Systems, methods, and devices for association and authentication for multi access point coordination

A wireless station (STA) comprising:

• a wireless transceiver;
• and
• a device controller configured to:
• communicate, through the wireless transceiver, with a coordinated access point (AP) group;
• advertise the coordinated AP group in one or more of a beacon, a probe response, or an association response;
• establish using a virtual basic service set information element (VBIE), a common association and authentication state between the STA and a coordinator of the coordinated AP group;
• generate a pairwise master key (PMK) between the STA and a coordinator of the coordinated AP group;
• distribute the PMK from the coordinator to a first member AP and a second member AP of the coordinated AP group;
• generate a first temporal key between the STA and the first member AP comprises performing a first handshake between the STA and the first member AP;
• generate a second temporal key between the STA and the second member AP comprises performing a second handshake between the STA and the second member AP;
• and
• maintain simultaneous connectivity between the STA and each of the one or more member APs in the coordinated AP group based on the established common association and authentication state.

A wireless member access point (AP) in a coordinated AP group comprising:

• a wireless transceiver;
• and
• a device controller configured to:
• communicate, through the wireless transceiver, with a wireless station (STA);
• receive the coordinated AP group in one or more of a beacon, a probe response, or an association response;
• establish using a virtual basic service set information element (VBIE), a common association and authentication state between the STA and a coordinator of the coordinated AP group;
• receive a pairwise master key (PMK) from the coordinator of the coordinated AP group;
• generate a temporal key with the STA by performing a handshake between the STA and the member AP;
• maintain simultaneous connectivity between the member AP and the STA based the common association and authentication state established while the STA is simultaneously connected to at least a second member AP in the coordinated AP group.