Patent Application
20190327746
This disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for wireless communications. In particular, this disclosure relates to systems and methods for wireless medium resource unit allocations.
Wireless communication systems are widely used to provide various types of communication services such as voice, video, or data. The wireless communication systems can operate pursuant to various wireless standards, such as the 802.11 ax standard. The wireless communication systems can include an access point (AP) that can communication with one or more stations (STAs).
Various objects, aspects, features, and advantages of the disclosure will become more apparent and better understood by referring to the detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters identify corresponding elements throughout. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements.
The details of various embodiments of the methods and systems are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below.
The following IEEE standard(s), including any draft versions of such standard(s), are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety and are made part of the present disclosure for all purposes: IEEE P802.11n™, IEEE P802.11ac™, and IEEE 802.11ax. Although this disclosure may reference aspects of these standard(s), the disclosure is in no way limited by these standard(s).
For purposes of reading the description of the various embodiments below, the following descriptions of the sections of the specification and their respective contents may be helpful:
Section A describes embodiments of systems and methods for resource unit allocations; and
Section B describes a network environment and computing environment which may be useful for practicing embodiments described herein.
Systems and methods for providing resource unit allocations for both contiguous and non-contiguous resource units are described according to various embodiments in the present disclosure. The non-contiguous Resource Unit (RU) combinations can be used to augment various wireless systems, such as a wireless system with 802.11 ax standard according to some embodiments. The resource units are subchannels in some embodiments. In wireless networks, an AP can allocate one or more resource units to each STA according to some embodiments. Such allocations can be contiguous within the bandwidth of each transmission according to some embodiments. Such allocations can be non-contiguous within the bandwidth of each transmission according to some embodiments.
In some embodiments, the non-contiguous resource units can be combined and the combination of non-contiguous resource units can be allocated to a STA. The number of possible combinations can be high. In some embodiments, the total number of possible RU allocations (e.g., both contiguous and non-contiguous) can be calculated by 2{circumflex over ( )}(floor(B/Z)*N). The floor function is a function that takes as input a real number and gives as output the greatest integer less than or equal to the input number. B is a smallest channel width on which non-contiguous assignments are allowed. Z is a smallest assignable contiguous spectrum (e.g., small granularity). N is a number of basic channels aggregated to form the channel of interest. In some embodiments, the B and N depend on the operating environment.
Systems and methods are provided herein to reduce the number of all possible combinations (e.g., potential frequency allocations when assigning a STA more than one RUs). The systems and methods provide a logical reduction of all possible combinations that takes into account support for different total bandwidths, implementations complexities, and usefulness of the combination.
In some embodiments, the systems and methods reduce the number of potential frequency allocations by at least one of the following approaches: increasing the frequency granularity (e.g., increasing the smallest assignable contiguous spectrum Z); setting up rules to disallow or exclude certain allocations; enforcing a minimum occupancy requirement for any valid allocation; imposing a minimum bandwidth difference between two valid allocations; or limiting the number of spectral holes for an aggregate bandwidth. In some embodiments, these approaches can be used individually or in any combination.
An embodiment of the present disclosure relates to a method for wireless communication. The method includes: determining one or more first subsets of channels within a frequency band, each of the first subsets of channels comprising one or more of a plurality of channels within the frequency band and corresponding to a potential set of one or more channels on which resource units of the frequency band can be allocated for transmissions; determining one or more second subsets of channels from among the first subsets of channels by enforcing an occupancy requirement on the one or more first subsets of channels; and selecting one or more of the second subsets of channels on which to allocate resource units for transmissions. The occupancy requirement includes a requirement that one or more of the channels of a respective first subset of channels have a channel occupancy above a threshold occupancy level to be included in the second subsets of channels. The channel occupancy of a channel includes an amount of a spectrum of the channel occupied under the allocation.
Another embodiment of the present disclosure relates to a system for allocating resource units on a channel. The system includes one or more circuits. The one or more circuits are configured to: determine one or more first subsets of channels within a frequency band, each of the first subsets of channels comprising one or more of a plurality of channels within the frequency band and corresponding to a potential set of one or more channels on which resource units of the frequency band can be allocated for transmissions; determine one or more second subsets of channels from among the first subsets of channels by enforcing a minimum occupancy requirement on the one or more first subsets of channels; and select one or more of the second subsets of channels on which to allocate resource units for transmissions. The minimum occupancy requirement includes a requirement that one or more of the channels of a respective first subset of channels have a channel occupancy above a threshold occupancy level to be included in the second subsets of channels. The channel occupancy of a channel includes an amount of a spectrum of the channel occupied under the allocation.
Another embodiment of the present disclosure relates to a method for wireless communication. The method includes: determining a plurality of valid resource unit allocations over a channel for a station; determining a minimum bandwidth difference between two valid resource allocations; determining one or more resource unit allocations within which at least one bandwidth difference between two adjacent allocated resource units is larger than the minimum bandwidth difference; and disallowing the one or more resource unit allocations.
At operation 204, one or more first potential RU allocations are determined from a total number of potential RU allocations according to the one or more rules according to some embodiments. For example, any potential RU allocations that satisfy conditions of at least one of the one of the one or more rules is determined as a first RU allocation according to some embodiments.
At operation 206, the determined one or more first potential RU allocations are disallowed or removed from the total number of potential RU allocations.
At operation 304, a number of potential RU allocations is determined according to the smallest assignable contiguous spectrum Z according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, the number of potential RU allocations is determined by 2{circumflex over ( )}(floor(B/Z)*N). B is a smallest channel width on which non-contiguous assignments are allowed. N is a number of basic channels aggregated to form the channel of interest. In some embodiments, the B and N are predetermined and depend on the operating environment.
At operation 306, RUs are allocated to the station according to the number of potential RU allocations.
At step 404, one or more second subsets of channels are determined from among the first subsets of channels by enforcing a minimum occupancy requirement on the one or more first subsets of channels according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, the one or more second subsets of channels are determined by eliminating channels within the one or more first subsets of channels that does not meet the minimum occupancy requirement. In some embodiments, each of the one or more subset of channels is enforced with different minimum occupancy requirement. In some embodiments, the minimum occupancy requirement includes a requirement that one or more of the channels of a respective first subset of channels have a channel occupancy above a threshold occupancy level to be included in the second subsets of channels. In some embodiments, the channel occupancy of a channel includes an amount of a spectrum of the channel occupied under the allocation. In some embodiments, the minimum occupancy requirement is predetermined. For example, a primary channel may be considered to be 80 MHz and 160 MHz, 240 MHz, 320 MHz channels may be considered as extension channels according to some embodiments. When a minimum occupancy requirement of 50% is enforced to the channels, within the primary 80 MHz channel, 40 MHz resource units are required for the allocation, and within the extensions channels, 80, 120, and 160 MHz RUs are required for the allocation according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, the primary channel may not be enforced with the minimum occupancy requirement.
At step 406, RUs are allocated to the station on the one or more second subsets of channels according to some embodiments. In this way, a number of RU allocations on the one or more second subsets of channels is smaller than a number of RU allocations on the one or more first subsets of channels according to some embodiments.
At step 504, one or more RU allocations that does not have the minimum bandwidth difference between any two RUs of the RU allocation are determined according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, each RU allocation includes multiple RUs allocated to one or more locations within a spectrum band. In some embodiments, a bandwidth difference between two adjacent RUs within a RU allocation is determined. When a bandwidth difference between any two RUs is larger than the minimum bandwidth difference, the RU allocation is determined as a RU allocation that does not have the minimum bandwidth according to some embodiments.
At step 506, the one or more RU allocations that does not have the minimum bandwidth difference are disallowed for station according to some embodiments.
At step 604, a threshold number of spectral holes is determined according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, limiting the number of spectral holes for an aggregate bandwidth reduces the number of RU allocations.
At step 606, the potential RU allocations that have a number of spectral holes larger than the threshold number of spectral holes are disallowed in order to reduce the total number of RU allocations in some embodiments.
Table 1 shows a list of possible RU allocations for an 80+80 (e.g., N=2) MHz bandwidth channel according to one or more embodiments. A smallest assignable contiguous spectrum for the 80+80 MHz bandwidth channel is 20 MHz according to some embodiments. RU allocations shown in TABLE 1 is achieved by applying the Z=20 MHz granularity, primary 20 occupancy requirement, and a minimum occupancy of 50% in each 80 MHz channel according to some embodiments.
In some embodiments, in order to reduce the number of RU allocations, a minimum occupancy requirement (e.g., minimum occupancy 50% per 80 MHz channel) is applied. As discussed above, when a minimum occupancy requirement applied, the RU allocations that has occupancy that is less than the minimum occupancy requirement are disallowed according to some embodiments. For example, as shown in the Table 1, any allocation with a single 20 MHz (e.g., 242 RU size) does meet the 40 MHz (e.g., 50% per 80 MHz channel) minimum occupancy requirement according to some embodiments. These allocations are disallowed (e.g., indicated as N in Table 1) according to some embodiments. In this way, the total number of RU allocations is reduced (e.g., allowed allocations indicated as Y in Table 1). The number of RU allocations is further reduced by imposing a minimum bandwidth difference between two valid allocations (e.g., minimum bandwidth difference is 2*Z=40 MHz). When the minimum bandwidth difference 40 MHz is imposed, a total bandwidth that can support for the allocation may be 4*40=160 MHz, 3*40=120 MHz, or 2*40=80 MHz according to some embodiments. In this way, the allocations with other total bandwidths (e.g., 100 MHz, 140 MHz) as previously shown in Table 1 are disallowed (e.g., indicated as ¥ in Table 2).
Table 3 shows a list of reduced RU allocations for an 80+80+80+80 (e.g., N=4) MHz bandwidth channel according to one or more embodiments. A smallest assignable contiguous spectrum for the 80+80+80+80 MHz bandwidth channel is 20 MHz according to some embodiments.
In some embodiments, the total reduced number of RU allocations can be determined using similar approaches as discussed above and shown in Table 1. For example, applying a minimum occupancy requirement (e.g., minimum occupancy 50% per 80 MHz channel), imposing a minimum bandwidth difference between two valid allocations (e.g., minimum bandwidth difference is 2*Z=40 MHz). When the minimum bandwidth difference 40 MHz is imposed, a total bandwidth that can support for the allocation may be 8*40=320 MHz, 7*40=280 MHz, 6*40=240 MHz, 5*40=200 MHz, 4*40=160 MHz, 3*40=120 MHz, or 2*40=80 MHz according to some embodiments. In this way, the allocations with other total bandwidths, the allocations that does not meet the minimum occupancy requirement, the allocations that do not have the required minimum bandwidth differences are eliminated from a total number of all possible RU allocations according to some embodiments.
Having discussed specific embodiments of providing non-contiguous resource unit combinations, it may be helpful to describe aspects of the operating environment as well as associated system components (e.g., hardware elements) in connection with the methods and systems described above. Referring to
The access points (APs) 106 may be operably coupled to the network hardware 192 via local area network connections. In some embodiments, the systems and methods of providing non-contiguous resource unit combinations are used by the access points 106. The network hardware 192, which may include a router, gateway, switch, bridge, modem, system controller, appliance, etc., may provide a local area network connection for the communication system. Each of the access points 106 may have an associated antenna or an antenna array to communicate with the wireless communication devices 102 in its area. The wireless communication devices 102 may register with a particular access point 106 to receive services from the communication system (e.g., via a SU-MIMO or MU-MIMO configuration). For direct connections (e.g., point-to-point communications), some wireless communication devices 102 may communicate directly via an allocated channel and communications protocol. Some of the wireless communication devices 102 may be mobile or relatively static with respect to the access point 106.
In some embodiments an access point 106 includes a device or module (including a combination of hardware and software) that allows wireless communication devices 102 to connect to a wired network using Wi-Fi, or other standards. An access point 106 may sometimes be referred to as a wireless access point (WAP). An access point 106 may be configured, designed and/or built for operating in a wireless local area network (WLAN). An access point 106 may connect to a router (e.g., via a wired network) as a standalone device in some embodiments. In other embodiments, an access point can be a component of a router. An access point 106 can provide multiple devices 102 access to a network. An access point 106 may, for example, connect to a wired Ethernet connection and provide wireless connections using radio frequency links for other devices 102 to utilize that wired connection. An access point 106 may be built and/or configured to support a standard for sending and receiving data using one or more radio frequencies. Those standards and the frequencies they use may be defined by the IEEE (e.g., IEEE 802.11 standards). An access point may be configured and/or used to support public Internet hotspots, and/or on an internal network to extend the network's Wi-Fi signal range.
In some embodiments, the access points 106 may be used for (e.g., in-home or in-building) wireless networks (e.g., IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, ZigBee, any other type of radio frequency based network protocol and/or variations thereof). Each of the wireless communication devices 102 may include a built-in radio and/or is coupled to a radio. Such wireless communication devices 102 and/or access points 106 may operate in accordance with the various aspects of the disclosure as presented herein to enhance performance, reduce costs and/or size, and/or enhance broadband applications. Each wireless communication devices 102 may have the capacity to function as a client node seeking access to resources (e.g., data, and connection to networked nodes such as servers) via one or more access points 106.
The network connections may include any type and/or form of network and may include any of the following: a point-to-point network, a broadcast network, a telecommunications network, a data communication network, a computer network. The topology of the network may be a bus, star, or ring network topology. The network may be of any such network topology as known to those ordinarily skilled in the art capable of supporting the operations described herein. In some embodiments, different types of data may be transmitted via different protocols. In other embodiments, the same types of data may be transmitted via different protocols.
The communications device(s) 102 and access point(s) 106 may be deployed as and/or executed on any type and form of computing device, such as a computer, network device or appliance capable of communicating on any type and form of network and performing the operations described herein.
The central processing unit 121 is any logic circuitry that responds to and processes instructions fetched from the main memory unit 122. In many embodiments, the central processing unit 121 is provided by a microprocessor unit, such as: those manufactured by Intel Corporation of Mountain View, Calif.; those manufactured by International Business Machines of White Plains, N.Y.; or those manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale, Calif. The computing device 100 may be based on any of these processors, or any other processor capable of operating as described herein.
Main memory unit 122 may be one or more memory chips capable of storing data and allowing any storage location to be directly accessed by the microprocessor 121, such as any type or variant of Static random access memory (SRAM), Dynamic random access memory (DRAM), Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), NAND Flash, NOR Flash and Solid State Drives (SSD). The main memory 122 may be based on any of the above described memory chips, or any other available memory chips capable of operating as described herein. In the embodiment shown in
A wide variety of I/O devices 130a-130n may be present in the computing device 100. Input devices include keyboards, mice, trackpads, trackballs, microphones, dials, touch pads, touch screen, and drawing tablets. Output devices include video displays, speakers, inkjet printers, laser printers, projectors and dye-sublimation printers. The I/O devices may be controlled by an I/O controller 123 as shown in
Referring again to
Furthermore, the computing device 100 may include a network interface 118 to interface to the network 104 through a variety of connections including, but not limited to, standard telephone lines, LAN or WAN links (e.g., 802.11, T1, T3, 56 kb, X.25, SNA, DECNET), broadband connections (e.g., ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM, Gigabit Ethernet, Ethernet-over-SONET), wireless connections, or some combination of any or all of the above. Connections can be established using a variety of communication protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, IPX, SPX, NetBIOS, Ethernet, ARCNET, SONET, SDH, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), RS232, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11ad, CDMA, GSM, WiMax and direct asynchronous connections). In one embodiment, the computing device 100 communicates with other computing devices 100′ via any type and/or form of gateway or tunneling protocol such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS). The network interface 118 may include a built-in network adapter, network interface card, PCMCIA network card, card bus network adapter, wireless network adapter, USB network adapter, modem or any other device suitable for interfacing the computing device 100 to any type of network capable of communication and performing the operations described herein.
In some embodiments, the computing device 100 may include or be connected to one or more display devices 124a-124n. As such, any of the I/O devices 130a-130n and/or the I/O controller 123 may include any type and/or form of suitable hardware, software, or combination of hardware and software to support, enable or provide for the connection and use of the display device(s) 124a-124n by the computing device 100. For example, the computing device 100 may include any type and/or form of video adapter, video card, driver, and/or library to interface, communicate, connect or otherwise use the display device(s) 124a-124n. In one embodiment, a video adapter may include multiple connectors to interface to the display device(s) 124a-124n. In other embodiments, the computing device 100 may include multiple video adapters, with each video adapter connected to the display device(s) 124a-124n. In some embodiments, any portion of the operating system of the computing device 100 may be configured for using multiple displays 124a-124n. One ordinarily skilled in the art will recognize and appreciate the various ways and embodiments that a computing device 100 may be configured to have one or more display devices 124a-124n.
In further embodiments, an I/O device 130 may be a bridge between the system bus 150 and an external communication bus, such as a USB bus, an Apple Desktop Bus, an RS-232 serial connection, a SCSI bus, a FireWire bus, a FireWire 800 bus, an Ethernet bus, an AppleTalk bus, a Gigabit Ethernet bus, an Asynchronous Transfer Mode bus, a FibreChannel bus, a Serial Attached small computer system interface bus, a USB connection, or a HDMI bus.
A computing device 100 of the sort depicted in
The computer system 100 can be any workstation, telephone, desktop computer, laptop or notebook computer, server, handheld computer, mobile telephone or other portable telecommunications device, media playing device, a gaming system, mobile computing device, or any other type and/or form of computing, telecommunications or media device that is capable of communication. The computer system 100 has sufficient processor power and memory capacity to perform the operations described herein.
In some embodiments, the computing device 100 may have different processors, operating systems, and input devices consistent with the device. For example, in one embodiment, the computing device 100 is a smart phone, mobile device, tablet or personal digital assistant. In still other embodiments, the computing device 100 is an Android-based mobile device, an iPhone smart phone manufactured by Apple Computer of Cupertino, Calif., or a Blackberry or WebOS-based handheld device or smart phone, such as the devices manufactured by Research In Motion Limited. Moreover, the computing device 100 can be any workstation, desktop computer, laptop or notebook computer, server, handheld computer, mobile telephone, any other computer, or other form of computing or telecommunications device that is capable of communication and that has sufficient processor power and memory capacity to perform the operations described herein.
Although the disclosure may reference one or more “users”, such “users” may refer to user-associated devices or stations (STAs), for example, consistent with the terms “user” and “multi-user” typically used in the context of a multi-user multiple-input and multiple-output (MU-MIMO) environment.
Although examples of communications systems described above may include devices and APs operating according to an 802.11 standard, it should be understood that embodiments of the systems and methods described can operate according to other standards and use wireless communications devices other than devices configured as devices and APs. For example, multiple-unit communication interfaces associated with cellular networks, satellite communications, vehicle communication networks, and other non-802.11 wireless networks can utilize the systems and methods described herein to achieve improved overall capacity and/or link quality without departing from the scope of the systems and methods described herein.
It should be noted that certain passages of this disclosure may reference terms such as “first” and “second” in connection with devices, mode of operation, transmit chains, antennas, etc., for purposes of identifying or differentiating one from another or from others. These terms are not intended to merely relate entities (e.g., a first device and a second device) temporally or according to a sequence, although in some cases, these entities may include such a relationship. Nor do these terms limit the number of possible entities (e.g., devices) that may operate within a system or environment.
It should be understood that the systems described above may provide multiple ones of any or each of those components and these components may be provided on either a standalone machine or, in some embodiments, on multiple machines in a distributed system. In addition, the systems and methods described above may be provided as one or more computer-readable programs or executable instructions embodied on or in one or more articles of manufacture. The article of manufacture may be a floppy disk, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, a flash memory card, a PROM, a RAM, a ROM, or a magnetic tape. In general, the computer-readable programs may be implemented in any programming language, such as LISP, PERL, C, C++, C#, PROLOG, or in any byte code language such as JAVA. The software programs or executable instructions may be stored on or in one or more articles of manufacture as object code.
While the foregoing written description of the methods and systems enables one of ordinary skill to make and use what is considered presently to be the best mode thereof, those of ordinary skill will understand and appreciate the existence of variations, combinations, and equivalents of the specific embodiment, method, and examples herein. The present methods and systems should therefore not be limited by the above described embodiments, methods, and examples, but by all embodiments and methods within the scope and spirit of the disclosure.
The present application claims priority to and the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/662,129, titled “Systems and Methods for Non-Contiguous Resource Unit Combinations,” filed on Apr. 24, 2018, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62662129 | Apr 2018 | US |
