, and wherein at least two of the RUs are non-contiguous with one another; and

configure the STA or AP to transmit the PPDU on the A-RU.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is of a STA, the AP is a first AP, and wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

decode a trigger frame (TF) from a second AP, the TF comprising an indication of the A-RU for the STA to transmit an uplink (UL) transmission to the AP, and wherein configure the STA or AP further comprises;

configure the STA to transmit the PPDU to the second AP in accordance with the A-RU, wherein the PPDU is a trigger based (TB) PPDU and wherein the PPDU comprises not more than one PHY service data unit (PSDU).

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the A-RU is a first A-RU, and wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

decode a first portion of the TF, the first portion of the TF comprising a second A-RU; and

decode a second portion of the TF in accordance with the A-RU, the second portion of the TF comprising data for the STA.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the TF further comprises a UL bandwidth field, the UL bandwidth subfield indicating an UL bandwidth, wherein the UL transmission is within the UL bandwidth and is one of the following group:

20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, 80+80 MHz, 160 MHz, 320 MHz, and 160 MHz+80 MHz.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode for transmission the PPDU in accordance with the A-RU, wherein an uplink (UL) bandwidth indicates 80 MHz and the indication of the A-RU is configurable to indicate an RU with 484 contiguous tones and an RU with contiguous 242 tones;

or, an RU with 242 contiguous tones and an RU with another 242 contiguous tones.

6. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode for transmission the PPDU in accordance with the A-RU, wherein an uplink (UL) bandwidth indicates 80+80 MHz or 160 MHz and the indication of the A-RU is configurable to indicate;

an RU with 484 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, and 996 contiguous tones;

an RU with 242 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, and 996 contiguous tones;

an RU with 996 contiguous tones and an RU with 242 contiguous tones;

an RU with 996 contiguous tones and an RU with 484 contiguous tones;

an RU with 484 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, and an RU with 484 contiguous tones.

7. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode for transmission the PPDU in accordance with the A-RU, wherein an uplink (UL) bandwidth indicates a 320 MHz and the indication of the A-RU is configurable to indicate;

an RU with 484 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, and a third RU with 996 contiguous tones;

an RU with 242 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, and a third RU with 996 contiguous tones;

an RU with 242 contiguous tones, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, and a third RU with 996 contiguous tones;

an RU with 484 contiguous tones, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, and a third RU with 996 contiguous tones;

a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, a RU with 484 contiguous tones, and a third RU with 996 contiguous tones;

a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, and a third RU with 996 contiguous tones; and

, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, and a third RU with 996 contiguous tones.

8. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode for transmission the PPDU in accordance with the A-RU, wherein an uplink (UL) bandwidth indicates 160+80 MHz and the indication of the A-RU is configurable to indicate;

an RU with 484 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, and a second RU with 996 contiguous tones;

an RU with 242 contiguous tones, an RU with 242 contiguous tones, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, and a second RU with 996 contiguous tones;

a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, and an RU with 242 contiguous tones; and

, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, a second RU with 996 contiguous tones, and an RU with 484 contiguous tones.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the UL bandwidth is punctured by a bandwidth of 80 MHz.

10. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode for transmission the PPDU in accordance with the A-RU, wherein an uplink (UL) bandwidth indicates 160+80 MHz and the indication of the A-RU is configurable to indicate;

a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, an RU of 242 contiguous tones, and a second RU with 996 contiguous tones; and

, a first RU with 996 contiguous tones, an RU of 484 contiguous tones, and a second RU with 996 contiguous tones.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the UL bandwidth is punctured by a bandwidth of 160 MHz.

12. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the indication of the A-RU is configurable to indicate:

an RU, the RU comprising a center 26-tone RU combined with an RU of 26 contiguous tones, an RU of 52 contiguous tones, or an RU of 102 contiguous tones.

13. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the TF further comprises:

an identification (ID) field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) subfield, a received signal strength indication (RSSI) subfield, a trigger type subfield, a transmit power (TP) subfield, and a spatial stream subfield.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode for transmission the PPDU in accordance with spatial streams indicated by the spatial stream subfield and an MCS indicated by the MCS subfield; and

configure the STA to transmit the PPDU to the second AP.

15. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the TF further comprises a spatial stream subfields and modulation and coding stream (MCS) subfields for the RUs, and wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode for transmission the PPDU in accordance with spatial streams indicated by the spatial stream subfields and MCSs indicated by the MCS subfields; and

configure the STA to transmit the PPDU to the AP.

16. The apparatus of claim 2 further comprising:

mixer circuitry to downconvert RF signals to baseband signals; and

synthesizer circuitry, synthesizer circuitry comprising one of a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, the synthesizer circuitry configured to generate an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to decode the baseband signals, the baseband signals including the TF.

17. The apparatus of claim 2 further comprising:

mixer circuitry to down-convert RF signals to baseband signals; and

synthesizer circuitry, the synthesizer circuitry comprising a delta-sigma synthesizer, the synthesizer circuitry configured to generate an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to decode the baseband signals, the baseband signals including the TF.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of an apparatus of a station (STA) or an access point (AP), the instructions to configure the one or more processors to:

encode for transmission a physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU) in accordance with an aggregated (A) resource unit (RU)(A-RU), wherein the A-RU comprises RUs, the RUs comprising tones that are contiguous, and wherein at least two of the RUs are non-contiguous with one another; and

configure the STA or AP to transmit the PPDU on the A-RU.

19. An apparatus of a station (STA) or an access point (AP), the apparatus comprising memory;

and processing circuitry coupled to the memory, the processing circuitry configured to;

determine an aggregated (A) resource unit (RU)(A-RU) for the STA or the AP to decode a physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU); and

decode the PPDU in accordance with the A-RU, wherein the A-RU comprises RUs, the RUs comprising tones that are contiguous, and wherein at least two of the RUs are non-contiguous with one another.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the apparatus is of the AP and the STA is a first STA, and wherein determine the A-RU comprises:

encode a trigger frame (TF) for a second station (STA), the TF comprising an indication of the A-RU for the second STA to transmit an uplink (UL) transmission to the AP,

configure the AP to transmit the TF to the second STA; and

wherein decode the PPDU further comprises;

decode the PPDU from the second STA in accordance with the A-RU.