WLAN Sensing Measurement Report

Abstract

The sensing receiver may be configured for wireless local area network (WLAN) sensing. The sensing receiver may be configured to receive packets from a sensing transmitter, perform measurements on the received packets, and prepare a sensing measurement report that may include at least a measurement report control field and a measurement report field. A measurement type dependent parameters subfield of the measurement report control field may be based on a measurement type. The sensing receiver may be configured to send the sensing measurement report to the sensing transmitter. Contents of the measurement report field may be based on a measurement type. The measurement type may include at least one of a channel state information (CSI) type, a channel impulse response (CIR) type, or a directional multi-gigabit (DMG) / enhanced DMG (EDM) type. The packet may be a null data packet (NDP) or a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU).

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] (CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS) This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63 / 303,349, filed January 26, 2022, U.S. Provisional Application No. 63 / 313,513, filed February 24, 2022, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 63 / 337,761, filed May 3, 2022, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. [Background technology]

[0002] A wireless local area network (WLAN) in infrastructure Basic Service Set (BSS) mode has an Access Point (AP) of the BSS and one or more stations (STAs) associated with the AP. The AP typically has access or interface to a Distribution System (DS) or another type of wired / wireless network that carries traffic within and outside the BSS. Traffic originating from outside the BSS to a STA arrives through the AP and is delivered to the STA. Traffic from a STA to a destination outside the BSS is sent to the AP and delivered to the respective destination. Traffic between STAs within the BSS may also be sent through the AP, with the source STA sending traffic to the AP and the AP delivering the traffic to the destination STA. Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0003] The sensing receiver may be configured for wireless local area network (WLAN) sensing. The sensing receiver may be configured to receive packets from a sensing transmitter. The sensing receiver may be configured to perform measurements on the received packets. The sensing receiver may be configured to prepare a sensing measurement report. The sensing measurement report may include at least a measurement report control field and a measurement report field. A measurement type dependent parameters subfield of the measurement report control field may be based on the measurement type. The sensing receiver may be configured to send the sensing measurement report to the sensing transmitter. The received packet may include a training symbol. The packet may be a null data packet (NDP) or a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU). The measurement report control field may include information for interpretation of the sensing measurement values ​​included in the measurement report control field. The measurement type may include at least one of a channel state information (CSI) type, a channel impulse response (CIR) type, or a directional multi-gigabit (DMG) / enhanced DMG (EDMG) type. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CSI type may include at least a coefficient size (Nb) parameter, a subcarrier grouping (Ng) parameter, and a measurement instance identification (MII) parameter. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CIR type may include at least a coefficient size parameter and a number of values ​​parameter. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the DMG / EDMG type may include at least a number of dimensions of the filtered MAP parameter and a coefficient size parameter. The parameters of the measurement type dependent parameters subfield may be used to analyze the sensed measurement report.The measurement report control field may include an aggregated report indication indicating whether the sensory measurement report includes one sensory measurement result or multiple aggregated sensory measurements. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0004] A more detailed understanding may be had from the following description, given by way of example in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numbers indicate similar elements and in which: [Figure 1A] FIG. 1A is a system diagram illustrating an example communication system in which one or more disclosed embodiments may be implemented. [Figure 1B] FIG. 1B is a system diagram illustrating an example wireless transmit / receive unit (WTRU) that may be used within the communications system illustrated in FIG. 1A, according to one embodiment. [Figure 1C] FIG. 1C is a system diagram illustrating an example radio access network (RAN) and an example core network (CN) that may be used within the communication system illustrated in FIG. 1A, according to one embodiment. [Figure 1D] FIG. 1D is a system diagram illustrating a further exemplary RAN and a further exemplary CN that may be used within the communications system illustrated in FIG. 1A, according to one embodiment. [Diagram 2] FIG. 2 is an example of a trigger frame format. [Diagram 3] FIG. 3 is an example of an EHT variant user information field format. [Figure 4] FIG. 4 is an example of an EHT specific user information field format. [Diagram 5] FIG. 5 shows an example of an EHT operation information element. [Figure 6] FIG. 6 shows an example of an EHT Operation Information subfield. [Figure 7] FIG. 7 is an example of a measurement report control field. [Figure 8] FIG. 8 shows an example of measurement type dependent parameters of the measurement report control field for frequency domain measurement results. [Figure 9] FIG. 9 shows an example of measurement type dependent parameters of the measurement report control field for time domain measurement results. [Figure 10] FIG. 10 shows an example of measurement type dependent parameters of the measurement report control field for DMG / EDMG measurement results. [Figure 11] FIG. 11 shows an example design of a measurement report field for CSI and partial-CSI measurement types. [Figure 12] FIG. 12 shows an exemplary design of a measurement report field for a CIR measurement type. [Figure 13] FIG. 13 shows an exemplary design of a measurement report field for a CIR measurement type. [Figure 14] FIG. 14 illustrates an exemplary method of WLAN sensing for a sensing receiver. [Figure 15] FIG. 15 illustrates an exemplary method of WLAN sensing for a sensing transmitter. [Figure 16] FIG. 16 is an exemplary method for multiple sensing reports, where each report is carried in a separate PPDU. [Figure 17] FIG. 17 is an example of multiple sensing reports where multiple reports are aggregated into one PPDU. [Figure 18] FIG. 18 is an example of an EHT variant common information field format. [Figure 19] FIG. 19 shows an example encoding of the TXOP shared mode subfield. [Figure 20] FIG. 20 is an example of an extended MU-TRS TXS trigger frame having a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 1 and requesting sensing measurement reports from the AP to scheduled STAs. [Figure 21]FIG. 21 is an example of an enhanced MU-TRS TXS trigger frame with a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 2 and requesting a sensing measurement report from another STA. [Figure 22] FIG. 22 is an example of an extended MU-TRS TXS trigger frame having a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 3 and requesting a sensory measurement report from the AP. [Figure 23] FIG. 23 is an example of non-uniform quantization. [Figure 24] FIG. 24 is an example of a signaling procedure between a sensing transmitter (Tx) and a sensing receiver (Rx). [Diagram 25] FIG. 25 illustrates an example procedure for multi-antenna sensing in a TB sensing measurement instance. [Figure 26] FIG. 26 illustrates an example procedure for multi-antenna sensing in a non-TB sensing measurement instance. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0005] 1A is a diagram illustrating an example communications system 100 in which one or more disclosed embodiments may be implemented. Communications system 100 may be a multiple access system that provides content, such as voice, data, video, messaging, broadcasts, etc., to multiple wireless users. Communications system 100 may enable multiple wireless users to access such content through sharing of system resources, including wireless bandwidth. For example, the communications system 100 may use one or more channel access methods such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA), zero-tail unique-word discrete Fourier transform Spread OFDM (ZT-UW-DFT-S-OFDM), unique word OFDM (UW-OFDM), resource block filtered OFDM, filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), and the like.

[0006] 1A, communications system 100 may include wireless transmit / receive units (WTRUs) 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, a radio access network (RAN) 104, a core network (CN) 106, a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 108, the Internet 110, and other networks 112, although it will be understood that the disclosed embodiments contemplate any number of WTRUs, base stations, networks, and / or network elements. Each of WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d may be any type of device configured to operate and / or communicate in a wireless environment. By way of example, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, any of which may be referred to as a station (STA), may be configured to transmit and / or receive wireless signals and may include user equipment (UE), mobile stations, landline or mobile subscriber units, subscription-based units, pagers, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, laptops, netbooks, personal computers, wireless sensors, hotspots or Mi-Fi devices, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, watches or other wearables, head-mounted displays (HMDs), vehicles, drones, medical devices and applications (e.g., remote surgery), industrial devices and applications (e.g., robots and / or other wireless devices operating in industrial and / or automated processing chain contexts), home electronic devices, devices operating in commercial and / or industrial wireless networks, etc. Any of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, and 102d may be interchangeably referred to as a UE.

[0007] The communications system 100 may also include a base station 114a and / or a base station 114b. Each of the base stations 114a, 114b may be any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at least one of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d to facilitate access to one or more communications networks, such as the CN 106, the Internet 110, and / or other networks 112. By way of example, the base stations 114a, 114b may be a base transceiver station (BTS), a Node B, an eNode B (eNB), a home Node B, a home eNode B, a next generation Node B such as a gNode B (gNB), a new radio (NR) Node B, a site controller, an access point (AP), a wireless router, etc. Although the base stations 114a, 114b are each illustrated as a single element, it will be appreciated that the base stations 114a, 114b may include any number of interconnected base stations and / or network elements.

[0008] The base station 114a may be part of the RAN 104, which may also include other base stations, such as a base station controller (BSC), a radio network controller (RNC), relay nodes, and / or network elements (not shown). The base station 114a and / or the base station 114b may be configured to transmit and / or receive wireless signals on one or more carrier frequencies, which may be referred to as cells (not shown). These frequencies may be licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, or a combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum. A cell may provide wireless service coverage for a particular geographic area, which may be relatively fixed or may change over time. A cell may be further divided into cell sectors. For example, the cell associated with the base station 114a may be divided into three sectors. Thus, in one embodiment, the base station 114a may include three transceivers, i.e., one transceiver for each sector of the cell. In one embodiment, the base station 114a may employ multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) technology and may utilize multiple transceivers for each sector of the cell, for example, using beamforming to transmit and / or receive signals in a desired spatial direction.

[0009] The base stations 114a, 114b may communicate with one or more of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d via an air interface 116, which may be any suitable wireless communication link (e.g., radio frequency (RF), microwave, centimeter wave, micrometer wave, infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), visible light, etc.). The air interface 116 may be established using any suitable radio access technology (RAT).

[0010] More specifically, as noted above, the communications system 100 may be a multiple access system, but may use one or more channel access schemes, such as CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA, etc. For example, the base stations 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c of the RAN 104 may implement a radio technology such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), which may establish the air interface 116 using wideband CDMA (WCDMA). WCDMA may include communications protocols such as High-Speed ​​Packet Access (HSPA) and / or Evolved HSPA (HSPA+). HSPA may include High-Speed ​​Downlink (DL) Packet Access (HSDPA) and / or High-Speed ​​Uplink (UL) Packet Access (HSUPA).

[0011] In one embodiment, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement a radio technology such as Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), which may establish the air interface 116 using Long Term Evolution (LTE) and / or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) and / or LTE-Advanced Pro (LTE-A Pro).

[0012] In one embodiment, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement a radio technology such as NR radio access, which may establish the air interface 116 using NR.

[0013] In one embodiment, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement multiple radio access technologies. For example, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement LTE radio access and NR radio access together, e.g., using dual connectivity (DC) principles. Thus, the air interface utilized by the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may be characterized by multiple types of radio access technologies and / or transmissions sent to and from multiple types of base stations (e.g., eNBs and gNBs).

[0014] In other embodiments, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement a wireless technology such as IEEE 802.11 (i.e., Wireless Fidelity, WiFi), IEEE 802.16 (i.e., Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, WiMAX), CDMA2000, CDMA2000 1X, CDMA2000 EV-DO, Interim Standard 2000 (IS-2000), Interim Standard 95 (IS-95), Interim Standard 856 (IS-856), Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), GSM EDGE (GERAN), or the like.

[0015] The base station 114b of FIG. 1A may be, for example, a wireless router, a Home NodeB, a Home eNodeB, or an access point, and may utilize any suitable RAT to facilitate wireless connectivity in a localized area, such as an office, a home, a vehicle, a campus, an industrial facility, an air corridor (e.g., for use by drones), a road, etc. In one embodiment, the base station 114b and the WTRUs 102c, 102d may implement a radio technology, such as IEEE 802.11, to establish a wireless local area network (WLAN). In one embodiment, the base station 114b and the WTRUs 102c, 102d may implement a radio technology, such as IEEE 802.15, to establish a wireless personal area network (WPAN). In yet another embodiment, the base station 114b and the WTRUs 102c, 102d may utilize a cellular-based RAT (e.g., WCDMA, CDMA2000, GSM, LTE, LTE-A, LTE-A Pro, NR, etc.) to establish a picocell or femtocell. 1A, the base station 114b may have a direct connection to the Internet 110. Thus, the base station 114b may not need to access the Internet 110 through the CN 106.

[0016] The RAN 104 may communicate with the CN 106, which may be any type of network configured to provide voice, data, application, and / or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services to one or more of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d. The data may have various quality of service (QoS) requirements, such as, for example, different throughput requirements, latency requirements, error tolerance requirements, reliability requirements, data throughput requirements, mobility requirements, etc. The CN 106 may provide call control, billing services, mobile location-based services, prepaid calling, Internet connectivity, video distribution, etc., and / or perform high-level security functions such as user authentication. Although not shown in FIG. 1A, it will be appreciated that the RAN 104 and / or the CN 106 may communicate directly or indirectly with other RANs that use the same RAT as the RAN 104 or a different RAT. For example, in addition to being connected to the RAN 104, which may utilize NR radio technology, the CN 106 may also communicate with another RAN (not shown) employing GSM, UMTS, CDMA2000, WiMAX, E-UTRA, or WiFi radio technology.

[0017] The CN 106 may also serve as a gateway for the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d to access the PSTN 108, the Internet 110, and / or other networks 112. The PSTN 108 may include a circuit-switched telephone network providing plain old telephone service (POTS). The Internet 110 may include a global system of interconnected computer networks and devices that use common communication protocols, such as the transmission control protocol (TCP), the user datagram protocol (UDP), and / or the internet protocol (IP) of the TCP / IP Internet protocol suite. The networks 112 may include wired and / or wireless communication networks owned and / or operated by other service providers. For example, the networks 112 may include another CN connected to one or more RANs that may use the same RAT as the RAN 104 or a different RAT.

[0018] Some or all of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d in the communications system 100 may include multi-mode capabilities (e.g., the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d may include multiple transceivers for communicating with different wireless networks over different wireless links). For example, the WTRU 102c shown in FIG. 1A may be configured to communicate with a base station 114a, which may employ a cellular-based wireless technology, and a base station 114b, which may employ an IEEE 802 wireless technology.

[0019] Figure 1B is a system diagram illustrating an example WTRU 102. As shown in Figure 1B, the WTRU 102 may include, among other things, a processor 118, a transceiver 120, a transmit / receive element 122, a speaker / microphone 124, a keypad 126, a display / touchpad 128, non-removable memory 130, removable memory 132, a power source 134, a global positioning system (GPS) chipset 136, and / or other peripherals 138. It will be understood that the WTRU 102 may include any sub-combination of the foregoing elements while remaining consistent with an embodiment.

[0020] The processor 118 may be a general purpose processor, a special purpose processor, a conventional processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), multiple microprocessors, one or more microprocessors associated with a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), any other type of integrated circuit (IC), a state machine, etc. The processor 118 may perform signal coding, data processing, power control, input / output processing, and / or any other functionality that enables the WTRU 102 to operate in a wireless environment. The processor 118 may be coupled to the transceiver 120, which may be coupled to the transmit / receive element 122. Although FIG. 1B illustrates the processor 118 and the transceiver 120 as separate components, it will be understood that the processor 118 and the transceiver 120 may be integrated together in an electronic package or chip.

[0021] The transmit / receive element 122 may be configured to transmit or receive signals to or from a base station (e.g., base station 114a) over the air interface 116. For example, in one embodiment, the transmit / receive element 122 may be an antenna configured to transmit and / or receive RF signals. In one embodiment, the transmit / receive element 122 may be an emitter / detector configured to transmit and / or receive IR, UV, or visible light signals, for example. In yet another embodiment, the transmit / receive element 122 may be configured to transmit and / or receive both RF and light signals. It will be appreciated that the transmit / receive element 122 may be configured to transmit and / or receive any combination of wireless signals.

[0022] 1B as a single element, the WTRU 102 may include any number of transmit / receive elements 122. More specifically, the WTRU 102 may employ MIMO technology. Thus, in one embodiment, the WTRU 102 may include two or more transmit / receive elements 122 (e.g., multiple antennas) for transmitting and receiving wireless signals over the air interface 116.

[0023] The transceiver 120 may be configured to modulate signals transmitted by the transmit / receive element 122 and demodulate signals received by the transmit / receive element 122. As mentioned above, the WTRU 102 may have multi-mode capabilities. Thus, the transceiver 120 may include multiple transceivers to enable the WTRU 102 to communicate via multiple RATs, such as, for example, NR and IEEE 802.11.

[0024] The processor 118 of the WTRU 102 may be coupled to and may receive user-entered data from a speaker / microphone 124, a keypad 126, and / or a display / touchpad 128 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) display unit or an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display unit). The processor 118 may also output user data to the speaker / microphone 124, the keypad 126, and / or the display / touchpad 128. In addition, the processor 118 may access information from and store data in any type of suitable memory, such as non-removable memory 130 and / or removable memory 132. The non-removable memory 130 may include random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), a hard disk, or any other type of memory storage device. The removable memory 132 may include a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, a memory stick, a secure digital (SD) memory card, etc. In other embodiments, the processor 118 may access information from and store data in memory that is not physically located on the WTRU 102, such as on a server or home computer (not shown).

[0025] The processor 118 may receive power from the power source 134 and may be configured to distribute and / or control the power to other components in the WTRU 102. The power source 134 may be any suitable device for providing power to the WTRU 102. For example, the power source 134 may include one or more dry batteries (e.g., nickel-cadmium (NiCd), nickel-zinc (NiZn), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), lithium-ion (Li-ion), etc.), solar cells, fuel cells, etc.

[0026] The processor 118 may also be coupled to a GPS chipset 136, which may be configured to provide location information (e.g., longitude and latitude) regarding the current location of the WTRU 102. In addition to, or in lieu of, information from the GPS chipset 136, the WTRU 102 may receive location information from a base station (e.g., base stations 114a, 114b) over the air interface 116 and / or determine its location based on the timing of signals being received from two or more nearby base stations. It will be appreciated that the WTRU 102 may obtain location information by way of any suitable location determination method while remaining consistent with an embodiment.

[0027] The processor 118 may further be coupled to other peripherals 138, which may include one or more software and / or hardware modules that provide additional features, functionality, and / or wired or wireless connectivity. For example, the peripherals 138 may include an accelerometer, an electronic compass, a satellite transceiver, a digital camera (for photos and / or videos), a universal serial bus (USB) port, a vibration device, a television transceiver, a hands-free headset, a Bluetooth® module, a frequency modulated (FM) radio unit, a digital music player, a media player, a video game player module, an Internet browser, a virtual reality and / or augmented reality (VR / AR) device, an activity tracker, and the like. The peripherals 138 may include one or more sensors. The sensor may be one or more of a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a Hall effect sensor, a magnetometer, an orientation sensor, a proximity sensor, a temperature sensor, a time sensor, a geolocation sensor, an altimeter, a light sensor, a touch sensor, a magnetometer, a barometer, a gesture sensor, a biometric sensor, a humidity sensor, and the like.

[0028] The WTRU 102 may include a full-duplex radio where the transmission and reception of some or all of the signals (e.g., associated with a particular subframe of both the UL (e.g., for transmission) and DL (e.g., for reception)) may be simultaneous and / or together. The full-duplex radio may include an interference management unit to reduce and or substantially eliminate self-interference via either hardware (e.g., a choke) or signal processing via a processor (e.g., via a separate processor (not shown) or via processor 118). In one embodiment, the WTRU 102 may include a half-duplex radio where the transmission and reception of some or all of the signals (e.g., associated with a particular subframe of either the UL (e.g., for transmission) or DL ​​(e.g., for reception)) may be simultaneous and / or together.

[0029] 1C is a system diagram illustrating the RAN 104 and the CN 106, according to one embodiment. As mentioned above, the RAN 104 may employ E-UTRA radio technology to communicate with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. The RAN 104 may also communicate with the CN 106.

[0030] The RAN 104 may include eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c, although it will be understood that the RAN 104 may include any number of eNodeBs while remaining consistent with an embodiment. The eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. In an embodiment, the eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c may implement MIMO technology. Thus, the eNodeB 160a may, for example, use multiple antennas to transmit wireless signals to and / or receive wireless signals from the WTRU 102a.

[0031] Each of the eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c may be associated with a particular cell (not shown) and may be configured to handle radio resource management decisions, handover decisions, scheduling of users in the UL and / or DL, etc. As shown in FIG 1C, the eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c may communicate with one another via an X2 interface.

[0032] 1C may include a mobility management entity (MME) 162, a serving gateway (SGW) 164, and a packet data network (PDN) gateway (PGW) 166. Although the foregoing elements are illustrated as part of the CN 106, it will be understood that any of these elements may be owned and / or operated by an entity other than the CN operator.

[0033] The MME 162 may be connected to each of the eNodeBs 162a, 162b, 162c in the RAN 104 via an S1 interface and may function as a control node. For example, the MME 162 may be responsible for authenticating users of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, activating / deactivating bearers, selecting a particular serving gateway during initial attachment of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, etc. The MME 162 may provide a control plane function for switching between the RAN 104 and other RANs (not shown) that employ other radio technologies, such as GSM and / or WCDMA.

[0034] The SGW 164 may be connected to each of the eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c in the RAN 104 via an S1 interface. The SGW 164 may generally route and forward user data packets to and from the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c. The SGW 164 may perform other functions, such as anchoring the user plane during inter-eNodeB handover, triggering paging when DL data is available to the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, and managing and storing the context of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c.

[0035] The SGW 164 may be connected to a PGW 166, which may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to packet-switched networks, such as the Internet 110, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and IP-enabled devices.

[0036] The CN 106 may facilitate communications with other networks. For example, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to circuit-switched networks, such as the PSTN 108, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and traditional land-line communications devices. For example, the CN 106 may include or communicate with an IP gateway (e.g., an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) server) that serves as an interface between the CN 106 and the PSTN 108. In addition, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to other networks 112, which may include other wired and / or wireless networks owned and / or operated by other service providers.

[0037] Although the WTRU is depicted in FIGS. 1A-1D as a wireless terminal, in certain representative embodiments, it is contemplated that such a terminal may use a wired communications interface (e.g., temporarily or permanently) with the communications network.

[0038] In an exemplary embodiment, the other network 112 may be a WLAN.

[0039] A WLAN in infrastructure basic service set (BSS) mode may have an access point (AP) of the BSS and one or more stations (STAs) associated with the AP. The AP may have access or interface to a distribution system (DS) or another type of wired / wireless network that carries traffic within the BSS and / or outside the BSS. Traffic originating from outside the BSS to the STA may arrive through the AP and be delivered to the STA. Traffic originating from the STA to a destination outside the BSS may be sent to the AP to be delivered to the respective destination. Traffic between STAs within the BSS may be sent, for example, through the AP, where the source STA may send traffic to the AP, which may deliver the traffic to the destination STA. Traffic between STAs within the BSS may be considered and / or referred to as peer-to-peer traffic. Peer-to-peer traffic may be sent between (e.g., directly between) the source STA and the destination STA using a direct link setup (DLS). In certain representative embodiments, the DLS may use 802.11e DLS or 802.11z tunneled DLS (TDLS). A WLAN using an Independent BSS (IBSS) mode may not have an AP, and STAs (e.g., all of the STAs) within or using the IBSS may communicate directly with each other. The IBSS mode of communication may be referred to herein as an "ad-hoc" communication mode.

[0040] When using an 802.11ac infrastructure mode of operation or a similar mode of operation, an AP may transmit a beacon on a fixed channel, such as a primary channel. The primary channel may be a fixed width (e.g., a 20 MHz wide bandwidth) or a dynamically configured width. The primary channel may be the operating channel of the BSS, but may be used by STAs to establish a connection with the AP. In certain representative embodiments, Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA / CA) may be implemented, for example, in an 802.11 system. With CSMA / CA, STAs (e.g., all STAs), including the AP, may sense the primary channel. If the primary channel is sensed / detected and / or determined to be busy by a particular STA, the particular STA may back off. One STA (e.g., only one station) may transmit at any given time in a given BSS.

[0041] A High Throughput (HT) STA may use a 40 MHz wide channel for communication, which may be formed, for example, through a combination of a primary 20 MHz channel and adjacent or non-adjacent 20 MHz channels.

[0042] A Very High Throughput (VHT) STA may support 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and / or 160 MHz wide channels. A 40 MHz and / or 80 MHz channel may be formed by combining multiple contiguous 20 MHz channels. A 160 MHz channel may be formed by combining eight contiguous 20 MHz channels or by combining two non-contiguous 80 MHz channels, which may be referred to as an 80+80 configuration. For the 80+80 configuration, after channel encoding, the data may pass through a segment parser that may split the data into two streams. Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) processing and time domain processing may be performed separately on each stream. The streams may be mapped to two 80 MHz channels and the data may be transmitted by the transmitting STA. At the receiver of the receiving STA, the operations described above for the 80+80 configuration may be reversed and the combined data may be sent to the Medium Access Control (MAC).

[0043] Sub-1 GHz operation modes are supported by 802.11af and 802.11ah. The channel operating bandwidths and carriers are reduced in 802.11af and 802.11ah compared to those used in 802.11n and 802.11ac. 802.11af supports 5 MHz, 10 MHz, and 20 MHz bandwidths in the TV White Space (TVWS) spectrum, while 802.11ah supports 1 MHz, 2 MHz, 4 MHz, 8 MHz, and 16 MHz bandwidths using non-TVWS spectrum. According to a representative embodiment, 802.11ah may support meter-type control / machine-type communications (MTC), such as MTC devices in macro coverage areas. MTC devices may have limited capabilities, including certain capabilities, for example, support for (e.g., support only for) certain and / or limited bandwidths. The MTC device may include a battery that has a battery life above a threshold (eg, to maintain a very long battery life).

[0044] WLAN systems that may support multiple channels and channel bandwidths, such as 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11af, and 802.11ah, include a channel that may be designated as a primary channel. The primary channel may have a bandwidth equal to the maximum common operating bandwidth supported by all STAs in the BSS. The bandwidth of the primary channel may be configured and / or limited by the STAs among all STAs operating in the BSS that support the smallest bandwidth operating mode. In an 802.11ah embodiment, the primary channel may be 1 MHz wide for STAs (e.g., MTC-type devices) that support (e.g., only) the 1 MHz mode, even if the AP and other STAs in the BSS support 2 MHz, 4 MHz, 8 MHz, 16 MHz, and / or other channel bandwidth operating modes. Carrier sensing and / or Network Allocation Vector (NAV) configuration may depend on the status of the primary channel. For example, if a STA (that only supports 1 MHz mode of operation) transmitting to an AP has a busy primary channel, all of the available frequency bands may be considered busy even if most of the available frequency bands are idle.

[0045] In the United States, the available frequency bands that can be used by 802.11ah are 902MHz to 928MHz. In South Korea, the available frequency bands are 917.5MHz to 923.5MHz. In Japan, the available frequency bands are 916.5MHz to 927.5MHz. The total bandwidth available for 802.11ah is 6MHz to 26MHz depending on the country code.

[0046] 1D is a system diagram illustrating the RAN 104 and the CN 106, according to one embodiment. As mentioned above, the RAN 104 may employ NR radio technology to communicate with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. The RAN 104 may also communicate with the CN 106.

[0047] The RAN 104 may include gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c, although it will be understood that the RAN 104 may include any number of gNBs while remaining consistent with an embodiment. The gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. In an embodiment, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may implement MIMO technology. For example, the gNBs 180a, 108b may utilize beamforming to transmit signals to and / or receive signals from the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c. Thus, the gNB 180a may transmit and / or receive wireless signals to and from the WTRU 102a, for example, using multiple antennas. In one embodiment, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may implement carrier aggregation technology. For example, the gNB 180a may transmit multiple component carriers to the WTRU 102a (not shown). A subset of these component carriers may be on an unlicensed spectrum, while the remaining component carriers may be on a licensed spectrum. In one embodiment, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may implement Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) technology. For example, the WTRU 102a may receive coordinated transmissions from the gNBs 180a and 180b (and / or gNB 180c).

[0048] The WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c using transmissions associated with scalable numerology. For example, the OFDM symbol spacing and / or OFDM subcarrier spacing may vary for different transmissions, different cells, and / or different portions of the wireless transmission spectrum. The WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c using subframes or transmission time intervals (TTIs) of varying or scalable lengths (e.g., including varying numbers of OFDM symbols and / or varying lengths of absolute time durations).

[0049] The gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may be configured to communicate with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c in a standalone configuration and / or a non-standalone configuration. In a standalone configuration, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c without accessing another RAN (e.g., eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c, etc.). In a standalone configuration, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may utilize one or more of the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c as mobility anchor points. In a standalone configuration, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c using signals in unlicensed bands. In a non-standalone configuration, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with and connect to a gNB 180a, 180b, 180c while also communicating with and connecting to another RAN, such as an eNodeB 160a, 160b, 160c. For example, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement DC principles to communicate with one or more gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c and one or more eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c substantially simultaneously. In a non-standalone configuration, the eNodeBs 160a, 160b, 160c may act as mobility anchors for the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, and the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may provide additional coverage and / or throughput for serving the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c.

[0050] Each of the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may be associated with a particular cell (not shown) and may be configured to handle radio resource management decisions, handover decisions, scheduling of users in UL and / or DL, support for network slicing, DC, interworking between NR and E-UTRA, routing of user plane data to User Plane Functions (UPFs) 184a, 184b, routing of control plane information to Access and Mobility Management Functions (AMFs) 182a, 182b, etc. As shown in FIG. 1D, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may communicate with each other via an Xn interface.

[0051] 1D may include at least one AMF 182a, 182b, at least one UPF 184a, 184b, at least one Session Management Function (SMF) 183a, 183b, and possibly a Data Network (DN) 185a, 185b. Although the foregoing elements are illustrated as part of the CN 106, it will be understood that any of these elements may be owned and / or operated by an entity other than the CN operator.

[0052] The AMF 182a, 182b may be connected to one or more of the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c in the RAN 104 via an N2 interface and may function as a control node. For example, the AMF 182a, 182b may be responsible for user authentication of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, support for network slicing (e.g., handling different protocol data unit (PDU) sessions having different requirements), selection of a particular SMF 183a, 183b, management of registration areas, termination of non-access stratum (NAS) signaling, mobility management, etc. The network slicing may be used by the AMF 182a, 182b to customize the CN support of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c based on the type of service utilizing the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c. For example, different network slices may be established for different use cases, such as services relying on ultra-reliable low latency (URLLC) access, services relying on enhanced massive mobile broadband (eMBB) access, services for MTC access, etc. The AMF 182a, 182b may provide a control plane function for switching between the RAN 104 and other RANs (not shown) that employ other radio technologies, such as LTE, LTE-A, LTE-A Pro, and / or non-3GPP access technologies, such as WiFi.

[0053] The SMFs 183a, 183b may be connected to the AMFs 182a, 182b in the CN 106 via an N11 interface. The SMFs 183a, 183b may also be connected to the UPFs 184a, 184b in the CN 106 via an N4 interface. The SMFs 183a, 183b may select and control the UPFs 184a, 184b and configure the routing of traffic through the UPFs 184a, 184b. The SMFs 183a, 183b may perform other functions, such as managing and assigning UE IP addresses, managing PDU sessions, controlling policy enforcement and QoS, providing DL data notification, etc. The PDU session type may be IP-based, non-IP-based, Ethernet-based, etc.

[0054] The UPFs 184a, 184b may be connected to one or more of the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c in the RAN 104 via an N3 interface, which may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to packet-switched networks, such as the Internet 110, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and IP-enabled devices. The UPFs 184, 184b may perform other functions, such as routing and forwarding packets, enforcing user plane policy, supporting multi-homed PDU sessions, handling user plane QoS, buffering DL packets, providing mobility anchoring, etc.

[0055] The CN 106 may facilitate communication with other networks. For example, the CN 106 may include or communicate with an IP gateway (e.g., an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) server) that serves as an interface between the CN 106 and the PSTN 108. In addition, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to other networks 112, which may include other wired and / or wireless networks owned and / or operated by other service providers. In one embodiment, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may be connected to the local DNs 185a, 185b through the UPFs 184a, 184b via an N3 interface to the UPFs 184a, 184b and an N6 interface between the UPFs 184a, 184b and the DNs 185a, 185b.

[0056] 1A-1D and the corresponding description thereof, one or more or all of the functions described herein with respect to one or more of the WTRUs 102a-102d, base stations 114a-114b, eNodeBs 160a-160c, MME 162, SGW 164, PGW 166, gNBs 180a-180c, AMFs 182a-182b, UPFs 184a-184b, SMFs 183a-183b, DNs 185a-185b, and / or any other devices described herein may be performed by one or more emulation devices (not shown). The emulation devices may be one or more devices configured to emulate one or more or all of the functions described herein. For example, the emulation devices may be used to test other devices and / or to simulate network and / or WTRU functions.

[0057] The emulation device may be designed to implement one or more tests of other devices in a lab environment and / or an operator network environment. For example, one or more emulation devices may perform one or more or all functions while fully or partially implemented and / or deployed as part of a wired and / or wireless communication network to test other devices in the communication network. One or more emulation devices may perform one or more or all functions while temporarily implemented / deployed as part of a wired and / or wireless communication network. The emulation device may be directly coupled to another device for the purpose of testing and / or performing tests using over-the-air wireless communication.

[0058] The one or more emulation devices may perform one or more functions, including but not limited to, while not implemented / deployed as part of a wired and / or wireless communication network. For example, the emulation devices may be utilized in test scenarios in a test lab and / or in an undeployed (e.g., test) wired and / or wireless communication network to implement testing of one or more components. The one or more emulation devices may be test equipment. Direct RF coupling and / or wireless communication via RF circuitry (which may include, for example, one or more antennas) may be used by the emulation devices to transmit and / or receive data.

[0059] Using the 802.11ac infrastructure mode of operation, an AP may transmit a beacon on a fixed channel, such as a primary channel. This channel may be, for example, 20 MHz wide and may be the operating channel of the BSS. This channel may also be used by STAs to establish a connection with the AP. The channel access mechanism in an 802.11 system may be carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA / CA). In this mode of operation, all STAs, including the AP, may sense the primary channel. If the channel is detected to be busy, the STAs may back off. Thus, only one STA may transmit at any given time in a given BSS.

[0060] In 802.11n, high-throughput (HT) STAs may use 40 MHz wide channels for communication, which may be accomplished by combining a primary 20 MHz channel with an adjacent 20 MHz channel to form a 40 MHz wide contiguous channel.

[0061] In 802.11ac, very high throughput (VHT) STAs may support 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and 160 MHz wide channels. The 40 MHz and 80 MHz channels may be formed by combining consecutive 20 MHz channels, similar to 802.11n. The 160 MHz channel may be formed by combining eight consecutive 20 MHz channels, or by combining two non-consecutive 80 MHz channels, which may also be referred to as an 80+80 configuration. In the case of the 80+80 configuration, after channel encoding, the data may pass through a segment parser that may split the data into two streams. An inverse Discrete Fourier Transformation (IDFT) operation and time domain processing may be performed separately on each stream. The streams may then be mapped to the two channels and the data may be transmitted. At the receiver, this procedure may be reversed and the combined data may be sent to the MAC.

[0062] To improve spectral efficiency, 802.11ac introduced the concept of downlink Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) transmission to multiple STAs within the same symbol time frame, e.g., during a downlink OFDM symbol. The possible use of downlink MU-MIMO is being considered in 802.11ah. Because downlink MU-MIMO uses the same symbol timing for multiple STAs as used in 802.11ac, interference of waveform transmissions to multiple STAs is not an issue. However, all STAs involved in MU-MIMO transmission with the AP use the same channel or band, which may limit the operating bandwidth to the minimum channel bandwidth supported by the STAs involved in MU-MIMO transmission with the AP.

[0063] The IEEE 802.11 Extremely High Throughput (EHT) Study Group was formed in September 2018. EHT is considered the next major revision of the IEEE 802.11 standard following 802.11ax. EHT is formed to explore the possibility of further increasing peak throughput and improving the efficiency of IEEE 802.11 networks. Following the EHT Study Group, an 802.11be task group was established to specify the 802.11 EHT standard. The main use cases and applications that will be addressed include high throughput and low latency applications such as video-over-WLAN, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).

[0064] To achieve the goals of increased peak throughput and improved efficiency, the list of features discussed in the EHT Study Group and 802.11be includes multi-AP cooperation, multi-band / multi-link, 320 MHz bandwidth, 16 spatial streams, HARQ, and new designs for 6 GHz channel access.

[0065] The IEEE 802.11bf standard may be a new amendment to IEEE 802.11 for wireless sensing capabilities in WLANs. A new task group TGbf has been formed to generate specification documents, which may include the following: A sensing procedure may enable a STA to perform WLAN sensing to obtain measurement results. A sensing session may be an instance of a sensing procedure with associated operational parameters of the instance. A sensing initiator may be a STA that initiates a WLAN sensing session. A sensing responder may be a STA that participates in a WLAN sensing session initiated by a sensing initiator. A sensing transmitter may be a STA that transmits physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs) that may be used for sensing measurements in a sensing session. A sensing receiver may be a STA that receives PPDUs sent by a sensing transmitter and may perform sensing measurements in a sensing session. A STA may play multiple roles in one sensing session. In a sensing session, a sensing initiator may be a sensing transmitter, a sensing receiver, both, or neither.

[0066] A trigger frame was introduced in 802.11ax to allocate resources and trigger single or multi-user access in the uplink. An exemplary trigger frame format is shown in Figure 2. In 802.11be, a new variant of the user information field is proposed, as shown in Figure 3, where a specific user information field is added after the common information field, as shown in Figure 4. These enhancements allow a unified triggering scheme for both HE and EHT devices.

[0067] Preamble puncturing was introduced in 802.11ax to allow STAs to transmit on certain subchannels instead of the entire bandwidth. A preamble puncturing transmission of a PPDU may not have a signal present in one or more subchannels within the PPDU bandwidth. In 802.11be, there are two types of preamble puncturing schemes: static puncturing and dynamic puncturing.

[0068] In static puncturing, one or more subchannels may be punctured for one or more beacon intervals. The AP can add an Invalid Subchannel Bitmap field to the EHT Operation information element to indicate that one or more subchannels are disabled. The STA can set the TXVECTOR parameter INACTIVE_SUBCHANNELS of the HE, EHT, or non-HT replicated PPDU based on the value indicated in the most recently exchanged Invalid Subchannel Bitmap field in the EHT Operation element for that BSS. The STA does not have to transmit anything on the invalid subchannels.

[0069] An example of an EHT Operation information element is shown in Figure 5. The EHT Operation information element may include an element identification (ID) field, a length field, an element ID extension field, an EHT Operation Information field, and an Invalid Subchannel Bitmap field. An example of the subfields of the EHT Operation information field is shown in Figure 6. The subfields of the EHT Operation information element may include a Channel Width subfield, a CCFS subfield, and an Invalid Subchannel Bitmap Present subfield. The Invalid Subchannel Bitmap, if present, may be two octets long.

[0070] With dynamic puncturing, a STA may be able to puncture additional subchannels other than those indicated by the invalid subchannel bitmap field. The STA may decide to puncture additional subchannels for different reasons, for example, based on physical or virtual channel sensing results. Dynamic puncturing may be explicitly signaled, for example, using the U-SIG field in the EHT MU PPDU. A punctured channel information field may be carried in the U-SIG field in the EHT MU PPDU to indicate the punctured channels.

[0071] Preamble puncturing in both triggered and non-triggered WLAN sensing measurement instances is not currently supported. To support preamble puncturing in WLAN sensing, indications and signaling are required in the NDPA, NDP, and trigger frame variants. Also, support for preamble puncturing considering STAs belonging to different generations requires a backward compatible design. Furthermore, the behavior of STAs participating in a sensing session needs to be defined.

[0072] In a sensing session, a sensing receiver may measure a null data packet (NDP) or any other PPDU with training symbols for sensing measurement and prepare sensing results. The sensing results may be different for different measurement types (e.g., channel state information (CSI), partial CSI, differential CSI, channel impulse response (CIR), etc.) and may be reported, for example, using a sensing measurement report frame. Such a frame may include at least two fields: a measurement report control field and a measurement report field. The measurement report control field may include information for interpretation of the sensing measurement values ​​carried by the measurement report field. A suitable design of the sensing measurement report frame is needed to include different possibilities in WLAN sensing.

[0073] Given limited capabilities, some devices receiving a CSI feedback request may not be able to send measurement reports immediately after receiving the NDP. Therefore, a procedure needs to be designed that allows delay-sensitive reporting.

[0074] The CSI / compressed CSI values ​​obtained at the sensing receiver may have to be quantized into bits to send CSI feedback to the sensing transmitter. The CSI / compressed CSI may be quantized using a uniform quantization function. However, this is not always appropriate for sensing applications where small amplitude fluctuations appear more frequently than large amplitude fluctuations and vice versa. In this scenario, using a non-uniform quantization function may help minimize the quantization loss and reduce the loss of sensing information.

[0075] In some sensing applications, multiple antennas may be used for sensing. Different sensing applications may have different accuracy requirements for sensing measurement results. Procedures on how a STA may use multiple antennas for sensing are required, and a protocol needs to be defined to enable multiple antenna sensing for different applications, taking into account the capabilities of the STA.

[0076] An exemplary measurement report control field of a sensory measurement report frame is shown in FIG. 7. The measurement report control field of the sensory measurement report may include a measurement type subfield. The measurement type subfield may indicate a type of sensory measurement. The type of sensory measurement may be from a set of measurement types (i.e., a measurement type set). The measurement type set may include frequency domain measurement types such as channel state information (CSI), partial CSI (e.g., only amplitude or phase information), or differential CSI where a reference CSI may be sent and a difference between a current measurement and a reference measurement may be sent in a subsequent transmission. The measurement type set may include time domain measurement types such as CSI represented in the time domain, channel impulse response (CIR), punctured CIR (PCIR) (e.g., only a subset of CIR is sent), power delay profile (PDP), differential CIR, differential PCIR, or differential PDP. The measurement type set may include a directional multi-gigabit (DMG) / enhanced DMG (EDMG) measurement type. Measurement types for DMG / EDMG may include multi-dimensional (e.g., 2D, 3D, or 4D) maps of range, azimuth, elevation, and / or Doppler, which may include reporting detected objects from a defined set of objects or generic objects.

[0077] The measurement report control field of the sensory measurement report may include a timestamp subfield, which may indicate the time at which the measurement result is calculated or the time at which an NDP PPDU or any other PPDU with training symbols for the sensory measurement is received.

[0078] The measurement report control field of the sensing measurement report may include a measurement type dependent parameters subfield, which may carry signaling information that may be different for different measurement types.

[0079] The measurement report control field of the sensory measurement report may include a delayed / immediate subfield, which may indicate whether the measurement is an immediate or delayed measurement. The delayed measurement may be used to facilitate aggregation of multiple sensory measurement results in one measurement report.

[0080] The measurement report control field of the sensory measurement report may include an aggregate report indication subfield, which may indicate whether the measurement report includes one sensory measurement result or multiple aggregated sensory measurements.

[0081] The Measurement Report Control field of the sensed measurement report may include an Aggregate Report Parameters subfield, which may be used to provide parameters for interpreting aggregated measurement results in case of an aggregate report (e.g., Aggregate Report Indication is set to true or set to indicate an aggregate report). This may include an Aggregate Report Count parameter, which indicates how many reports are aggregated together in a measurement report, and may also include a measurement identification (ID) which indicates which measurement instances are included in the report.

[0082] The measurement report control field of the sensing measurement report may include a Number of Transmit Antennas (Nt) Index subfield, which may indicate the number of antennas, or an index pointing to the number of antennas, that may be used to transmit an NDP PPDU from the sensing transmitter, or any other PPDU that contains training symbols for sensing measurements.

[0083] The measurement report control field of the sensory measurement report may include a number of receive antennas (Nr) index subfield, which may indicate the number of antennas, or an index pointing to the number of antennas, that may be used to receive the NDP PPDU or any other PPDU that contains training symbols for sensory measurements at the sensory receiver.

[0084] The measurement report control field of the sensory measurement report may include a dialogue token subfield, which may be used to signal identification information about the sensory measurement (e.g., measurement configuration and / or measurement instance) to identify the current sensory measurement configuration / instance.

[0085] The measurement report control field of the sensing measurement report may include a Punctured Channel Information (Info) subfield, which may indicate a list of punctured subchannels in the NDP PPDU or any other PPDU that contains training symbols for sensing measurements. This subfield may indicate partial bandwidth sensing, in which only a certain subset of the subchannels indicated by the BW field may be used to calculate the sensing result.

[0086] The measurement report control field of the sensory measurement report may include a bandwidth (BW) subfield, which may indicate information about the bandwidth of the NDP PPDU or any other PPDU with training symbols for sensory measurements.

[0087] In one embodiment, the measurement type dependent parameters subfield may carry signaling information that may be different for different types of measurements. In one example, as shown in FIG. 8, for frequency domain measurements (e.g., CSI), the measurement type dependent parameters subfield may include the following parameters: coefficient size (Nb), which may indicate the number of bits used in the representation of the real and imaginary parts of each element of CSI; subcarrier grouping (Ng), which may indicate how many subcarriers are grouped together and the CSI of those grouped subcarriers may be averaged to one value per group in the measurement; and measurement reference or measurement instance ID (MII), which may carry the measurement instance identification (ID) of the reference measurement in case of differential CSI. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for frequency domain measurements (e.g., CSI) may include one or more of the above parameters and / or may include additional or alternative parameters.

[0088] 9, for time domain measurements (e.g., CIR), the Measurement Type Dependent Parameters subfield may include the following parameters: Coefficient Size (Nb), which may indicate the number of bits used in the representation of the real and imaginary parts of each element of the CIR, or any time domain representation of the sensed measurement, and Number of Values ​​(N value), which may indicate the number of complex values ​​the measurement report carries in the punctured CIR (PCIR). The Measurement Type Dependent Parameters subfield for time domain measurements (e.g., CSI) may include one or more of the above parameters and / or may include additional or alternative parameters.

[0089] In one example, as shown in Figure 10, for DMG / EDMG measurements, the Measurement Type Dependent Parameters subfield may include the following parameters: Number of dimensions (N-dimensions) of the filtered MAP (e.g., 2D, 3D, or 4D), which may be used to indicate the number of dimensions in the filtered map for radar applications, and Coefficient Size (Nb), which may indicate the number of bits used in the representation of each element of the map (e.g., range, azimuth, elevation, and Doppler). The Measurement Type Dependent Parameters subfield for DMG / EDMG measurements may include one or more of the above parameters and / or may include additional or alternative parameters.

[0090] In one embodiment, the measurement report field may be designed to carry different types of sensed measurement results. The content of the measurement report field may vary according to the type of measurement. In one example, the measurement report field for frequency domain results may be designed as shown in FIG. 11.

[0091] In FIG. 11, Nscg=[Nsc / Ng] is the number of subcarrier groups for which measurements are reported, Nsc is the number of subcarriers in the reported channel bandwidth, Ng is the subcarrier grouping, Nn is the number of bits used to represent the normalization coefficient of each CSI matrix, and Ne is the number of elements in each coefficient of the CSI matrix that take on a value, with the value Ne=1 if either amplitude or phase is reported per subcarrier group (e.g., in partial CSI), or the value Ne=2 if both the real and imaginary parts of each coefficient are reported.

[0092] In one example, the normalization factor may be calculated to be the maximum of all real and imaginary values ​​of all CSI matrices of all subcarrier groups, and may be reported once for the entire report instead of for each CSI matrix. In the case of partial CSI, the normalization factor may be calculated to be the maximum amplitude over all CSI_AMPLITUDE of all subcarrier groups if only amplitude is reported, or the maximum phase over all CSI_PHASE of all subcarrier groups if only phase is reported.

[0093] In one embodiment, a measurement report design as shown in FIG. 11 may be used for differential CSI such that the reference measurements may be indicated in the measurement report control field.

[0094] In one embodiment, the measurement report field for time domain results may be designed as shown in Figure 12. In this design, a matrix of size Nt x Nr for each time point may be reported, and each value in the matrix may represent the CIR (e.g., power or amplitude) at this time point for the corresponding transmit and receive antennas.

[0095] In one embodiment, the measurement report field for time domain results may be designed as shown in Figure 13. In this design, a list of CIR values ​​or PDP profiles may be reported for all combinations from all transmit antennas to all receive antennas. In one example, a list of power values ​​{p_0, p_1, ..., p_Ntr} or amplitude values ​​{h_0, h_1, ..., h_Ntr} may be reported for the channel between Tx Ant_x and Rx Ant_y, with x ∈ {1, ..., Nt} and y ∈ {1, ..., Nr}.

[0096] In FIG. 13, Ntr is the number of CIR time points that may be a subset of the entire CIR (i.e., punctured CIR), Nm is the number of bits used to represent the normalization coefficients of each CIR matrix, and Nc is the number of elements in each coefficient of the CIR matrix that takes the value Nc=1 if only real values ​​are reported for each time point, and the number of elements in each coefficient of the CIR matrix that takes the value Nc=2 if both the real and imaginary parts of each coefficient are reported.

[0097] In one embodiment, the RXVECTOR parameter SENSING_RESULT_CSI may be defined in the same design corresponding to the measurement type so that it can have the same format as the measurement report field for a CSI measurement type. In one embodiment, the RXVECTOR parameter SENSING_RESULT_CIR may be defined in the same design corresponding to the measurement type so that it can have the same format as the measurement report field for a CIR measurement type. In one embodiment, the RXVECTOR parameter SENSING_RESULT_DMG may be defined in the same design corresponding to the measurement type so that it can have the same format as the measurement report field for a DMG measurement type.

[0098] In CIR-based feedback / reporting, a sensing receiver receives a set of time instants {t0,t1,...,t N},t i <t i+1 A set of samples may be obtained that represent the channel impulse at t. This set of time instants may be equally spaced, i.e., t i+1 -t i = δt can be a constant or non-equidistant, i.e. t i+1 -t i = δt iare variables. Time t0 may refer to a point in time determined by the sender (e.g., a boundary of a transmitted PPDU) or to a point in time determined by the receiver (e.g., a boundary of a received PPDU). In addition to the timing information of the CIR, the presentation of these pulses may be determined by the power or magnitude, {p0,p1,...,p N}, or a set of times {t0,t1,...,t N}, the set of complex numbers generated from the channel estimation process corresponding to {h0,h1,...,h N}. The CIR can therefore be of the form {(t0,p0),(t1,p1),...,(t N ,p N )} or {(t0,h0),(t1,h1),...,(t N ,h N )}.

[0099] When generating and sending CSI feedback based on the CIR, the feedback transmitter may select a subset of the CIR, i.e.,

[0100]

number

[0101]

number

[0102]

number

[0103]

number

[0104] Some or all of the CIR feedback information may be transmitted from the sensing transmitter to the sensing receiver in a frame (e.g., an NDP announcement frame). The sensing receiver may feedback a subset of the CIR based on the selection of some parameters in the CIR feedback information. Those parameters may be sent to the feedback receiver along with the CIR in the same feedback frame or in a different frame that the feedback receiver can identify.

[0105] FIG. 14 illustrates an example procedure for WLAN sensing. The sensing receiver may receive a packet from the sensing transmitter (1410). The packet may be an NDP or a PPDU. The packet may include training symbols. The sensing receiver may perform measurements on the receiver packet (1420). The sensing receiver may prepare a sensing measurement report (1430). The sensing measurement report may include a measurement report control field. The sensing measurement report may include a measurement report field. Parameters of a measurement type dependent parameters subfield of the measurement report control field may be based on the measurement type. The sensing receiver may send the sensing measurement report to the sensing transmitter (1440). Contents of the measurement report field may be based on the measurement type. The measurement report control field may include information for interpretation of the sensed measurements included in the measurement report control field. The measurement type may include at least one of a channel state information (CSI) type, a channel impulse response (CIR) type, and a directional multi-gigabit (DMG) / extended DMG (EDMG) type. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CSI type may include at least one of a coefficient size (Nb) parameter, a subcarrier grouping (Ng) parameter, and a measurement instance identification (MII) parameter. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CIR type may include at least one of a coefficient size parameter and a number of values ​​parameter. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the DMG / EDMG type may include at least one of a number of dimensions of the filtered MAP parameter and a coefficient size parameter. The parameters of the measurement type dependent parameters subfield may be used to analyze the sensed measurement report.

[0106] FIG. 15 illustrates an example procedure for WLAN sensing. The sensing transmitter may send a packet to the sensing receiver (1510). The packet may be an NDP or a PPDU. The packet may include training symbols. The sensing transmitter may receive a sensing measurement report from the sensing receiver (1520). The sensing measurement report may include a measurement report control field. The sensing measurement report may include a measurement report field. Parameters of a measurement type dependent parameters subfield of the measurement report control field may be based on the measurement type. Contents of the measurement report field may be based on the measurement type. The measurement report control field may include information for interpretation of the sensing measurement values ​​included in the measurement report control field. The measurement type may include at least one of a channel state information (CSI) type, a channel impulse response (CIR) type, and a directional multi-gigabit (DMG) / extended DMG (EDMG) type. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CSI type may include at least one of a coefficient size (Nb) parameter, a subcarrier grouping (Ng) parameter, and a measurement instance identification (MII) parameter. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CIR type may include at least one of a coefficient size parameter and a number of values ​​parameter. The measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the DMG / EDMG type may include at least one of a number of dimensions of the filtered MAP parameter and a coefficient size parameter. The sensing transmitter may analyze the sensing measurement report (1530). The sensing transmitter may analyze the sensing measurement report based on parameters in the measurement type dependent parameters subfield of the measurement report control field.

[0107] In one embodiment, a method for enabling aggregation of multiple measurement reports is shown in Figures 16 and 17. Multiple sensing reports may be delayed by at least one instance and may be carried in multiple PPDUs. For example, each measurement report may be carried in one PPDU, and these PPDUs may be sent consecutively. In Figure 16, an AP or STA may perform a measurement for measurement instance ID n (1610). An AP or STA may perform a measurement for measurement instance ID n+1 (1620). An AP or STA may perform a measurement for measurement instance ID n+2 (1630). An AP or STA may send a measurement report for measurement instance ID n (e.g., in a PPDU) (1640). An AP or STA may send a measurement report for measurement instance ID n+1 (e.g., in another PPDU) (1650). An AP or STA may send a measurement report for measurement instance ID n+2 (e.g., in another PPDU) (1660). Multiple sensing reports may be delayed by at least one instance and may be carried in one PPDU. In FIG. 17, an AP or STA may perform a measurement for a measurement instance ID n (1710). An AP or STA may perform a measurement for a measurement instance ID n+1 (1720). An AP or STA may perform a measurement for a measurement instance ID n+2 (1730). An AP or STA may send measurement reports for measurement instances ID n, ID n+1, and ID n+2 (e.g., in a PPDU) (1740). An AP or STA may send measurement instances ID n, ID n+1, and ID n+2 in the same PPDU. Three measurement instances (i.e., n, n+1, n+2) are shown in FIG. 16 and FIG. 17 as an example, and it is understood that there may be any number of measurement instances.

[0108] To support multiple sensing reports, parameters may be carried in the NDPA frame or trigger frame sent by the sensing transmitter (eg, AP), or any control frame that initiates the measurement setup.

[0109] An indication of the delay reporting parameter may be carried in the NDPA frame or the trigger frame, or any control frame that initiates the measurement setup. This parameter may indicate whether delay-sensitive reporting is allowed or not. For example, a value of 1 may indicate that delay-sensitive reporting is allowed, and a value of 0 may indicate that delay-sensitive reporting is not allowed.

[0110] The max delay timeslots parameter may be carried in an NDPA frame or a trigger frame, or any control frame that initiates a measurement setup. This parameter may indicate the maximum number of timeslots allowed by a sensing transmitter or a sensing initiator to obtain a measurement report. The number of timeslots may be equal to the number of sensing instances or the number of NDPAs. For example, if max delay timeslots is equal to 2, it may mean that when a sensing NDPA (or a trigger sounding frame or other control frame) is transmitted in measurement instance ID=1, a sensing report should be sent by measurement instance ID=3.

[0111] The maximum number of measurement reports parameter may be carried in the NDPA frame or the trigger frame, or any control frame that initiates the measurement setup. This parameter may indicate the maximum number of measurement reports that may be reported in one PPDU or multiple consecutive PPDUs.

[0112] The sensing report parameter aggregation indication may be carried in the NDPA frame or the trigger frame, or any control frame that initiates the measurement setup. This parameter may indicate whether aggregation of sensing reports in one PPDU is allowed or not. For example, if the sensing report aggregation indication is 1, multiple sensing reports may be allowed to be aggregated in one PPDU, and if the sensing report aggregation indication is 0, only one sensing report may be allowed in one PPDU.

[0113] If delay sensitive reporting is not allowed, then the maximum delay timeslot may be equal to 0, and the maximum number of measurement reports and the indication of aggregation of sensing reports may be reserved.

[0114] To ensure that multiple sensing reports can be sent consecutively without interruption, the sensing transmitter / initiator or AP may reserve a transmission opportunity (TXOP) that can be used for sensing measurement reports. To inform STAs that the reserved time allocated in a multiuser (MU) request to send (RTS) transmission (TX) trigger frame (TF) is used for sensing purposes, a bit in a multiuser trigger response scheduling (MU-TRS) trigger frame may be used to indicate whether the reserved time slot is used for sensing. For example, a value of 1 may represent that the time slot is reserved for sensing, and a value of 0 may represent that the time slot is reserved for another purpose.

[0115] Figure 18 shows an example Extended EHT Variant Common Information field format that may be used in the MU-RTS to reserve subsequent timeslots for sensing. The Sensing Indication subfield (B22) may indicate whether the reserved timeslot is used for sensing. Note that other reserved bits (e.g., B56-B62 or B63) or another bit in the trigger frame may be used to indicate that the reserved timeslot is used for sensing sounding and sensing reporting.

[0116] FIG. 19 shows an exemplary encoding of the TXOP sharing mode subfield when the extended MU-RTS indicates subsequent timeslots reserved for sensing only (e.g., the sensing indication subfield in the MU-RTS common field is set to 1).

[0117] In one embodiment, one or more sounding NDPA / NDP / trigger frame transmissions may be sent from the AP to the scheduled STAs and one or more measurement result transmissions may be sent from the scheduled STAs to the AP in an exchange of extended MU-RTS TXS trigger frames with a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 1. The NDPA / NDP / trigger frames from the AP may be sent prior to the time assigned in the MU-RTS TX TF, and the time assigned in the MU-RTS TX TF may be used for measurement collection.

[0118] FIG. 20 illustrates an exemplary exchange of extended MU-RTS TXS trigger frames with a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 1. The AP can send a self-addressed CTS to a non-AP STA (e.g., non-AP STA1). The AP can send an extended MU-RTS TXS TS with TXOP sharing mode equal to 1 to STA1. STA1 can send a CTS response to the AP. The AP can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n) to STA1. The AP can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n+1) to STA1. The AP can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n+2) to STA1. STA1 can send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n, to the AP. STA1 can send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n+1, to the AP. STA1 can send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n+2, to the AP. In one embodiment, one or more sounding NDPA / NDP / trigger frame transmissions may be sent from the scheduled STA to another STA and one or more measurement transmissions may be sent from another STA to the scheduled STA in an exchange of enhanced MU-RTS TXS trigger frames with a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 2. The NDPA / NDP / trigger frames from the scheduled STA may be sent prior to the time assigned in the MU-RTS TX TF, and the time assigned in the MU-RTS TX TF may be used for collection of measurements from another STA to the scheduled STA.

[0119] FIG. 21 illustrates an example exchange of extended MU-RTS TXS trigger frames with a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 2. The AP can send a self-addressed CTS to a non-AP STA (e.g., STA1). The AP can send an extended MU-RTS TXS TS with TXOP sharing mode equal to 2 to STA1). STA1 can send a CTS response to the AP. STA1 can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n) to a second non-AP STA (e.g., STA2). The NDPA / TF sounding frame sensing instance n can be sent after a short interframe space (SIFS). STA1 can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n+1) to STA2. The NDPA / TF sounding frame sensing instance n+1 can be sent after a SIFS. STA1 may send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n+2) to STA2. The NDPA / TF sounding frame sensing instance n+2 may be sent after SIFS. STA2 may send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n, to STA1. STA22 may send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n+1, to STA21. STA22 may send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n+2, to STA1. The measurement reports for sensing instances n, n+1, and n+2 may be sent in separate transmissions (e.g., different PPDUs).

[0120] In one embodiment, in an exchange of extended MU-RTS TXS trigger frames with a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 3, one or more sounding NDP transmissions may be sent from the scheduled STA to the AP and one or more measurement transmissions may be sent from the AP to the scheduled STA. The NDP / sounding frame from the scheduled STA to the AP may be sent before the time assigned in the MU-RTS TX TF, and the time assigned in the MU-RTS TX TF may be used for collection of measurements from another STA to the scheduled STA. A TXOP sharing subfield value equal to 3 may also indicate that other STAs may transmit NDPA or / and NDP sounding frames to the scheduled STA and that the scheduled STA may send sensing measurements to this STA. Reserved time slots may also be used for collection of measurements from the scheduled STA to another STA.

[0121] FIG. 22 illustrates an exemplary exchange of extended MU-RTS TXS trigger frames with a TXOP sharing mode subfield value equal to 3. The AP can send a self-addressed CTS to a non-AP STA (e.g., STA1). The AP can send an extended MU-RTS TXS TS with TXOP sharing mode equal to 3 to STA1. STA1 can send a CTS response to the AP. STA1 can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n) to the AP. STA1 can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n+1) to the AP. STA1 can send an NDPA / TF sounding frame (NDP sounding frame sensing instance n+2) to the AP. The AP can send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n, to STA1. The AP can send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n+1, to STA1. The AP can send a measurement report, i.e., sensing instance n+2, to STA1. Measurement reports for sensing instances n, n+1, and n+2 may be sent in separate transmissions (eg, different PPDUs).

[0122] Non-uniform quantization may be used to improve the accuracy of sensing by minimizing the CSI / compressed CSI quantization error. Non-uniform quantization may help provide a step size adapted according to the observed amplitude variation, as shown in FIG. 23. FIG. 23 shows an example of non-uniform quantization between CSI amplitudes 0 and 4. Narrow quantization levels are used between intervals 2 and 3. This improves the quantization distortion and improves the sensing accuracy. The non-uniform quantization based step size may be different for different sensing applications. For example, to classify / monitor the activity of an individual / object, the variation of CSI / compressed CSI over time may be observed. For a given activity, if the difference between the CSI value from the previous estimate (e.g., the amplitude is 3.2) and the CSI value from the current estimate (e.g., the amplitude is 3.4) is small (e.g., 0.2 in this example), having a very narrow quantization level between 3 and the maximum variation for a particular sensing, i.e., (3, maximum variation), while maintaining a wider quantization level for other amplitude variations, significantly improves the accuracy. More quantization levels may be assigned to more frequently seen amplitude values, and the quantization step size may be reduced for rarely seen amplitude values.

[0123] Different sensing applications may have different non-uniform quantization levels. Thus, the type of quantization that the sensing receiver can use to feed back the quantized CSI / compressed CSI values ​​to the sensing transmitter can be identified by the sensing feedback type indicated in the NDPA frame of the sensing transmitter. The sensing receiver may use a narrow quantization step size from the observed initial amplitude based on the initial amplitude value of the CSI. The initial observed CSI value may be indicated to the sensing transmitter so that the sensing transmitter may dequantize the CSI / compressed CSI value accordingly.

[0124] FIG. 24 illustrates a signaling procedure between a sensing transmitter (Tx) and a sensing receiver (Rx). The sensing Tx may indicate a sensing feedback type in a frame (e.g., a null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame) and send the frame to the sensing Rx (2410). The sensing Rx may estimate the CSI and use non-uniform quantization based on the sensing feedback type (2420). The sensing Rx may send an initial CSI amplitude value (or an index of a non-uniform quantization block) to the sensing Tx (2430). The sensing Tx may dequantize the CSI using non-uniform quantization (2440).

[0125] In one embodiment, when multiple antennas are used at both the sensing transmitter and the sensing receiver, the sensing transmitter may use a Null Data Packet Announcement (NDPA) frame to indicate the sensing use requirements of the transmitter antennas and the receiver antennas for sensing purposes. Alternatively, the sensing transmitter may indicate the sensing use requirements of the transmitter antennas and the receiver antennas in a trigger frame.

[0126] To enable multi-antenna sensing, multiple elements related to transmit / receive antennas may be included in the NDPA. In one embodiment, the transmit / receive antenna information may be included in a field of the NDPA frame (e.g., a common information field of the NDPA frame).

[0127] The transmit (Tx) antenna index may be included in the common information field of the NDPA frame. The Tx antenna index may indicate the transmit antenna index to the STA. It may include one or more bits, and the number of bits may be equal to the maximum transmit antennas allowed by the device (e.g., 4 bits).

[0128] A multi-antenna sensing indicator may be included in the common information field of the NDPA frame. The multi-antenna sensing indicator may indicate whether sensing requires using multiple antennas or a single antenna. For example, it may include 1 bit, and a multi-antenna sensing indicator=1 may indicate that all intended STAs require using multiple antennas to sense and / or feed back results. A multi-antenna sensing indicator=0 may indicate that all intended STAs require using a single antenna to sense and / or feed back results.

[0129] A receive (Rx) antenna index indicator may be included in the common information field of the NDPA frame. The Rx antenna index indicator may indicate whether the receive antenna index needs to be included in the measurement report. For example, it may include 1 bit, and the Rx antenna index indicator=1 may indicate that the receiving STA needs to indicate the Rx antenna index in the sensing measurement report, and the Rx antenna index indicator=0 may indicate that the receiving STA does not need to indicate the Rx antenna index in the sensing measurement report.

[0130] The same Rx antenna indicator may be included in the common information field of the NDPA frame. The same Rx antenna indicator may indicate whether the Rx antenna used for sensing may be the same as the last time it was used for sensing. For example, it may include 1 bit, and a same Rx antenna indicator=1 may indicate that it requires the receiving STA to use the same Rx antenna as the last time it was used for sensing, and a same Rx antenna indicator=0 may indicate that it does not require the receiving STA to use the same Rx antenna as the last time it was used for sensing.

[0131] In one embodiment, the Tx / Rx antenna information may be included in a field of the NDPA frame (eg, the STA information field of the NDPA frame).

[0132] An indication of Rx antenna index may be included in the STA information field of the NDPA frame. This indication may indicate the requirement of the corresponding STA to include the Rx antenna index in the sensing report. For example, it may include 1 bit, and an indication of Rx antenna index=1 may represent that the STA requires the Rx antenna index to be included in the sensing report, and an indication of Rx antenna index=0 may represent that the STA does not require the Rx antenna index to be included in the sensing report.

[0133] The Rx Antenna Index may be included in the STA Information field of the NDPA frame. The Rx Antenna Index may indicate the Rx Antenna Index used for sensing. The number of bits may vary and may depend on the number of receiver antennas in the intended STA. The maximum number of bits may be, for example, 3 bits.

[0134] The above information subfields proposed for the common information field and the STA information field may be included in any type of NDPA format that may be a mode of ranging NDPA, and / or new NDPA frames using the control frame extension subtype in the frame control field, and / or new types of EHT / HE NDPA.

[0135] The above information may also be included in the trigger frame when a Trigger Based (TB) measurement instance exists. In one embodiment, the Rx / Tx related information in the STA capabilities may include, but is not limited to, the following elements: Use of different Rx antennas to sense the channel may be included. Use of different Rx antennas to sense the channel may indicate whether the STA may use different Rx antennas to sense the channel. For example, it may include 1 bit, and using different Rx antennas to sense channel=1 may indicate that different Rx antennas can be used to sense the channel for the same or different applications, and using different Rx antennas to sense channel=0 may indicate that different antennas cannot be used to sense the channel for the same or different applications.

[0136] The use of different Tx antennas to transmit the NDP may include. The use of different Tx antennas to transmit the NDP may indicate whether the STA may use different Tx antennas to transmit the NDP. For example, it may include one bit, and using different Tx antennas to transmit NDP=1 may indicate that different Tx antennas can be used to transmit the NDP for the same or different applications, and using different Tx antennas to transmit NDP=0 may indicate that different Tx antennas cannot be used to transmit the NDP for the same or different applications.

[0137] A maximum number of Rx antennas used for sensing may be included. The maximum number of Rx antennas used for sensing may indicate the maximum number of Rx antennas used for sensing.

[0138] A maximum number of Tx antennas used to transmit the NDP may be included. The maximum number of Tx antennas used to transmit the NDP may indicate the maximum number of Tx antennas used to transmit the NDP.

[0139] In one embodiment, an intended STA receiving the Tx / Rx related information included in the NDPA frame or trigger frame may include the Tx / Rx related information in a sensed measurement report.

[0140] FIG. 25 illustrates an example procedure for multi-antenna sensing in a trigger-based (TB) sensing measurement instance. In this case, the AP, which is a sensing initiator and a sensing transmitter, may transmit an extended NDPA to a non-AP STA, which is a sensing receiver (2510). The extended NDPA may include sensing requirements related to the Tx and Rx antennas. The extended NDPA may be sent after a short interframe space (SIFS). The AP may send an NDP to the non-AP STA (2520). The NDP may be sent after the SIFS. The AP may send a trigger frame to the non-AP STA (2530). The trigger frame may be sent after the SIFS. Upon receiving the NDP and the trigger frame, which may follow the extended NDPA, the non-AP STA may send an extended sensing measurement report to the AP (2540). The extended sensing measurement report may include Tx / Rx information used for sensing. The extended sensing measurement report may be sent after the SIFS.

[0141] FIG. 26 illustrates an example procedure for multi-antenna sensing in a non-TB sensing measurement instance. In this case, a non-AP STA, which is a sensing initiator and a sensing transmitter, may transmit an extended NDPA to an AP, which is a sensing receiver (2610). The extended NDPA may include sensing requirements related to Tx and Rx antennas. The extended NDPA may be sent after SIFS. The non-AP STA may send an NDP to the AP (2620). The NDP may be sent after SIFS. Upon receiving an NDP, which may follow the extended NDPA, the AP may send an extended sensing measurement report to the non-AP STA (2630). The extended sensing measurement report may include Tx / Rx information used for sensing. The extended sensing measurement report may be sent after SIFS.

[0142] In one embodiment, the extended sensing measurement report may include, but is not limited to, the following information for multi-antenna sensing: (1) index of the receiver antenna used for sensing, which may indicate which receiver antenna is used to sense the channel; (2) index of the transmit antenna used for sensing, which may indicate which transmit antenna from the sensing transmitter is used for sensing the channel; (3) index of the transmit antenna used to send the sensing measurement report, which may indicate which transmit antenna from the sensing receiver is used to send the sensing result; (4) number of receiver antennas used for sensing, which may indicate the number of receiver antennas used to sense the channel; (5) number of transmit antennas used for sensing, which may indicate the number of transmit antennas used to sense the channel; and (6) number of transmit antennas used to send the sensing measurement report, which may indicate the number of transmit antennas used to send the sensing measurement report.

[0143] The above information may be included in the MIMO control field of the extended sensing measurement report.

[0144] In one embodiment, a STA supporting sensing operation may support preamble puncturing, in which one or more subchannels of the BSS operating bandwidth may be announced by the AP or non-AP STAs as punctured subchannels (i.e., inactive subchannels). The punctured subchannels may not be used for transmission of channel measurement PPDUs such as NDP, sounding announcement frames such as sensing NDPA or sensing sounding trigger frame variants, or measurement report frames.

[0145] In one embodiment, the STAs participating in the sensing session can determine the list of punctured sub-channels, for example, by receiving and analyzing an operational element indicating the list of punctured sub-channels. The indication of the punctured sub-channels may include a bitmap or a look-up table indicating the list of punctured sub-channels. The operational element defining the list of punctured sub-channels may be a predefined element in a previous generation, such as an EHT operational element, or may be a newly defined operational element for sensing operations.

[0146] In one embodiment, sensing STAs may indicate whether they support optional sensing capability in a sensing capability element that may be broadcast in a beacon frame, a (re)association frame, or any other management frame. The parameter of the sensing capability may be a punctured sensing support that may indicate support for computing sensing measurements in a bandwidth where some of its subchannels are punctured. This parameter may be set to 1, for example, if punctured sensing is implemented, or 0, otherwise.

[0147] In one embodiment, the sensing NDPA may include a sensing bandwidth information or partial bandwidth information subfield in the STA information field to indicate punctured subchannels in the NDP that may follow (e.g., immediately follow) the NDPA after a short interframe space (SIFS). The punctured subchannel indication may be a bitmap or a lookup table and may cover the entire BSS bandwidth. Each STA may determine the punctured subchannels within its operating bandwidth by determining the BSS operating bandwidth and decoding the punctured subchannel list. The STA operating bandwidth may be smaller or larger than the BSS operating bandwidth. If the STA operating bandwidth is smaller than the BSS operating bandwidth, the AP may use the sensing bandwidth information or partial bandwidth information subfield to indicate the requested subchannels for sensing the feedback measurements, which may be a subset or all of the subchannels within the STA operating bandwidth. If the STA's operating bandwidth is larger than the BSS operating bandwidth, the AP may use the sensing bandwidth information or fractional bandwidth information subfield to indicate punctured subchannels within the BSS operating bandwidth that map to a portion of the bandwidth of the STA participating in the sensing session. STAs participating in a sensing measurement instance may send sensing measurements for the requested and unpunctured subchannels.

[0148] In one embodiment, the sensing NDPA may include a special STA information field that may be identified with a special STA identification (ID) and used to indicate punctured subchannels for the STAs included in the sensing measurement instance. The special STA information field may include subfields that may indicate a list of punctured subchannels in the operating bandwidth of the BSS. The list of punctured subchannels may be indicated in a common information field in the NDPA.

[0149] In one embodiment, the punctured channels in the NDPA may be indicated by the bandwidth of the NDPA, and the subchannels required for sensing may be indicated by a subfield of the sensing bandwidth information or fractional bandwidth information.

[0150] In one embodiment, the SIG field of the NDP (or any other PPDU with training symbols that can be used for sensing / channel measurements) may be used to indicate a bitmap or lookup table of punctured subchannels in the transmitted NDP. The list of punctured subchannels indicated in the NDP may be the same as the list of punctured subchannels indicated in the NDPA. In one embodiment, the AP may indicate additional punctured subchannels other than those indicated in the NDPA.

[0151] In one embodiment, the list of punctured subchannels may be indicated in a subfield (e.g., Punctured Channel Information subfield) of the common information field of the sensing trigger frame variant used by the AP to request an NDP (or any other PPDU with training symbols that may be used for sensing / channel measurements) transmission from the non-AP STA. The triggered STA may send an NDP covering the non-punctured subchannels. In one embodiment, the list of punctured subchannels may be indicated in a subfield (e.g., Punctured Channel Information subfield) of the user information field. The triggered non-AP STA may transmit an NDP and indicate the list of punctured subchannels in the SIG field of the requested NDP. The triggered non-AP STA may indicate additional punctured subchannels other than those indicated in the sensing trigger frame variant.

[0152] In one embodiment, the AP may indicate the punctured subchannels in a subfield (e.g., punctured channel information subfield) in the common information field of the sensing report trigger frame variant that may be used to trigger sensing measurement reports from STAs participating in the sensing measurement instance. In one embodiment, the AP may indicate the punctured subchannels in a subfield in the user information field. The triggered STAs participating in the sensing measurement instance may respond with a sensing measurement frame that may include sensing measurements for the requested subchannels indicated in the sensing NDPA. The triggered STA may indicate a list of punctured subchannels in a subfield (e.g., punctured channel information subfield) in the measurement report control field. The triggered STA may puncture additional subchannels other than those indicated in the punctured channel information subfield of the sensing report trigger frame variant.

[0153] In one embodiment, a non-AP STA may send an NDPA to initiate a non-TB sensing measurement instance with an AP. The non-AP STA may indicate additional punctured subchannels other than the punctured subchannels indicated by the action element sent by the AP to the non-AP STA. The non-AP may use the sensing bandwidth information or fractional bandwidth information subfield of the STA information field to indicate the additional punctured subchannels. In one embodiment, the additional punctured subchannels may be indicated in a common field of the NDPA sent by the non-AP STA to initiate a non-TB sensing measurement instance.

[0154] In one embodiment, the non-AP STA may use the SIG field of the Initiator-to-Responder (I2R) NDP of the non-TB sensing measurement instance to indicate the additionally punctured subchannels. In one embodiment, the AP may puncture additional subchannels other than those indicated in the NDPA and I2R and may use the Responder-to-Initiator (R2I) SIG field to indicate the additionally punctured subchannels. The AP may indicate the punctured subchannels in the sensing measurement report control field of the sensing measurement report frame carrying the sensing measurement results of the non-TB sensing measurement instance.

[0155] In one embodiment, the setting of the threshold in threshold-based sensing may depend on the operating parameters for which the threshold is determined. One of the parameters may be the effective sensing bandwidth, which may be defined as the sensing bandwidth excluding punctured subchannels. The effective sensing bandwidth may change if the sensing bandwidth changes and / or the punctured subchannel list changes. The threshold may be renegotiated when the punctured channel list changes. The AP may dynamically puncture additional subchannels, and when this occurs, the AP may reset the threshold to a new value.

[0156] Although the solution described herein takes into account the protocols of the 802.11 specification, it is understood that the solution described herein is not limited to this scenario and is applicable to other wireless systems.

[0157] Although SIFS is used to illustrate various interframe spacings in the design and procedural embodiments, any other interframe spacing such as RIFS, AIFS, DIFS, or any other allowable time interval may be applied to the same solution.

[0158] Although four RBs per triggered TXOP is shown as an example in some figures, the actual number of utilized RBs / channels / bandwidth may vary.

[0159] Certain bits are used to signal in-BSS / OBSS as an example, although other bits may be used to signal this information.

[0160] Several trigger type values ​​are used as examples to identify the newly defined trigger frame variants, although other values ​​may be used.

[0161] Multi-AP and MAP are used interchangeably to refer to the same concept.

[0162] The Long Training Field (LTF) may be any type of predefined sequence that is known at both the transmitter and receiver sides.

[0163] Although the features and elements are described above in certain combinations, one skilled in the art will understand that each feature or element may be used alone or in any combination with the other features and elements. In addition, the methods described herein may be implemented in a computer program, software, or firmware embodied in a computer-readable medium for execution by a computer or processor. Examples of computer-readable media include electronic signals (transmitted over wired or wireless connections) and computer-readable storage media. Examples of computer-readable storage media include, but are not limited to, read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), registers, cache memory, semiconductor memory devices, magnetic media such as internal hard disks and removable disks, magneto-optical media, and optical media such as CD-ROM disks and digital versatile disks (DVDs). A processor in association with software may be used to implement a radio frequency transceiver for use in a WTRU, UE, terminal, base station, RNC, or any host computer.

Claims

1. 1. A method for wireless local area network (WLAN) sensing, comprising: receiving, by a sensing receiver, a packet from a sensing transmitter; performing measurements on the received packets by the sensing receiver; preparing, by the sensing receiver, a sensing measurement report, the sensing measurement report including at least a measurement report control field and a measurement report field, a measurement type dependent parameters subfield of the measurement report control field being based on a measurement type; sending, by the sensing receiver, the sensing measurement report to the sensing transmitter.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received packet includes training symbols.

3. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the packet is a Null Data Packet (NDP) or a Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU).

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the measurement report control field includes information for interpretation of sensed measurements contained in the measurement report control field.

5. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the measurement type includes at least one of a Channel State Information (CSI) type, a Channel Impulse Response (CIR) type, or a Directional Multi-Gigabit (DMG) / Enhanced DMG (EDMG) type.

6. 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CSI type includes at least a coefficient size (Nb) parameter, a subcarrier grouping (Ng) parameter, and a measurement instance identification (MII) parameter.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the measurement type dependent parameters subfield for a CIR type includes at least a coefficient size parameter and a number of values ​​parameter.

8. The method of claim 5 , wherein the measurement type dependent parameters subfield for DMG / EDMG types includes at least dimensionality and coefficient size parameters of filtered MAP parameters.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein parameters in the measurement type dependent parameters subfield are used to analyze the sensed measurement report.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the measurement report control field includes an aggregated report indication indicating whether the sensory measurement report includes one sensory measurement result or includes multiple aggregated sensory measurements.

11. 1. A sensing receiver configured for wireless local area network (WLAN) sensing, comprising: A receiver; A transmitter; a processor; the receiver is configured to receive packets from a sensing transmitter; the processor is configured to perform measurements on the received packets; The processor is further configured to prepare a sensory measurement report, the sensory measurement report including at least a measurement report control field and a measurement report field, a measurement type dependent parameters subfield of the measurement report control field being based on a measurement type: The transmitter is configured to send the sensing measurement report to the sensing transmitter.

12. 12. The sensory receiver of claim 11, wherein the received packet includes training symbols.

13. The sensing receiver of claim 11 , wherein the packet is a Null Data Packet (NDP) or a Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU).

14. 12. The sensing receiver of claim 11, wherein the measurement report control field includes information for interpretation of sensory measurements contained in the measurement report control field.

15. 12. The sensing receiver of claim 11, wherein the measurement type includes at least one of a Channel State Information (CSI) type, a Channel Impulse Response (CIR) type, or a Directional Multi-Gigabit (DMG) / Enhanced DMG (EDMG) type.

16. 16. The sensing receiver of claim 15, wherein the measurement type dependent parameters subfield for the CSI type includes at least a coefficient size (Nb) parameter, a subcarrier grouping (Ng) parameter, and a measurement instance identification (MII) parameter.

17. The sensing receiver of claim 15 , wherein the measurement type dependent parameters subfield for a CIR type includes at least a coefficient size parameter and a number of values ​​parameter.

18. The sensing receiver of claim 15 , wherein the measurement type dependent parameters subfield for DMG / EDMG types includes at least dimensionality and coefficient size parameters of filtered MAP parameters.

19. The sensing receiver of claim 11 , wherein parameters of the measurement type dependent parameters subfield are used to analyze the sensing measurement report.

20. The sensing receiver of claim 11 , wherein the measurement report control field includes an aggregated report indication indicating whether the sensory measurement report includes one sensory measurement result or multiple aggregated sensory measurements.

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