Transmit scheme adaptation for wireless data transmissions

A method in a digital communication system for transmitting a sequence of data packets, comprising:

• selecting a transmit scheme for each packet from a multitude of available transmit schemes and receiving immediate feedback on the success/failure of each packet transmission wherein the multitude of transmit schemes are arranged in a plurality of ordered sets that each defines an order of the transmit schemes contained within;
• selecting a transmit scheme for packet transmissions and subsequently remaining on the currently selected transmit scheme within a currently selected ordered set or selecting an adjacent lower or higher transmit scheme in the ordered set to maximize a first transmission performance metric within the ordered set based on a specified vertical adaptation technique;
• replacing the transmit scheme for at least one packet with a probe transmit scheme, whereby the probe transmit scheme is given as output argument from a table lookup using the currently chosen transmit scheme as input argument;
• collecting success/failure statistics for each probe ordered set whereby probe ordered set's are the ordered set that probe transmit schemes are taken from;
• and
• comparing the collected statistics between various probe ordered set's and horizontally adapting to one of the probe ordered sets when a second transmission performance metric is met.

Apparatus to adapt a transmit scheme for data packet transmissions in wireless transceivers, comprising:

• a transmit scheme adaptation module that determines the transmit scheme of each outgoing packet by processing success/failure statistics of previously transmitted packets;
• logic that generates a number of ordered sets of transmit schemes, each containing a number of transmit schemes;
• probe mapping tables containing a list of target ordered sets and corresponding target transmit schemes for each transmit scheme in all ordered sets;
• a vertical transmit scheme control unit to determine, within a current ordered set of transmit schemes following a specified rate adaptation scheme to be used for on-going data transmissions based upon a currently chosen transmit scheme selected by the transmit scheme adaptation module;
• a process control unit operable to request one or more subsequent packets to be transmitted from a transmit module to a remote transceiver using one of the probe transmit schemes from the probe mapping table of the current ordered set of transmit schemes;
• an ordered set control unit operable to collect success/failure statistics of on-going data transmissions in the current ordered set of transmit schemes based upon feedback information from the remote transceiver and further operable to probe transmit schemes to derive quality measures for the current home ordered set and probe ordered set;
• and
• wherein the ordered set control unit is operable to abandon the current ordered set of transmit schemes and to transition to a new ordered set of transmit schemes based upon collected data when a quality of the target ordered set exceeds a specified threshold of the current home ordered set quality.

A transceiver, comprising:

• a transmit queue containing packets for transmission;
• a transceiver operable to transmit the packets for transmission according to a specified transmit scheme signal transmission configuration;
• and
• wherein the transceiver is further operable to determine transmit success information in relation to transmissions for the specified transmit schemes;
• wherein the transceiver is operable to frequently adjust the signal transmission configuration to find a preferred signal transmission configuration by:
• while in a first mode, holding a group of first signal configuration transmit parameters constant while modifying one or more transmit parameters of a group of second signal configuration transmit parameters for transmitted packets to determine a preferred signal transmission configuration while in the first mode;
• and
• while in a second mode, modifying at least one of the first signal configuration transmit parameters and optionally modifying one or more transmit parameters of the second group of signal configuration transmit parameters for at least one probe packet to determine if a different first group of signal configuration transmit parameters is preferred.

A method for determining a transmit scheme, comprising:

• determining a transmit scheme that defines a signaling configuration that includes number of spatial streams and at least one of antenna configuration information, code rate, modulation encoding scheme, and physical layer transmission transmit parameters;
• transmitting a packet according to the transmit scheme;
• collecting packet error rate success and failure information of ongoing data transmissions;
• and
• modifying the transmit scheme by holding a first group of signaling configuration transmit parameters constant while sequentially modifying one or more of a second group of signaling configuration transmit parameters to determine a first preferred transmit scheme.