Reducing power consumption in a device operating as an access point of a wireless local area network
AssigneeGainSpan Corporation
InventorsPankaj Vyas, Venu Madhava Rao Kosuri, Vishal Batra
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Abstract
An access point communicates with a wireless station based on a point-to-point channel, to determine time instances of future communication to be received from the wireless station. In intervals between such future communications, the access point powers down at least some portions of a circuit contained within the access point for at least a partial duration between such future communications. In an embodiment, the powered-down portions include the receiver portions of the access point. The access point may be battery-powered, and the powering-down of the receiver portions enables reduction of power consumption in the access point.
Claims20
A method of communicating with a wireless station, said method being performed in an access point, said method comprising:
- communicating with said wireless station based on a point-to-point channel to determine at a first time instance, a future time instance at or after which a subsequent communication is expected to be received from said wireless station at said access point;
- receiving at a second time instance said subsequent communication destined to said access point, wherein said second time instance is at or after said future time instance;
- and
- powering down at least a portion of a circuit contained in said access point in at least a partial duration between said first time instance and said future time instance, to thereby reduce power consumption in said access point.
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions for causing an access point to communicate with a wireless station, said one or more sequences of instructions comprising:
- a first set of instructions constituting a communication module;
- a second set of instructions constituting an application module, wherein execution of said application module causes said access point to perform the actions of:
- communicating, based on a communication capability provided by said communication module, with a peer application executing on said wireless station to determine at a first time instance, a future time instance at or after which a subsequent communication is expected to be received from said wireless station at said access point;
- receiving at a second time instance said subsequent communication destined to said access point, wherein said second time instance is at or after said future time instance;
- and
- powering down at least a portion of a circuit contained in said access point in at least a partial duration between said first time instance and said future time instance, to thereby reduce power consumption in said access point.
An access point (AP) comprising:
- a memory to store instructions;
- a processor to retrieve instructions from said memory and to execute said instructions, wherein execution of said retrieved instructions causes said access point to perform the actions of:
- communicating with a wireless station based on a point-to-point channel to determine at a first time instance, a future time instance at or after which a subsequent communication is expected to be received from said wireless station at said access point;
- receiving at a second time instance said subsequent communication destined to said access point, wherein said second time instance is at or after said future time instance;
- and
- powering down at least a portion of a circuit contained in said access point in at least a partial duration between said first time instance and said future time instance, to thereby reduce power consumption in said access point.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.