Wireless device, method, and computer-readable media for transmitting and receiving high-efficiency signal fields

• US 9,871,644 B2
• Filed: 12/22/2014
• Issued: 01/16/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel IP Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Stacey, Robert J., Azizi, Shahrnaz
• Primary Examiner(s): Hsu, Alpus H
• Application Number:
  US14/579,865
• Publication Number:
  US 20160056943A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,121 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2601 Multicarrier modulation systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0091 Signaling for the administration of the divided path
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/12 Access point controller devices

Abstract

Wireless devices, methods, and computer-readable media for transmitting and receiving high-efficiency signal fields. An access point (AP) may include circuitry configured to determine a high-efficiency signal (HE-SIG) field for each of a plurality of sub-channels, wherein each HE-SIG field includes a common part and a sub-channel specific part. The circuitry may be further configured to transmit, in accordance with orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), on each of the plurality of sub-channels, a corresponding HE-SIG field as a preamble to a physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the sub-channel specific part of the corresponding HE-SIG field includes a resource map field that enables a HEW device to determine which portion of the PPDU to demodulate, and wherein the common portion includes information of a format of the PPDU. A HEW device may include circuitry configured to demodulate a PPDU based on a HE-SIG field.

Claims

1. An access point (AP), the AP comprising:

memory; and

, physical (PHY) and media access control (MAC) circuitry coupled to the memory, wherein the PHY and MAC circuitry is configured to;

encode a high-efficiency signal (HE-SIG) field for each of a plurality of sub-channels, wherein each encoded HE-SIG field for each sub-channel includes a common field and a sub-channel specific field; and

simultaneously transmit on each of the plurality of sub-channels, a corresponding encoded HE-SIG field as a preamble to a physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the common field of the corresponding HE-SIG field comprises information of a format of the PPDU, and wherein the sub-channel specific field comprises information that allows HE devices that are operating on the sub-channel on which the HE-SIG field is transmitted to determine which portion of the PPDU to demodulate, wherein the sub-channel specific field further comprises a resource map field comprising a plurality of allocations, each allocation of the plurality of allocations includes a HE wireless device identification and an indication of a modulating and coding scheme (MCS), wherein a position of the HE wireless device identification within the resource map field indicates the position of a resource unit within a corresponding sub-channel, and wherein the resource unit is assigned to a HE wireless device identified by the HE wireless device identification.

2. The AP of claim 1, wherein the resource map field comprises four allocation, wherein each allocation comprises a HE device identification that indicates an allocation of one-quarter of a bandwidth of the corresponding sub-channel to the HE device corresponding to the HE device identifications.

3. The AP of claim 1, wherein each sub-channel of the plurality of sub-channels has a bandwidth of one from the following group:

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

4. The AP of claim 1, wherein each of the HE wireless device identifications are one of the following group:

an association identification (AID), a partial AID that is encoded with 11 bits to indicate an offset from a beginning AID determined by the HE wireless device, and a partial AID that is an encoding of the AID with fewer bits.

5. The AP of claim 1, wherein the resource map field further comprises resources for part of another sub-channel.

6. The AP of claim 1, wherein each HE-SIG field indicates whether the resource map field is an OFDMA resource map field or a space division multiple-access (SDMA) resource map.

7. The AP of claim 6, wherein the SDMA resource map comprises indicates a spatial stream allocation to each of the HE wireless devices identified by the HE wireless device identifications.

8. The AP of claim 1, wherein the HE-SIG field includes an indication of a base server set identification (BSSID) that is encoded with fewer bits than a number of bits of a full BSSID.

9. The AP of claim 8, wherein the circuitry is further configured to:

transmit a different portion of an encoding of the BSSID on two or more sub-channels of the plurality of sub-channels.

10. The AP of claim 8, wherein the AP operates in accordance with Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) 802.11ax.

11. The AP of claim 1, wherein the AP is a HE AP.

12. The AP of claim 1, wherein each of a plurality of HE-SIG fields is a fixed size of 20 MHz independent of a number of HE wireless devices attached to the AP.

13. The AP of claim 1, further comprising memory and a transceiver coupled to the PHY and MAC circuitry.

14. The AP of claim 13, further comprising one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver.

15. The AP of claim 1, wherein the memory is configured to store the plurality of HE-SIG fields.

16. A method for transmitting high-efficiency signal (HE-SIG) fields performed by an access point (AP), the method comprising:

encoding a high-efficiency signal (HE-SIG) field for each of a plurality of sub-channels, wherein each encoded HE-SIG field for each sub-channel includes a common field and a sub-channel specific field; and

simultaneously transmitting on each of the plurality of sub-channels, a corresponding encoded HE-SIG field as a preamble to a physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the common field of the corresponding HE-SIG field comprises information of a format of the PPDU, and wherein the sub-channel specific field comprises information that allows HE devices that are operating on the sub-channel on which the HE-SIG field is transmitted to determine which portion of the PPDU to demodulate, wherein the sub-channel specific field further comprises a resource map field comprising a plurality of allocations, each allocation of the plurality of allocations includes the HE wireless device identification and an indication of a modulating and coding scheme (MCS), wherein a position of a HE wireless device identification within the resource map field indicates the position of a resource unit within a corresponding sub-channel, and wherein the resource unit is assigned to a HE wireless device identified by the HE wireless device identification.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the resource map field comprises four allocation, wherein each allocation comprises a HE device identification that indicates an allocation of one-quarter of a bandwidth of the corresponding sub-channel to the HE device corresponding to the HE device identifications.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein each sub-channel field has a bandwidth of one from the following group:

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

19. The method of claim 16, wherein each of the HE wireless device identifications are one of the following group:

an association identification (AID), a partial AID that is encoded with 11 bits to indicate an offset from a beginning AID determined by the HE wireless device, and a partial AID that is an encoding of the AID with fewer bits.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors to perform operations for transmitting high-efficiency signal (HE-SIG) fields on an access point (AP), the operations to configure the AP to:

encode a high-efficiency signal (HE-SIG) field for each of a plurality of sub-channels, wherein each encoded HE-SIG field for each sub-channel includes a common field and a sub-channel specific field; and

simultaneously transmit on each of the plurality of sub-channels, a corresponding encoded HE-SIG field as a preamble to a physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the common field of the corresponding HE-SIG field comprises information of a format of the PPDU, and wherein the sub-channel specific field comprises information that allows HE devices that are operating on the sub-channel on which the HE-SIG field is transmitted to determine which portion of the PPDU to demodulate, wherein the sub-channel specific field further comprises a resource map field comprising a plurality of allocations, each allocation of the plurality of allocations includes a HE wireless device identification and an indication of a modulating and coding scheme (MCS), wherein a position of the HE wireless device identification within the resource map field indicates the position of a resource unit within a corresponding sub-channel, and wherein the resource unit is assigned to a HE wireless device identified by the HE wireless device identification.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein the operations further configure the AP to:

transmit a first beacon on a primary channel in accordance with OFDMA; and

transmit a second beacon on the plurality of sub-channels in accordance with OFDMA, and wherein the first beacon is an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 legacy beacon and the second beacon is a HE beacon.