Mechanism for group polling without precise timing
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method comprising:
- at an access point in wireless data communication with two or more stations;
grouping the two or more stations according to propagation delay of radio transmissions from each respective station to the access point into two or more groups such that a difference in respective propagation delays between two or more respective stations in a group is large enough that a respective data transmission from one respective station will be completely received at the access point before beginning of receipt of a respective data transmission from another respective station;
transmitting a single polling frame to a group of stations; and
receiving respective data transmissions from respective stations of the plurality of stations in the group at respective times.
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Abstract
In a wireless communication network, to reduce the polling overhead it is proposed to poll several stations using the same polling frame. In order to be able to poll more than one station in the same frame, an access point can make use of the locations of stations relative to the access point. The location of each station relative to the access point will cause a different propagation delay for radio communications between the station and the access point. Based on the propagation delays, two or more stations may be grouped together for subsequent transmissions to the access point.
33 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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at an access point in wireless data communication with two or more stations; grouping the two or more stations according to propagation delay of radio transmissions from each respective station to the access point into two or more groups such that a difference in respective propagation delays between two or more respective stations in a group is large enough that a respective data transmission from one respective station will be completely received at the access point before beginning of receipt of a respective data transmission from another respective station; transmitting a single polling frame to a group of stations; and receiving respective data transmissions from respective stations of the plurality of stations in the group at respective times. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. An access point comprising:
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a network interface operative for radio communication with a plurality of stations in a service area; a scheduler operative to control radio communication of the network interface, the scheduler operative to; determine information defining respective propagation delays for each respective station of the plurality of stations; using the respective propagation delays, group the respective stations into two or more groups of stations such that a single polling frame can be sent to all stations of a respective group of stations to cause the respective stations of the respective group to respond to the single polling frame by transmitting respective transmissions so that the respective transmissions are received at the network interface at independent times; and cause the network interface to transmit the single polling frame for each respective group of stations. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. An access point comprising:
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a network interface operative for radio communication with a plurality of stations in a service area; a media access control layer operative to format a group polling frame for transmission to two or more selected stations of the plurality of stations; a scheduler operative to control radio communication of the network interface, the scheduler operative to; receive information defining propagation delays for radio communication between the access point and respective stations, select the two or more stations for receipt of the group polling frame, such that a difference in respective propagation delays between the two or more stations is large enough so that a data transmission from one of the two or more stations will be completely received at the access point before beginning of receipt of a data transmission from another of the two or more stations; and initiate transmission of the group polling frame by the network interface. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
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Specification