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US 8,711,784 B2Granted
Beaconing and superframe structure for millimeter wave wireless technologies
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsCarlos Cordeiro, Solomon Trainin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
According to aspects of the embodiments, there is provided a method and apparatus for communicating in a wireless network with a MAC layer that uses multi-level beacons, the multi-level beacons including a discovery beacon which is transmitted in an omni mode and an announcement beacon/frame transmitted in a beamformed mode.
Claims19
A method for station discovery and information exchange in a millimeter-wave (mmW) communication system, comprising:
- communicating in a wireless network implementing a superframe structure having multi-level beacons corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of data rates, said multi-level beacons including a Discovery beacon (DB) which is transmitted in an omni mode and an announcement beacon/frame (AB) transmitted in a beamformed mode;
- wherein in the superframe structure said DB is transmitted during a Discovery Time (DT), while said AB is transmitted during an Announcement Time (AT) and wherein a Data Transfer Time (DTT) is used for actual data communications amongst networked STAs and Association Beamforming Training (A-BFT) is used for beamforming training of a new STA attempting association with said network, and Beamforming Training Time (BFTT) is for beamforming amongst STAs that are already associated with said network;
- wherein in addition to serving currently associated stations (STAs) said DB is transmitted by a piconet coordinator (PNC) that allows new STAs to discover and potentially join said wireless network and wherein the AB is a unicast frame addressed to a particular station (STA).
A non-transitory machine-accessible medium that provides instructions, which when accessed, cause a machine to perform operations comprising:
- communicating in a wireless network implementing a superframe structure having multi-level beacons corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of data rates, said multi-level beacons including a Discovery beacon (DB) which is transmitted in an omni mode and an announcement beacon (AB) transmitted in a beamformed mode;
- wherein in the superframe structure said DB is transmitted during a Discovery Time (DT), while said AB is transmitted during an Announcement Time (AT) and wherein a Data Transfer Time (DTT) is used for actual data communications amongst network STAs and Association Beamforming Training (A-BFT) is used for beamforming training of a new STA attempting association with said network, and Beamforming Training Time (BFTT) is for beamforming amongst STAs that are already associated with said network;
- wherein said DB is transmitted by a piconet coordinator (PNC) that allows new STAs to discover and potentially join said wireless network and wherein the AB is a unicast frame addressed to a particular station (STA), in addition to serving currently associated STAs.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a transceiver adapted to communicate in a wireless network implementing a superframe structure having multi-level beacons corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of data rates, said multi-level beacons including a Discovery beacon (DB) which is transmitted in an omni mode and an announcement beacon (AB) transmitted in a beamformed mode;
- wherein in the superframe structure said DB is transmitted during a Discovery Time (DT), while said AB is transmitted during an Announcement Time (AT) and wherein a Data Transfer Time (DTT) is used for actual data communications amongst network STAs and Association Beamforming Training (A-BFT) is used for beamforming training of a new STA attempting association with said network, and Beamforming Training Time (BFTT) is for beamforming amongst STAs that are already associated with said network;
- wherein in addition to serving currently associated stations (STAs) said DB is transmitted by a piconet coordinator (PNC) that allows new STAs to discover and potentially join said wireless network and wherein the AB is a unicast frame addressed to a particular station (STA).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.