Beacon coding in wireless communications systems

A wireless communications apparatus that encodes and transmits beacon symbols of a beacon message, comprising:

• means for initializing a beacon message;
• means for encoding the beacon message into a plurality of beacon symbols according to a coding scheme, wherein the coding scheme can be solved from a portion of the symbols less than the total number of symbols;
• and
• means for transmitting the beacon symbols on corresponding subcarriers in periodic time slots;
• wherein encoding of the beacon message by the means for encoding enables decoding with less than the total number of beacon symbols in the plurality of beacon symbols to obtain more efficient decoding and resolution.

A computer program product, comprising:

• a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising:
• code for causing at least one computer to initialize a beacon message with information regarding a transmitter of the beacon message;
• code for causing the at least one computer to encode the beacon message to a plurality of beacon symbols to be sent out on subcarriers indicative of information, the beacon symbols being chosen according to a coding scheme where the beacon message can be decoded by obtaining a portion of the beacon symbols less than the total number of beacon symbols in the plurality of beacon symbols;
• and
• code for causing at least one computer to transmit the beacon symbols on the subcarriers at determined symbol periods.

In a wireless communication system, an apparatus comprising:

• a processor configured to:
• encode a beacon message into a plurality of beacon symbol positions according to a plurality of available positions;
• relate the available positions to a field such that receiving a portion of the beacon symbol positions less than plurality of available positions and the total number of beacon symbols in the beacon message to render the rest of the beacon message deterministic by satisfying a linear constraint on the field;
• and
• transmit the beacon symbols;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor.

A wireless communication apparatus for determining a beacon message based on a subset of received beacon symbols, comprising:

• means for receiving a number of beacon symbols of a single beacon message less than the total number of beacon symbols in the beacon message;
• means for satisfying a linear constraint over a field related to a total number of available subcarriers for the beacon message based on the subcarrier positions of received beacon symbols;
• and
• means for determining the remaining beacon symbols in the beacon message based on the linear constraint to obtain more efficient decoding and resolution.

A computer program product, comprising:

• a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising:
• code for causing at least one computer to receive an incomplete set of beacon symbol broadcasts related to a beacon message, the beacon symbols satisfy a linear constraint over a field related to usable subcarriers for transmitting the beacon symbol broadcasts;
• and
• code for causing at least one computer to solve the linear constraint with respect to the incomplete set of beacon symbol broadcasts to determine remaining beacon symbols in the beacon message to obtain more efficient decoding and resolution.

In a wireless communication system, an apparatus comprising:

• a processor configured to:
• receive an incomplete set of beacon symbols related to a beacon message;
• determine remaining beacon symbols of the beacon message based on utilizing the received beacon symbols to satisfy a linear constraint over a field;
• and
• decode the beacon message to discern information about a transmitting sector thereof to obtain more efficient decoding and resolution;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor.