Non-r-twt member sta access grant for burst traffic transmission

An apparatus for wireless communication in a network, the apparatus comprising:

• (a) a wireless communication circuit, as a wireless station (STA) which is a separate STA or as a STA in a multiple-link device (MLD), and operating as either a regular STA or an Access Point (AP) STA, for wirelessly communicating with other wireless stations (STAs) using a carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanism on a wireless local area network (WLAN) in which enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) is utilized for random channel access on all the links;
• (b) a processor coupled to said wireless communication circuit for operating on the WLAN;
• (c) a non-transitory memory storing instructions executable by the processor for communicating with other STAs;
• and
• (d) wherein said instructions, when executed by the processor, perform steps of a wireless communications protocol for said wireless communication circuit, comprising:
• (i) enqueuing an urgent burst of real-time application (RTA) traffic by a non-AP STA for transmission to the AP during an ongoing random-target wait time (R-TWT) service period (SP), in which said non-AP R-TWT STA does not have an R-TWT membership;
• (ii) initiating an R-TWT negotiation from said non-AP STA, with the AP for performing scheduling as a scheduling AP, inside the ongoing R-TWT SP, wherein said negotiation contains a request:
• (A) for either a temporary or a long-term membership in a specific R-TWT SP which is either the current R-TWT SP or an R-TWT SP after the currently ongoing R-TWT SP but before the R-TWT SP that the non-AP STA originally had R-TWT membership for, or (B) for contending for a random access-resource unit (RA-RU) in the current R-TWT SP if the uplink orthogonal frequency division multiple access-based random access (UORA) feature is enabled;
• (iii) wherein said R-TWT negotiation is based on said non-AP STA transmitting a TWT request frame and receiving a TWT response frame, each of these frames carrying TWT information elements comprising a negotiation type subfield which indicates this form of negotiation;
• (iv) wherein said TWT information elements comprise a subfield of a request type field for indicating temporary or long-term membership in the current R-TWT, which can be used by said scheduling AP for indicating whether membership is accepted;
• (v) wherein said scheduling AP may accept or reject the membership request from the non-AP STA making the membership request, or it may indicate an alternate R-TWT setup or dictate a preferred R-TWT setup from the STA;
• (vi) wherein in response to the membership request being accepted, said non-AP STA transmits its urgent burst of RTA traffic:
• (A) in the specific R-TWT SP;
• or (B) contends for a RA-RU in the current R-TWT SP if UORA is enabled;
• and
• (vii) wherein UORA may be enabled in response to setting a value in the broadcast TWT recommendation field to request enabling UORA with at least one RA-RU feature in the R-TWT.

A method of performing wireless communication in a network, the method comprising:

• (a) communicating between wireless stations (STAs) that are either separate STAs or STAs within a multiple-link device (MLD), and each of which operates as either an Access Point (AP), or a non-AP STA, for wirelessly communicating with other wireless STAs using a carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanism on a wireless local area network (WLAN) in which enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) is utilized for random channel access on all the links;
• (b) enqueuing an urgent burst of real-time application (RTA) traffic by a non-AP STA for transmission to the AP during an ongoing random-target wait time (R-TWT) service period (SP), in which said non-AP R-TWT STA does not have an R-TWT membership;
• (c) initiating an R-TWT negotiation from said non-AP STA, with the AP for performing scheduling as a scheduling AP, inside the ongoing R-TWT SP, wherein said negotiation contains a request:
• (A) for either a temporary or a long-term membership in a specific R-TWT SP which is either the current R-TWT SP or an R-TWT SP after the currently ongoing R-TWT SP but before the R-TWT SP that the non-AP STA originally had R-TWT membership for, or (B) for contending for a random access-resource unit (RA-RU) in the current R-TWT SP if the uplink orthogonal frequency division multiple access-based random access (UORA) feature is enabled;
• (d) wherein said scheduling AP may accept or reject the membership request from the non-AP STA making the membership request, or it may indicate an alternate R-TWT setup or dictate a preferred R-TWT setup from the STA;
• and
• (e) wherein in response to the membership request being accepted, said non-AP STA transmits its urgent burst of RTA traffic:
• (A) in the specific R-TWT SP;
• or (B) contends for a RA-RU in the current R-TWT SP if UORA is enabled.