Patent Grant
11025368
The present disclosure relates generally to communication networks and, more particularly, to wireless local area networks that utilize orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM).
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
When operating in an infrastructure mode, wireless local area networks (WLANs) typically include an access point (AP) and one or more client stations. WLANs have evolved rapidly over the past decade. Development of WLAN standards such as the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n Standards has improved single-user peak data throughput. For example, the IEEE 802.11b Standard specifies a single-user peak throughput of 11 megabits per second (Mbps), the IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g Standards specify a single-user peak throughput of 54 Mbps, and the IEEE 802.11n Standard specifies a single-user peak throughput of 600 Mbps. Work has begun on a new standard, IEEE 802.11ac, that promises to provide even greater throughput.
In an embodiment, a method is for generating and transmitting a physical layer (PHY) data unit for transmission via a communication channel, where the PHY data unit conforms to a first communication protocol. The method includes generating, at a communication device, the PHY data unit, including generating a preamble of the PHY data unit, wherein: the preamble includes a legacy field that is formatted according to a second communication protocol, the preamble includes a signal field having a first orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol and a second OFDM symbol, the first OFDM symbol (i) immediately follows the legacy field and (ii) is modulated using binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation, whereas a third communication protocol specifies that an OFDM symbol, defined by the third communication protocol, that immediately follows the legacy field is modulated using BPSK modulation rotated by 90 degrees (Q-BPSK), the second OFDM symbol (i) immediately follows the first OFDM symbol and (ii) is modulated using Q-BPSK to indicate to a receiver device that conforms to the first communication protocol that the data unit conforms to the first communication protocol, and the preamble is generated to include further fields that follow the signal field and that conform to the first communication protocol. The method also includes transmitting, with the communication device, the PHY data unit via the communication channel.
In another embodiment, an apparatus comprises a wireless local area network (WLAN) physical layer (PHY) unit, the WLAN PHY unit implemented on one or more integrated circuit devices configured to generate a PHY data unit, including generating a preamble of the PHY data unit, wherein: the preamble includes a legacy field that is formatted that is formatted according to a second communication protocol, the preamble includes a signal field having a first orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol and a second OFDM symbol, the first OFDM symbol (i) immediately follows the legacy field and (ii) is modulated using binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation, whereas a third communication protocol specifies that an OFDM symbol, defined by the third communication protocol, that immediately follows the legacy field is modulated using BPSK modulation rotated by 90 degrees (Q-BPSK), the second OFDM symbol (i) immediately follows the first OFDM symbol and (ii) is modulated using Q-BPSK to indicate to a receiver device that conforms to the first communication protocol that the data unit conforms to the first communication protocol, and the preamble is generated to include further fields that follow the signal field and that conform to the first communication protocol. The WLAN PHY unit includes one or more transceivers, implemented on the one or more integrated circuits, wherein the one or more transceivers are configured to transmit the generated data unit via a communication channel.
In embodiments described below, a wireless network device such as an access point (AP) of a wireless local area network (WLAN) transmits data streams to one or more client stations. The AP is configured to operate with client stations according to at least a first communication protocol. Similarly, different client stations in the vicinity of the AP may be configured to operate according to different communication protocols. When the AP transmits a data unit according to a first protocol, a preamble of the data is formatted such that a client station that operates according to a second protocol, and not the first protocol, is able to determine certain information regarding the data unit, such as a duration of the data unit, and/or that the data unit does not conform to the second protocol. Additionally, a preamble of the data unit is formatted such that a client station that operates according to the first protocol is able to determine the data unit conforms to the first protocol. Similarly, a client station configured to operate according to the first protocol also transmits data units such as described above.
Data units formatted such as described above may be useful, for example, with an AP that is configured to operate with client stations according to a plurality of different communication protocols and/or with WLANs in which a plurality of client stations operate according to a plurality of different communication protocols. Continuing with the example above, a communication device configured to operate according to both the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol is able to determine that the data unit is formatted according to the first communication protocol and not the second communication protocol. Similarly, a communication device configured to operate according to the second communication protocol but not the first communication protocol is able to determine that the data unit is not formatted according to the second communication protocol and/or determine a duration of the data unit.
The WLAN 10 includes a plurality of client stations 25. Although four client stations 25 are illustrated in
The client station 25-1 includes a host processor 26 coupled to a network interface 27. The network interface 27 includes a MAC unit 28 and a PHY unit 29. The PHY unit 29 includes a plurality of transceivers 30, and the transceivers 30 are coupled to a plurality of antennas 34. Although three transceivers 30 and three antennas 34 are illustrated in
In an embodiment, one or both of the client stations 25-2 and 25-3, has a structure the same as or similar to the client station 25-1. In an embodiment, the client station 25-4, has a structure similar to the client station 25-1. In these embodiments, the client stations 25 structured the same as or similar to the client station 25-1 have the same or a different number of transceivers and antennas. For example, the client station 25-2 has only two transceivers and two antennas, according to an embodiment.
According to an embodiment, the client station 25-4 is a legacy client station, i.e., the client station 25-4 is not enabled to receive and fully decode a data unit that is transmitted by the AP 14 or another client station 25 according to the first communication protocol. Similarly, according to an embodiment, the legacy client station 25-4 is not enabled to transmit data units according to the first communication protocol. On the other hand, the legacy client station 25-4 is enabled to receive and fully decode and transmit data units according to the second communication protocol and/or the third communication protocol.
In various embodiments, the PHY unit 20 of the AP 14 is configured to generate data units conforming to the first communication protocol and having formats described hereinafter. The transceiver(s) 21 is/are configured to transmit the generated data units via the antenna(s) 24. Similarly, the transceiver(s) 24 is/are configured to receive the data units via the antenna(s) 24. The PHY unit 20 of the AP 14 is configured to process received data units conforming to the first communication protocol and having formats described hereinafter and to determine that such data units conform to the first communication protocol, according to various embodiments.
In various embodiments, the PHY unit 29 of the client device 25-1 is configured to generate data units conforming to the first communication protocol and having formats described hereinafter. The transceiver(s) 30 is/are configured to transmit the generated data units via the antenna(s) 34. Similarly, the transceiver(s) 30 is/are configured to receive data units via the antenna(s) 34. The PHY unit 29 of the client device 25-1 is configured to process received data units conforming to the first communication protocol and having formats described hereinafter and to determine that such data units conform to the first communication protocol, according to various embodiments.
In the embodiment of
In an embodiment, each of the L-STFs 104 and each of the L-LTFs 108 have a format as specified in the IEEE 802.11a Standard and/or the IEEE 802.11n Standard. In an embodiment, each of the L-SIGs 112 has a format at least substantially as specified in the IEEE 802.11a Standard and/or the IEEE 802.11n Standard. The length and rate subfields in the L-SIGs 112 are set to indicate the duration T corresponding to remainder of the data unit 100 after the legacy portion. This permits client devices that are not configured according to the first communication protocol to determine an end of the data unit 100, for carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) purposes, for example. For instance, a legacy client device configured according to the IEEE 802.11a Standard will detect a data error from VHT-SIG1 field, according to the receiver state machine specified in the IEEE 802.11a Standard. Further according to the IEEE 802.11a Standard, the legacy client device will wait until the end of a computed packet duration (T) before performing clear channel assessment (CCA).
The frequency domain symbols of the legacy portion are repeated over four 20 MHz sub-bands of the 80 MHz band. Legacy client devices that are configured according to the IEEE 802.11a Standard and/or the IEEE 802.11n Standard with 20 MHz bandwidth will recognize a legacy IEEE 802.11a Standard preamble in any of the 20 MHz sub-bands. In some embodiments, the modulation of different 20 MHz sub-bands signals is rotated by different angles. For example, in one embodiment, a first subband is rotated 0-degrees, a second subband is rotated 90-degrees, a third sub-band is rotated 180-degrees, and a fourth sub-band is rotated 270-degrees. In other embodiments, different suitable rotations are utilized. As just one example, a first sub-band is rotated 45-degrees, a second sub-band is rotated 90-degrees, a third sub-band is rotated −45-degrees, and a fourth sub-band is rotated −90-degrees.
In one embodiment, each of the L-SIGs 112 has a format at least substantially as specified in the IEEE 802.11a Standard and/or the IEEE 802.11n Standard except that the “reserved” bit is set to 1, whereas the IEEE 802.11a Standard and the IEEE 802.11n Standard specify that the “reserved” bit is set to 0. By setting the “reserved” bit to 1, this signals devices that conform to the first communication protocol that the data unit 100 conforms to the first communication protocol, for example. In other embodiments, the “reserved” bit to 0.
In one embodiment, each of the VHT-SIG1s, and each of the VHT-SIG2s has a format at least substantially the same as the HT-SIG1 and the HT-SIG2 fields specified in the IEEE 802.11n Standard. For example, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field in VHT-SIG1 and/or VHT-SIG2 is the same as the MCS field in HT-SIG, but applied to an 80 MHz band. In one embodiment, MCS 32 is disallowed for VHT data units such as the data unit 100. In other embodiments, MCS 32 is allowed for VHT data units such as the data unit 100.
In some embodiments, the format and/or modulation of VHT-SIG1 and/or VHT-SIG2 is at least different to cause a legacy device operating according to the IEEE 802.11n Standard to detect an error, such as a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) error. Further according to the IEEE 802.11n Standard, the legacy client device will wait until the energy of the data unit 100 drops out before switching to CCA idle mode.
In some embodiments, the modulation of the VHT-SIG1s and/or the VHT-SIG2s in the different 20 MHz sub-bands signals is rotated by different angles. For example, in one embodiment, a first sub-band is rotated 0-degrees, a second sub-band is rotated 90-degrees, a third sub-band is rotated 180-degrees, and a fourth sub-band is rotated 270-degrees. In other embodiments, different suitable rotations are utilized. As just one example, a first sub-band is rotated 45-degrees, a second sub-band is rotated 90-degrees, a third sub-band is rotated −45-degrees, and a fourth sub-band is rotated −90-degrees. In an embodiment, the same rotation utilized in the legacy portion (if any) is utilized for the VHT-SIG1s and the VHT-SIG2s.
In one embodiment, the “reserved” bit (as specified for HT-SIG in the IEEE 802.11n Standard) in VHT-SIG2 is set to 0, whereas the IEEE 802.11n Standard defines the reserved bit in HT-SIG is set to 1), to signal to a device configured according to the first communication protocol that the data unit 100 conforms to the first communication protocol. In other embodiments, the “reserved” bit (as specified for HT-SIG in the IEEE 802.11n Standard) in VHT-SIG2 is set to 1.
In some embodiments, each of the VHT-SIG1s and each of the VHT-SIG2s have a format not substantially the same as the HT-SIG1 and the HT-SIG2 fields specified in the IEEE 802.11n Standard. For example, the subfield in HT-SIG “BW20/40” as defined in the IEEE 802.11n Standard is omitted, or is combined with the reserved bit to select 20, 40, or 80 MHz bandwidth, according to an embodiment. As another example, the subfield “aggregated” as defined in the IEEE 802.11n Standard is omitted. In an embodiment, differences in the formats of the VHT-SIG fields and the HT-SIG fields defined in the IEEE 802.11n Standard will cause a legacy device configured according to the IEEE 802.11n Standard to detect an error, such as a CRC error, upon receiving a VHT-SIG field.
In an embodiment, the 3 VHT-SIG subfield formats are substantially different from HT-SIG fields in the IEEE 802.11n Standard (e.g. use 2 bits to signal 20/40/80 MHz bandwidth, or no indication of 20/40/80 MHz in an implementation that only 80 MHz is allowed for VHT packets). In an embodiment, the same CRC check as in HT-SIG specified by the IEEE 802.11n Standard is moved to VHT-SIG3, and the CRC checks the correctness of the data in all the 3 VHT-SIG fields.
In other embodiments, the VHT-SIG2 field is rotated by 90 degrees as compared to the modulation of the L-SIG field, similar to the HT-SIG2 field of
In other embodiments, the VHT-SIG2 field is rotated by 90 degrees as compared to the modulation of the L-SIG field, similar to the HT-SIG2 field of
Referring to
If the VHT-SIG fields in the data units as described in
In some embodiment, the VHT-SIG fields are modulated differently than as shown in
For example, in one embodiment, all of the VHT-SIG symbols are modulated using BPSK. As another example, the first VHT-SIG symbol is BPSK, and the remaining symbols are modulated using Q-BPSK.
The VHT-STF, VHT-LTFs, and VHT-Data OFDM symbols are defined similar to HT-STF, HT-LTFs and HT-Data as in the IEEE 802.11n Standard, except that each OFDM symbol is defined over 80 MHz bandwidth, according to an embodiment. In other embodiments, each OFDM symbol is defined over other suitable bandwidths, such as 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 160 MHz, etc. In the case of an 80 MHz OFDM symbol, a 256 point inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) and a 256 point fast Fourier transform (FFT) is utilized for 80 MHz bandwidth transmissions. In an embodiment, the OFDM duration is 3.6 microseconds (μs) for a short guard interval (GI) and 4 μs for a long GI.
If the constraint on the maximum number of space-time streams is the same as in the IEEE 802.11n Standard, then the spatial mapping P matrix in VHT-STFs, and VHT-LTFs, signal shaping such as frequency cyclic shift diversity (CSD), etc., are substantially the same as the IEEE 802.11n Standard, (e.g., extended to an 80 MHz band), according to an embodiment.
For an 80 MHz OFDM signal, the symbols in the tones of VHT-STF and VHT-LTFs, the assignment of data tone numbers/positions, guard tones around edge bands and direct current (DC) tones, number/position/content of pilot tones, and the frequency interleaver, are configured differently from 20 MHz bandwidth and 40 MHz bandwidth legacy signals in the IEEE 802.11a Standard and the IEEE 802.11n Standard.
Pilots will not be present for VHT-STF and VHT-LTFs as in the IEEE 802.11a Standard and the IEEE 802.11n Standard, according to an embodiment.
The data unit 200 is similar to the data unit 100 of
The data unit 250 is similar to the data unit 100 of
In an embodiment, the “HT-Length” field, the “MCS” field, the space-time coding block (STBC) field, etc., in the HT-SIG1254 are set so that a device configured according to the IEEE 802.11n Standard will compute the true duration of the data unit 250. In an embodiment, the “reserved” bit in the HT-SIG1s 254 and/or the HT-SIG2s 258 is set to “0” to signal devices that conform to the first communication protocol that the data unit 250 conforms to the first communication protocol. Additionally, when the “reserved” bit in the HT-SIG2s 258 is set to “0”, a device configured according to the IEEE 802.11n Standard will determine “carrier lost” after decoding HT-SIG2. According to the state machine defined in the IEEE 802.11n Standard, the 802.11n device will hold CCA until the end of the duration computed according to the “HT-Length” field, the “MCS” field, the STBC field, etc.
The VHT-SIG1s 116 and the VHT-SIG2s 120 have a different format than the HT-SIG1s 254 and the HT-SIG2s 258, in an embodiment.
The data unit 270 is similar to the data unit 200 of
The example data unit formats and signaling approaches (e.g., L-SIG subfield (reserved bit) changes from the IEEE 802.11a and the IEEE 802.11n Standards, VHT-SIG subfield changes, and modulation changes from HT-SIG in the IEEE 802.11n Standard) described in this disclosure may be used to signal to a device that conforms to the first communication protocol that the data unit conforms to the first communication protocol, that the data unit includes VHT-SIG fields, etc. For data units that conform to the first communication protocol and have a bandwidth less than 80 MHz (e.g., 40 MHz or 20 MHz), such data units can utilize a similar preamble. For 40 MHz wide data units, the data unit preamble that conforms to the first communication protocol has an upper frequency and lower frequency duplication structure similar to or the same as described in the IEEE 802.11n Standard, according to an embodiment.
In some embodiments similar to the embodiments described above with respect to
In an embodiment in which the VHT-SIG1 field is modulated using BPSK as in
In embodiments in which signaling in VHT-SIG2 is utilized, after a station that conforms to the first communication protocol detects that the data unit conforms to the first communication protocol at VHT-SIG2 (e.g., with the modulation of
In some embodiments, MAC protection of transmission of Greenfield data units are utilized within a basic service set (BSS).
If there are two or three OFDM symbols in VHT-SIG (e.g., a VHT-SIG1 and a VHT-SIG2, and a VHT-SIG3 in some embodiments), a device conforming to the first communication protocol can differentiate a green field data unit such as shown in
In some embodiments, VHT-SIG modulation in mixed mode and Greenfield mode are different.
In the above mentioned VHT signaling (i.e., signaling a data unit conforms to the first communication protocol) approaches in non HT-spoofing modes (i.e., not spoofing IEEE 802.11n Standard data units), and in some embodiments, the modulations of VHT_SIG fields are the same as the HT SIG fields in the IEEE 802.11n Standard, but the content of VHT_SIG fields will be different from HT-SIG of the IEEE 802.11n Standard, so that a device conforming to the IEEE 802.11n Standard will determine an error in the IEEE 802.11n Standard CRC check of the VHT-SIG fields (i.e., the IEEE 802.11n Standard device will perform a CRC check on the VHT-SIG fields assuming they are HT-SIG fields). For example, in one embodiment, more than 2 VHT-SIG symbols are utilized, so the CRC for the first communication protocol is redesigned to cover all of the more than two VHT-SIG fields. In another embodiment, the position/length/coding method (e.g. the initial states of the CRC logic) of the CRC bits in VHT-SIG1 and 2 are replaced, and the content of the VHT-SIG fields is different from HT-SIG fields.
In some embodiments, the VHT-STF and/or one or more VHT-LTF symbols may be repeated two or more times (e.g., for the purpose of more reliable channel estimation, frequency synchronization, automatic gain control (AGC) refinements, etc.). For example, in Greenfield mode data units, the VHT-STF and the first VHT-LTF symbol may be repeated two times each as shown in
In some embodiments, the VHT-STF and/or one or more VHT-LTF symbols may be extended beyond 4 μs. For example, in some embodiments, the VHT-STF is extended to 8 μs.
In some embodiments, the training sequences used for the VHT-STF and the VHT-LTFs are defined differently from those in the IEEE 802.11n Standard. For example, if in VHT-STF and/or VHT-LTF, a pilot Ps,n(k) is transmitted on the k-th subcarrier for the n-th training symbol at the s-th spatial stream, the VHT-STF and/or the VHT-LTF can be expressed as (expression before spatial mapping) P(k)s(k), where s(k) is the training STF or LTF symbol at the k-th subcarrier. The matrix P(k) used for the k-th subcarrier may be any invertible matrix that is known at both the transmitter and the receiver. As just one example of a P matrix, the P vectors for different streams are interleaved in the same VHT-LTF. In another example of a P matrix, in the embodiment of repeated VHT-STFs and/or VHT-LTFs, columns of the P matrix are repeated x times, if x-time repetition is applied for the VHT-STFs or VHT-LTFs.
In some embodiments, one or more of space division multiple access (SDMA), orthogonal frequency domain multiple access (OFDMA), etc., may be utilized in the first communication protocol. In these embodiments, one or more VHT-SIG fields contain subfield(s) that indicate whether the data unit is part of an SDMA/OFDMA transmission (e.g., whether the VHT-SIG field corresponds to one subspace of SDMA, or one sub-band of OFDMA). In the case of SDMA or OFDMA transmissions, all of the intended receivers should hold their respective CCAs until the end of transmission of the entire data unit, and should not send acknowledgment (ACK) data units until the end of the entire data unit. Since the different data streams in the data unit to the different receivers may have different lengths, the CCA should be held high till the end of the longest data stream.
In an embodiment, the transmitter indicates the duration of the longest data stream in the data unit in the LENGTH field of the L-SIG in mixed mode, or in a subfield of a VHT-SIG in Greenfield mode. The mentioned subfield in VHT-SIG indicates to the receiver that the current packet is part of an SDMA or OFDMA data unit, so the receiver should hold CCA for appropriate amount of time (e.g. according to the duration as indicated in length field in L-SIG in mixed mode). In another embodiment, MAC signaling is utilized to inform the receiver of the entire length of the SDMA/OFDMA data unit.
Compared with the mixed mode preamble in the IEEE 802.11n Standard, the preamble of at least some data units conforming to the first communication protocol may be made shorter, but still backward compatible with the IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11n Standards. In an embodiment, a Greenfield-like preamble is utilized, but with L-SIG fields inserted before the VHT-SIG fields.
In embodiments utilizing a preamble such as in
In some embodiments, to improve the detection of SIG fields, zero values are kept at the “DC” tones and/or “Guard” tones in each of the sub-bands of the LTS symbols in each of the VHT-LTF fields, and also not to transmit data in these tones in the Data field (VHT portion). In these embodiments, SIG field decoding quality will tend to be improved, at the expense of a lower data rate. On the other hand, a benefit of a short mixed mode preamble compared with the other embodiments is obtained.
In some embodiments, various preamble structures such as described above, are modified by including one or more VHT-SIG symbols after any VHT-LTF (e.g., VHT-LTF1, or VHT-LTF2, . . . VHT-LTFN). In some embodiments, signaling of VHT-LTF length by other VHT-SIG field(s) that are placed after L-SIG in mixed mode, or after VHT-LTF1 in Greenfield, is utilized. In other embodiments, VHT-SIG symbols occur after VHT-LTF1. If a VHT-SIG occurs after VHT-LTFn, then it can be spatially mapped the same way as VHT-LTFn (e.g., by vector QPn) or the same way as VHT-LTF1 (e.g. by vector QP1) so the receiver can use the channel estimation from VHT-LTFn or VHT-LTF1 to decode this VHT-SIG block after VHT-LTFn. These techniques can be utilized in either in mixed mode or Greenfield formats. In some embodiments, a benefit is that SDMA downlink transmissions can differentiate VHT-SIG fields for different users by beam-steering, while keeping the legacy portion of mixed mode packet unsteered (e.g., “omni-directional”). In some embodiments, different VHT-SIG symbols are located in unsteered and steered portions of the preamble, such as described below.
In an embodiment, the VHT-SIG1 and VHT-SIG2 may be used to jointly signal the number of VHT-LTFs or the number of VHT-LTFs before the next block of VHT-SIG for all the SDMA users. In one embodiment, content of VHT-SIG1 and VHT-SIG2 are repetitions of L-SIG, or any other suitable signal. In another embodiment, the VHT-SIG1 and VHT-SIG2 are any suitable symbol that delivers any common information to all the users (e.g. common MAC information delivered from AP to all the users). In some embodiments described herein, a first block of VHT-SIG fields (e.g. VHT-SIG1 and VHT-SIG2 in
In an embodiment, the “reserved” bit in L-SIG is set to 1. VHT-SIG1 and VHT-SIG2 can be modulated such as described above. If VHT-SIG1 and VHT-SIG2 are modulated using BPSK or Q-BPSK, with r=1/2 binary convolutional code (BCC), this is the same as L-SIG or HT-SIG of the IEEE 802.11n Standard. In this embodiment, the VHT-SIG1 and VHT-SIG2 and/or the reserved bit in L-SIG permit spoofing and/or first communication protocol data unit detection such as described above.
In an embodiment and in some scenarios, content of VHT-SIG3 and VHT-SIG4 is different for different users, and is multiplexed by the steering matrix Q for different users.
The data unit 450 is similar to the data unit 400, but one symbol shorter before the VHT-STF. In an embodiment, the “reserved” bit in L-SIG is set to 1, permitting first communication protocol data unit detection. VHT-SIG1 can be modulated such as described above. If VHT-SIG1 is modulated using BPSK, this permits spoofing and first communication protocol data unit detection. In an embodiment, content of VHT-SIG1 is a repetition of L-SIG, or any other suitable value.
The data unit 470 is similar to the data unit 400, but includes HT-SIG fields in the first portion. In this embodiment, the length field in HT-SIG is used to indicate the length of the data unit 470 for IEEE 802.11n spoofing.
In embodiments similar to those described above, the VHT-SIG blocks contain 3 OFDM symbols, conforming to all the previous cases where 3 OFDM symbols are needed for each VHT-SIG field. Also, in embodiments similar to those described above, the VHT-SIG placed after one VHT-LTF is applied regardless of DL-SDMA.
In the above mentioned examples in which two VHT-SIG blocks are present (e.g., one after L-SIG and the other after one of the VHT-LTFs), in some embodiments the two VHT-SIG blocks have different numbers of OFDM symbols. For example, the first VHT-SIG block has 3 symbols and second VHT-SIG block has 2 or 1 symbols. In another example, the first VHT-SIG block has 2 symbols and the second VHT-SIG block has 1 symbol.
In some embodiments that support DL-SDMA, the same preamble utilized regardless of DL-SDMA or not. In one embodiment of a non DL-SDMA case, the first VHT-SIG block signals the PHY information. In this embodiment, in the DL-SDMA case, the first VHT-SIG block delivers common PHY information for all the DL-SDMA users (e.g., bandwidth, short GI, etc.), and the second VHT-SIG block includes user-specific PHY information (e.g., MCS, length, etc.). In some embodiments, other fields are omitted in the second VHT-SIG block (e.g., sounding, extension, VHT-LTFs, etc.), so the second VHT-SIG block can be shorter than the first VHT-SIG block.
In one embodiment, the first VHT-SIG block has 2 OFDM symbols, and the second VHT-SIG block has 1 OFDM symbol, and the same preamble is applied for both single user and SDMA. In this embodiment, the first VHT-SIG always signals common PHY information for all users regardless of single user or SDMA, and the second VHT-SIG block has user specific information in the case of SDMA. For example, the first VHT-SIG block includes Length, GI Length, Bandwidth, Coding Type, Non-Sounding, number of VHT-LTFs (or 1 bit for whether only single VHT-LTF is present for single user case), BCC Tail, CRC, according to an embodiment. On the other hand, the second VHT-SIG block includes MCS, STBC type, smoothing, BCC Tail, CRC, according to an embodiment. In other embodiment, some of the above listed subfields are not present.
The IEEE 802.11n Standard specifies that, in mixed mode, the “Rate” subfield in L-SIG must be set to the lowest rate, i.e., 6 Mbps. The first communication protocol, on the other hand, sets the “Rate” subfield in L-SIG to rate specified in the IEEE 802.11a Standard other than 6 Mbps, according to an embodiment. In this embodiment, an IEEE 802.11n Standard compliant station, when decoding the L-SIG and finding Rate is not 6 Mbps, will automatically treat the packet as a legacy IEEE 802.11a packet, and set CCA according to the “Rate” and “Length” subfields in L-SIG. In an embodiment, one or more VHT-SIG symbols are modified for detection according to the first communication protocol, such as described above (e.g., the various modulation techniques described above).
In embodiments similar to all of the above-described examples, the number of tones delivering VHT-SIG in each of the VHT-SIG OFDM symbols is more than the number used in L-SIG. For example, 52 data tones are used in each of the VHT-SIG OFDM symbols, whereas 48 data tones are used in L-SIG and HT-SIG (if utilized), in some embodiments. In an embodiment, the same tone mapping as in the IEEE 802.11n Standard for 20 MHz and MCS0 is utilized. In this embodiment, four more bits can be delivered for VHT-SIG in each of the VHT-SIG OFDM symbols. In an embodiment, the long training field right before the VHT-SIG also sends non-zero training values (+−1) at these four additional tones.
In an embodiment, the rate field in the L-SIG field is set to 6 Mbps, and the length field is set to indicate the duration T. In an embodiment, each VHT-SIGA field 504 includes two OFDM symbols: a first symbol and a second symbol. The VHT-SIGB field 508 has one OFDM symbol.
The data unit 500 is an example data unit for an 80 MHz bandwidth transmission. The data unit 500 can be suitably modified for transmissions of different bandwidths as 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 160 MHz, etc.
In an embodiment, subfields of VHT-SIGA and VHT-SIGB are allocated regardless of whether single user or multiple user (e.g., SDMA) transmission is being utilized. In this embodiment, VHT-SIG-A includes two OFDM symbols VHT-SIG-B includes one OFDM symbol. In one example, 48 tones are utilized in both VHT-SIG-A and VHT-SIG-B. In another example, 52 tones are utilized in one or both of VHT-SIG-A and VHT-SIG-B.
In one specific embodiment, VHT-SIGA includes the following subfields: Length/Duration (16 bits) (can be defined in “number of OFDM symbols”, for example); Bandwidth (2 bits); Coding Type (1 bit); Not Sounding (1 bit); Number of Extension VHT-LTFs (3 bits); Short GI (1 bit) (in one implementation, Short GI is not set to 1 in DL-SDMA if at least one user is utilizing a single stream, and at least one user is utilizing more than one stream); Single VHT-LTF? (1 bit) (in one implementation, early signaling of short GI with a single stream (MCS is in VHT-SIG-B), and is not set to 1 in downlink multi-user MIMO data units unless all users are with single stream); CRC (8 bits); BCC tail bits (6 bits). In one implementation, the VHT-SIGA includes a “reserved” subfield.
In one specific embodiment, VHT-SIGB includes the following subfields: the MCS (8 bits); Aggregation (1 bit); STBC (2 bits); Smoothing (1 bit); CRC (4 bits); BCC tail bits (6 bits). In one embodiment, the smoothing subfield is omitted. In one implementation, the VHT-SIGB includes a “reserved” subfield.
In one embodiment, the first symbol of VHT-SIGA is modulated using BPSK, whereas the second symbol of VHT-SIGA is modulated using Q-BPSK, as illustrated in
In an embodiment, Q-BPSK is utilized on MQ data tones in the first symbol of VHT-SIG-A or both of the symbols of VHT-SIG-A, and BPSK is utilized on the remaining MI=48-MQ data tones. As just two examples, the (MQ, MI) tuple equals (24, 24) or (16, 32). In an embodiment, the different modulations are spread across the whole band to explore frequency diversity, e.g. by equal or substantially equal separations. The specific tone indices with the different modulations can be specified by the first communication protocol.
In this embodiment, a client station configured according to the first communication protocol can differentiate between first communication protocol data units, IEEE 802.11n Standard data units, and IEEE 802.11a Standard data units by comparing energy of Q-arm and I-arm across the 48 tones. This is equivalent to delivering 2 information bits by the 48 tones. A client station configured according to the IEEE 802.11n Standard, when receiving such a first communication protocol data unit, will fail detection of a HT IEEE 802.11n Standard data unit, and will thus treat the data unit as a IEEE 802.11a Standard data unit (i.e., L-SIG spoofing).
In another embodiment, the legacy portion of a preamble utilizes the 4 extra guard tones of the 20 MHz signal, which were allocated to the IEEE 802.11n Standard 20 MHz data signal, but not to the IEEE 802.11a 20 MHz signal. These 4 tones are not used to deliver data of VHT-SIG/L-SIG fields, but they are predefined to be non-zero symbols, e.g. in BPSK (+−1), or in Q-BPSK (+−j), in an embodiment. Whenever a first communication protocol receiver detects that there are signals on these 4 tones, and/or the detected symbols (after demodulation and slicing) matches the predefined symbols on these 4 tones, then the receiver determines that the data unit conforms to the first communication protocol.
In one embodiment, the data tones in the first OFDM symbol of VHT-SIG-A are modulated using BPSK, so IEEE 802.11a/11n receivers will treat the data unit as an 802.11a Standard data unit. In various embodiments, the 4 extra tones are applied in L-SIG only, or both L-SIG and VHT-SIG-A, or first OFDM symbol of VHT-SIG-A only, or L-SIG and first OFDM symbol of VHT-SIG-A, not in the remaining symbols of VHT-SIG, etc.
In these embodiments, the L-LTF also includes these 4 tones, which could be in the same way HT-GF-STF and GF-HT-LTF1 in green field mode of the IEEE 802.11n Standard 20 MHz signal. A receiver may detect the energy of these 4 tones across all the mentioned OFDM symbols (e.g. L-LTF, L-SIG, and 1st symbol of VHT-SIG-A), for detection of first communication protocol data units.
In embodiments in which VHT-SIG-B is placed after VHT-LTFn (e.g., after the last VHT-LTF, as in
In some embodiments VHT-SIG-B is placed after VHT-LTFn (e.g., the first or the last VHT-LTF), no matter single user or multi-user packets. In other embodiments, VHT-SIG-B is placed after VHT-LTF1 for single user and after VHT-LTFn for multi-user cases (e.g. after the first VHT-LTF for single user, and after the last VHT-LTF for multi-user). In other embodiments, VHT-SIGB does not exist for single user, and is applied for multi-user. In other embodiments, VHT-SIGB does not exist regardless of single user or multi-user. In some embodiments, VHT-SIG-A includes a bit to indicate single user or multi-user, and a subfield to indicate a total number of VHT-LTFs (which may be utilized by a receiver to locate the position of VHT-SIG-B in embodiments and/or data units that include VHT-SIG-B).
In one specific embodiment, VHT-SIGA includes the following subfields: Length/Duration (16 bits or some other suitable number) (can be defined in “number of OFDM symbols”, for example); Bandwidth (2 or more bits); Coding Type (1 bit); Not Sounding (1 bit); Smoothing (1 bit); Short GI (1 bit); CRC (8 bits); BCC tail bits (6 bits); a Number of Extension VHT-LTFs; Ness. In one implementation, the VHT-SIGA includes a “reserved” subfield.
In one specific embodiment, VHT-SIGB includes the following subfields: the MCS (any suitable number of bits); Aggregation (1 bit); STBC (any suitable number of bits); CRC (any suitable number of bits, but can be less than 8 bits in one implementation); BCC tail bits (6 bits). In one embodiment, the smoothing subfield is omitted from VHT-SIGA and included in VHT-SIGB. In one embodiment, the aggregation subfield is omitted from VHT-SIGB and included in VHT-SIGA. In one implementation, the VHT-SIGB includes a “reserved” subfield.
If VHT-SIG-B is always placed after the last VHT-LTF regardless single user or multi-user transmission, a number of spatial stream (Nss) and STBC can be signaled in VHT-SIG-A, according to an embodiment. In this embodiment, in DL-SDMA case, Nss and STBC are constrained to be common for all the clients.
In some embodiments, the first communication protocol utilizes beamforming and/or downlink multi-user multiple input, multiple output (DL-MU-MIMO). In these embodiments, the communication devices in a network utilize sounding data units (also referred to as sounding packets) for beamforming and/or DL-MU-MIMO.
In some embodiments, a sounding data unit includes a preamble but omits a data portion. In one embodiment of a sounding data unit, sounding signals are included in the VHT-SIGB field. In other embodiments, the sounding data unit does not include the VHT-SIGB field.
In one embodiment, preambles of regular data units with data include VHT-SIGB. In a particular embodiment, preambles of regular data units with data include VHT-SIGB, whereas sounding data units do not include VHT-SIGB.
In one embodiment, the L-SIG field and/or the VHT-SIGA field and/or the VHT-SIGB field (if included) of a sounding data unit indicates that the data unit does not have a data portion. In another embodiment, the L-SIG field and/or the VHT-SIGA field and/or the VHT-SIGB field (if included) of a sounding data unit additionally or alternatively includes a “non-sounding” bit similar to the “non-sounding” bit in the HT-SIG field of the IEEE 802.11n Standard that indicates whether the data unit is a sounding data unit.
In embodiments in which preambles of regular data units include VHT-SIGB whereas the preambles of sounding data units do not include VHT-SIGB, a receiver determines whether VHT-SIGB is included in the preamble of a received data unit based on the data length and/or “non-sounding” information from the L-SIG and/or VHT-SIGA fields.
At least some of the various blocks, operations, and techniques described above may be implemented utilizing hardware, a processor executing firmware instructions, a processor executing software instructions, or any combination thereof. When implemented utilizing a processor executing software or firmware instructions, the software or firmware instructions may be stored in any computer readable memory such as on a magnetic disk, an optical disk, or other storage medium, in a RAM or ROM or flash memory, processor, hard disk drive, optical disk drive, tape drive, etc. Likewise, the software or firmware instructions may be delivered to a user or a system via any known or desired delivery method including, for example, on a computer readable disk or other transportable computer storage mechanism or via communication media. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, radio frequency, infrared and other wireless media. Thus, the software or firmware instructions may be delivered to a user or a system via a communication channel such as a telephone line, a DSL line, a cable television line, a fiber optics line, a wireless communication channel, the Internet, etc. (which are viewed as being the same as or interchangeable with providing such software via a transportable storage medium). The software or firmware instructions may include machine readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform various acts.
When implemented in hardware, the hardware may comprise one or more of discrete components, an integrated circuit, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), etc.
While the present invention has been described with reference to specific examples, which are intended to be illustrative only and not to be limiting of the invention, changes, additions and/or deletions may be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention.
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/758,603, entitled “Physical Layer Frame Format for WLAN,” filed on Apr. 12, 2010, which claims the benefit of the following U.S. Provisional patent applications: U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/168,732, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed on Apr. 13, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/181,518, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed May 27, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/227,360, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Jul. 21, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/228,911, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Jul. 27, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/229,900, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Jul. 30, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/232,724, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Aug. 10, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/233,440, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Aug. 12, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/234,943, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Aug. 18, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/240,604, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Sep. 8, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/240,945, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Sep. 9, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/241,760, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Sep. 11, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/244,779, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Sep. 22, 2009; U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/252,290, entitled “80 MHz OFDM for WLAN,” filed Oct. 16, 2009; and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/319,773, entitled “NDP Preamble,” filed Mar. 31, 2010. The disclosures of all of the above-referenced patent applications are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Parent | 12758603 | Apr 2010 | US |
| Child | 15595116 | US |
