Power saving via physical layer address filtering in WLANs
First Claim
1. A system for saving power in a wireless network having two or more stations, at least some of the stations associated with the wireless network comprising:
- a partial address associated with a subset of the destination MAC address of a receiving station in the wireless network; and
a PHY layer filtering protocol configured to generate and write the partial address into a PHY layer header portion of a frame of a sending station in the wireless network, or configured to read the partial address from the PHY layer header portion of a frame of the receiving station upon receipt of a data frame,wherein a plurality of receiving stations having the PHY layer filtering protocol associated with the wireless network determine at the PHY layer whether the partial address received in the PHY layer header portion of a received frame matches an internal partial address, andwherein the plurality of receiving stations reject the received frame if no match is found or the partial address in the received frame is a predetermined value.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method is described for saving power in a wireless network, using a physical layer address filtering protocol based on a partial address subset of the complete destination MAC address. The system comprises a PHY layer filtering protocol for generating the partial address and writing the partial address into a PHY layer header portion (e.g., PLCP header) of a sending station, or reading the partial address from the PHY layer header portion upon transmission of each frame. A receiving station receives and decodes these PHY layer header portion bits, in accordance with the protocol, and compares whether the subset of bits match that of the stations'"'"' own partial address. If a station finds a match, the station then continues further decoding the frame at PHY layer and send the complete frame to the MAC layer for further processing. The stations that do not have a match will not activate their MAC layer components. Thus, the stations of the network will avoid wasting power decoding a significant portion of the complete frame of other stations of the wireless local area networks and unnecessary MAC layer processing. When group addressed, control/management frames or other such frames are detected at the sending station, the address filtering protocol may be “disabled” using a partial address containing a predetermined value (e.g., all zeros).
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Citations
29 Claims
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1. A system for saving power in a wireless network having two or more stations, at least some of the stations associated with the wireless network comprising:
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a partial address associated with a subset of the destination MAC address of a receiving station in the wireless network; and a PHY layer filtering protocol configured to generate and write the partial address into a PHY layer header portion of a frame of a sending station in the wireless network, or configured to read the partial address from the PHY layer header portion of a frame of the receiving station upon receipt of a data frame, wherein a plurality of receiving stations having the PHY layer filtering protocol associated with the wireless network determine at the PHY layer whether the partial address received in the PHY layer header portion of a received frame matches an internal partial address, and wherein the plurality of receiving stations reject the received frame if no match is found or the partial address in the received frame is a predetermined value. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method of saving power in a wireless network, comprising:
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generating a partial address associated with a subset of a destination MAC address of a receiving station in the wireless network; writing the partial address in a PHY layer header portion of a data frame; and sending the data frame to a plurality of stations associated with the wireless network. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. A method of saving power in a wireless network, comprising:
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storing a partial address in a PHY layer of a station, the partial address associated with a subset of the stations'"'"' own MAC address; receiving a data frame in the PHY layer, the data frame containing a partial address in a PHY layer header portion thereof; determining whether the partial address of the received data frame matches the partial address stored in the PHY layer of the station; and rejecting the data frame if the partial addresses do not match. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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Specification