Multi-link aggregation method, station multi-link device, and access point multi-link device

Abstract

A multi-link aggregation method, a station multi-link device, and an access point multi-link device, the method including a station multi-link device transmitting first information to an access point multi-link device, the first information being used by the access point multi-link device to determine target links that need to be monitored with the assistance of the station multi-link device.

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present application relates to the field of communications, and more particularly to a multi-link aggregation method, a station multi-link device, and an access point multi-link device. [Background technology]

[0002] In order to increase network capacity and reduce network delay, Multi-Link Aggregation (MLA) technology is introduced, and in a system that supports Multi-Link Aggregation technology, some services can be transmitted through at least two links. A device that supports MLA is a Multi-Link Device (MLD).

[0003] To solve the problem of multi-link aggregation in MLD that does not support synchronous transmit receive (STR) function, a multi-link aggregation method based on back-off counter (BC) has been introduced. However, in the case of low-latency and high-throughput application scenarios such as real-time video stream, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR), the multi-link aggregation method based on BC has the problem of low success rate of multi-link aggregation and high latency. Therefore, how to realize multi-link aggregation with high success rate and low latency has become an urgent issue to be solved. Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] The present application provides a multi-link aggregation method, a station multi-link device and an access point multi-link device, which are helpful in achieving multi-link aggregation transmission with high success rate and low delay. [Means for solving the problem]

[0005] According to a first aspect, there is provided a multi-link aggregation method, the method including a station multi-link device transmitting first information to an access point multi-link device, the first information being used by the access point multi-link device to determine target links that need to be monitored with the assistance of the station multi-link device.

[0006] According to a second aspect, there is provided a multi-link aggregation method, the method including an access point multi-link device receiving first information transmitted from a station multi-link device, the first information being used by the access point multi-link device to determine target links that need to be monitored with the assistance of the station multi-link device.

[0007] According to a third aspect, there is provided a station multilink device configured to perform the method of the first aspect or any of its embodiments, in particular the station multilink device comprises a functional module configured to perform the method of the first aspect or any of its embodiments.

[0008] According to a fourth aspect, there is provided an access point multilink device configured to perform the method according to the second aspect or any of its embodiments. In particular, the access point multilink device comprises a functional module configured to perform the method according to the second aspect or any of its embodiments.

[0009] According to a fifth aspect, there is provided a station multilink device comprising a processor and a memory, the memory being configured to store a computer program, the processor being configured to perform the method of the first aspect above or any embodiment thereof by invoking and executing the computer program stored in the memory.

[0010] According to a sixth aspect, there is provided an access point multilink device comprising a processor and a memory, the memory being configured to store a computer program, the processor being configured to perform the method of the second aspect above or any embodiment thereof by invoking and executing the computer program stored in the memory.

[0011] According to a seventh aspect, there is provided a chip configured to carry out the method of any one of the first and second aspects or each embodiment thereof.

[0012] Specifically, the chip includes a processor configured to call up and execute a computer program from a memory, thereby causing a device in which the chip is implemented to execute a method according to any one of the first and second aspects described above or each embodiment thereof.

[0013] According to an eighth aspect, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program for causing a computer to carry out the method according to any one of the first and second aspects above or each embodiment thereof.

[0014] According to a ninth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising computer program instructions for causing a computer to carry out the method of any one of the first and second aspects above or each embodiment thereof. According to a tenth aspect, there is provided a computer program product configured to cause a computer to carry out the method of any one of the first and second aspects above or each embodiment thereof. Effect of the Invention

[0015] According to the above technical solution, the station multi-link device sends first information to the access point multi-link device to indicate to the access point multi-link device the target link that requires monitoring support, thereby solving the problem that a multi-link device that does not support STR cannot monitor the link status of other links when sending or receiving data through one link, and by supporting monitoring by the access point multi-link device, the link status of the target link is obtained and multi-link aggregation is performed, thereby improving system throughput and increasing the success rate of link aggregation. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0016] [Figure 1] 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system architecture according to an embodiment of the present invention; [Diagram 2] From left to right, there are schematic diagrams of data arrival rate varying over time, capacity of a single link varying over time, and delay due to capacity variations of a single link. [Diagram 3] 1 is a performance simulation diagram of three access methods, a single-link access method, a multi-link synchronous access method, and a multi-link asynchronous access method. [Figure 4] 1 is a schematic diagram of multi-link aggregation transmission based on BC; [Diagram 5] FIG. 2 is an exemplary interaction diagram of a multi-link aggregation method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. [Figure 6] FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a frame format of a Control Wrapper frame. [Figure 7] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a frame format of a Management frame. [Figure 8] FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a frame format of a data frame. [Figure 9] 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a frame format of a BA frame. [Figure 10] FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a frame format of an action frame. [Figure 11] FIG. 2 is an exemplary interaction diagram of a multi-link aggregation method according to one exemplary embodiment of the present application; [Figure 12] FIG. 2 is an exemplary interaction diagram of a multi-link aggregation method according to another exemplary embodiment. [Figure 13] FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of a station multilink device according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 14] FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of an access point multilink device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. [Figure 15] FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 16] FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of a chip according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 17] 1 is an exemplary block diagram of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention; DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0017] Hereinafter, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, but not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative efforts shall be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

[0018] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application may be applied to various communication systems, such as Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN), Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) or other communication systems.

[0019] Exemplarily, a communication system 100 to which the present embodiment is applied is as shown in Fig. 1. The communication system 100 may include an access point (AP) 110 and a station (STA) 120 that accesses a network via the access point 110.

[0020] In an embodiment of the present application, the STA may be a mobile phone, a tablet computer (Pad), a computer with wireless transmission and reception capabilities, a virtual reality (VR) device, an augmented reality (AR) device, a wireless device in industrial control, a wireless device in self driving, a wireless device in remote medical, a wireless device in a smart grid, a wireless device in transportation safety, a wireless device in a smart city, or a wireless device in a smart home, etc.

[0021] Although FIG. 1 exemplarily illustrates one AP and two STAs, exemplarily, the communication system 100 may include multiple APs and other numbers of STAs, and the present embodiment is not limited thereto.

[0022] It should be understood that in the present embodiment, the device with a communication function in the network / system is also called a communication device. Taking the communication system 100 shown in Fig. 1 as an example, the communication device may include an access point 110 and a station 120 with a communication function, and the access point 110 and the station 120 may be the specific devices described above, and will not be described again here. The communication device may also include other devices in the communication system 100, such as other network entities such as a network controller, a gateway, etc., and the present embodiment is not limited thereto.

[0023] It should be understood that the terms "system" and "network" are always used interchangeably herein. The term "and / or" herein is simply an association relationship describing related objects, and indicates that three relationships can exist, for example, A and / or B represents three cases: A exists independently, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists independently. Furthermore, the symbol " / " herein generally indicates that the related objects before and after are in an "or" relationship.

[0024] It should be understood that the "instruction" referred to in the embodiments of the present application may be a direct instruction, an indirect instruction, or an indication of an association relationship. For example, A instructing B may indicate that A directly instructs B, e.g., B can be obtained by A, or A indirectly supports B, e.g., A instructs C, and B can be obtained by C, or further indicates that there is an association relationship between A and B.

[0025] In describing the embodiments of the present application, the term "correspondence" may indicate a direct or indirect correspondence between the two, an association between the two, or a relationship between an indicator and an indicated, or a relationship between a constructor and a constructed, etc.

[0026] In the present embodiment, "predefined" can be realized by pre-storing the corresponding code, table, or itself used to indicate the related information in the device (including, for example, the access point and the station), and the present application is not limited to the specific embodiment. For example, "predefined" may be defined in the protocol.

[0027] In order to easily understand the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application, the technical solution of the present application will be described in detail in the following concrete embodiments. The following related technologies can be arbitrarily combined with the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application as optional technical solutions, and all of them are included in the protection scope of the embodiments of the present application. The embodiments of the present application include at least some of the following contents:

[0028] With the increase in application scenarios of low-latency and high-resolution video streams, the requirements for network latency and network capacity for data transmission are increasing. For example, in application scenarios such as real-time video streams, VR, and AR, a large amount of data is generated on one link in one transmission period (e.g., 16.7 ms), and it is necessary to transmit them in a short time. However, since the link is affected by various factors (e.g., noise interference and multipath fading), the link capacity fluctuates greatly, and when the generated traffic overlaps with the time of low link capacity, the delay becomes large. Figure 2 shows, from left to right, a schematic diagram of the data arrival rate changing with time, a schematic diagram of the capacity of a single link changing with time, and a schematic diagram of the delay due to the capacity fluctuation of a single link.

[0029] In view of the above problems, Multi-Link Aggregation (MLA) technology is introduced, and in a system supporting Multi-Link Aggregation technology, some services can be transmitted through at least two links, so that Multi-Link Aggregation technology can effectively increase network capacity and reduce network delay.

[0030] Multi-link aggregation can be realized in various ways and can be mainly divided into packet-based link aggregation and traffic-based link aggregation. In packet-based aggregation, frames of a single service flow (e.g., all services associated with a given traffic identification (TID)) can be transmitted simultaneously on multiple channels across multiple wireless links, where the multiple links may be the same radio frequency (RF) (e.g., 5 GHz frequency band) or different frequency bands (e.g., one in the 2.4 GHz frequency band and another in the 5 GHz frequency band or 6 GHz). Each link can be associated with a different physical layer (PHY) and underlying media access control (MAC) layer. In traffic-based link aggregation, each service flow can be transmitted using one of multiple available wireless links, e.g., some data can be transmitted on the first link at the same time as it is transmitted on the second link.

[0031] Multi-link aggregation has many advantages. First, multiple links can transmit traffic belonging to the same TID simultaneously, and channel diversity helps to transmit traffic smoothly and increase peak throughput during link fluctuations. Second, data packets on a high-capacity link can be multiplexed to an underutilized link to achieve load balancing and make the most of spectrum resources. Furthermore, compared with a single link, multi-link aggregation has greater advantages in applications such as wireless VR and interactive multiplayer games, which require low latency, short round-trip time, and rapid processing of burst traffic.

[0032] Multi-link aggregation methods are mainly divided into two types: synchronous aggregation and asynchronous aggregation. For synchronous aggregation, enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) back-off operation is performed only on a single primary link, for example, energy detection (ED), also called media detection, is performed on the secondary link before transmitting data on the primary link, and if the secondary link is idle, multi-link aggregation transmission is performed, otherwise data is transmitted only on the primary link. For asynchronous aggregation, EDCA back-off operation is performed independently on each link, and independent transmission opportunities (TXOP) are used for each link.

[0033] FIG. 3 shows a performance simulation diagram for three access methods: single-link (No Aggregation) access method, multi-link synchronous access method (Simultaneous (single primary)), and multi-link asynchronous access method (Independent). As can be seen from FIG. 3, under the same conditions, the peak throughput of the multi-link asynchronous access method (Independent) is the highest, the peak throughput of the synchronous access method (Simultaneous (single primary)) is the second highest, and the peak throughput of the single-link (No Aggregation) is the lowest.

[0034] In 802.11be, a multi-link logical entity is defined that carries a newly defined multi-link protocol and framework to achieve higher performance requirements, and such a logical entity is called a multi-link device (MLD), and the MLD can support the above-mentioned MLA technology, and the MLD can include, for example, an access point multi-link device (AP MLD) and a non-access point multi-link device (Non-AP MLD), and the Non-AP MLD is also called a station multi-link device (STA MLD).

[0035] In the case of STA MLD supporting synchronous transmit receive (STR) function, each subordinate STA of STA MLD can execute EDCA contention mechanism independently, and CCA (clear channel assessment) detection between each subordinate STA is not influenced by each other, so that it is easy to realize multi-link aggregation technology. However, in the case of MLD not supporting STR function, such equipment can be called Non-STR MLD, and since the operating frequency band interval of subordinate STA of Non-STR MLD is too small, data cannot be transmitted and received simultaneously between STAs due to In Device Coexistence (IDC) interference, which limits the operating performance of MLD equipment, that is, when one STA transmits data, other STAs cannot receive data, which brings difficulties in realizing multi-link aggregation function.

[0036] In view of this problem, a multi-link aggregation method based on a back-off counter (BC) is introduced, in which each STA of an MLD executes an independent EDCA mechanism on each link, and when the BC on the two links becomes 0, the STA can execute synchronous physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) transmission. If the back-off counter value of the STA on one link is decremented to 0 first, the back-off counter value remains at 0 until the BC of the STA on the other link becomes 0. While waiting for the BC of the STA on the other link to reach 0, the STA can continue to monitor the link medium status on the link. Figure 4 shows a schematic diagram of a multi-link aggregation transmission based on BC, where SIFS stands for Short Interframe Space. The PPDU is an aggregate Medium Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU), or A-MPDU, in which the physical header portion of the PPDU includes a preamble and a PLCP header, one bit of the PLCP header indicates that the PPDU is an A-MPDU, and the MAC portion of the PPDU includes multiple subframes.

[0037] However, the above technical proposal has two main drawbacks for low-delay and high-throughput application scenarios such as real-time video streaming, VR, and AR. One of the drawbacks is that the success rate of multi-link aggregation is not high. The STA that first backs off the BC counter value to 0 maintains the counter value as it is and waits for the BC counter value of the other STA to back off to 0 before completing the access, thereby realizing synchronous multi-link aggregation transmission. However, if the BC counter value backs off to 0 first and the counter value 0 is maintained without change, it will be occupied by other STA devices (the STA devices do not belong to the MLD that is executing the multi-link aggregation function), and the multi-link aggregation will fail. The other drawback is that the delay is large. By setting the BC counter, the function of multi-link aggregation of Non-STR MLD can be realized to some extent, but if the BC counter backs off to 0 and the counter value remains unchanged at 0, a large delay will occur in the service flow that is sensitive to delay. Therefore, how to realize multi-link aggregation with a high success rate and low delay is an urgent issue to be solved.

[0038] In view of this, the present application provides a multi-link aggregation technical solution, which can solve the problem that Non STR MLD cannot monitor the link status of other links when transmitting and receiving data through one link. By supporting monitoring through an access point multi-link device, the link status of other links can be obtained, and multi-link aggregation can be further performed, thereby improving system throughput and increasing the success rate of link aggregation.

[0039] FIG. 5 is an exemplary interaction diagram of a multi-link aggregation method 300 according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 5, the method 300 includes at least one of the following contents:

[0040] In step S301, the station multilink device transmits first information to the access point multilink device, and the first information is used by the access point multilink device to determine a target link that needs to be monitored with the assistance of the station multilink device.

[0041] In some embodiments, when multiple links are established between the station multi-link device and the access point multi-link device, and there is a large amount of burst traffic on the station multi-link device side, and the traffic needs to be transmitted to the access point multi-link device within a short period of time (e.g., scenarios such as real-time video streaming, VR, AR, etc.), the station multi-link device can adopt a multi-link aggregation transmission method.

[0042] It should be understood that the present embodiment is not particularly limited to the number of links established between the station multilink device and the access point multilink device, and for example, the number of links established may be two, three, or more.

[0043] It should be clarified that the multiple links may be in the same frequency band or in different frequency bands, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0044] It should be understood that the multi-link aggregation transmission in the embodiments of the present application may be packet-based link aggregation, or traffic-based link aggregation, or link aggregation based on other methods, and the present application is not limited to the link aggregation method.

[0045] In the present embodiment, the station multi-link device may include two stations, or may include three or more stations, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0046] In some embodiments of the present application, each station in the plurality of stations included in the station multi-link device corresponds to one link, and each station can perform multi-link aggregation transmission via the corresponding link.

[0047] For example, a station may perform multi-link aggregation transmission if it obtains TXOP ownership of the corresponding link.

[0048] In some embodiments, the station may acquire the TXOP ownership of the corresponding link through an EDCA contention mechanism or may be transferred to the station equipment by the access point multilink equipment. For example, when the access point multilink equipment acquires the TXOP ownership of a link, it may transfer the TXOP ownership of the link to the station multilink equipment by sending a multi-user request to send (MU-RTS) to the station multilink equipment.

[0049] In the present embodiment, the access point multi-link device may include two access points, or may include three or more access point devices, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0050] In some embodiments of the present application, the station multilink device does not support the STR function, and the access point multilink device supports the STR function, which is referred to as scenario 1.

[0051] For example, in scenario 1, when some of the multiple STAs of the station multi-link device used for multi-link aggregation obtain TXOP ownership of the corresponding link, and some of the STAs do not obtain TXOP ownership of the corresponding link, the technical solution of the embodiment of the present application can be adopted to perform multi-link aggregation transmission.

[0052] In some embodiments, when all STAs among the multiple STAs of the station multi-link device used for multi-link aggregation acquire TXOP ownership of the corresponding link, the station multi-link device can adopt the above-mentioned synchronous access mode to perform multi-link aggregation transmission.

[0053] In some other embodiments of the present application, the station multilink device supports the STR function, and the access point multilink device supports the STR function, which is referred to as scenario 2.

[0054] For example, in scenario 2, when the station multilink device performs uplink multilink aggregation, for energy saving, one or more STAs for uplink multilink aggregation in the station multilink device are in a doze state; in order to improve the efficiency of multilink aggregation (i.e., to reduce the overhead of the access channel after the STA is converted from the doze state to the wake state), the station multilink device can send first information to the access point multilink device to request the access point multilink device to assist in monitoring the state of the corresponding link; when the corresponding link is in an idle state, the STA converted from the doze state to the wake state can directly perform uplink multilink aggregation without performing a normal EDCA contention mechanism after receiving the feedback information of the access point multilink device.

[0055] In some embodiments of the present application, the target link that needs monitoring assistance from the access point multilink device may include a link whose TXOP ownership is not acquired by a STA in the station multilink device. This situation may be suitable for Scenario 1 described above.

[0056] For example, the station multi-link device includes STA1 and STA2, STA1 corresponds to link 1, STA2 corresponds to link 2, STA1 has acquired TXOP ownership of link 1, but STA2 has not acquired TXOP ownership of link 2, in this case, the target link may include link 2. That is, the access point multi-link device supports monitoring the link status of link 2.

[0057] In some other embodiments of the present application, the target link that needs monitoring assistance from the access point multilink device may include a link corresponding to a STA in a doze state in the station multilink device. This situation may be suitable for the above-mentioned scenario 2.

[0058] For example, the station multilink device includes STA1 and STA2, where STA1 corresponds to link 1 and STA2 corresponds to link 2, and when STA2 is in a doze state, the target link may include link 2. That is, the access point multilink device supports monitoring the link state of link 2.

[0059] In some embodiments of the present application, the station multilink device can generate first information based on information of a target link that requires monitoring assistance from the access point multilink device, and further transmit the first information to the access point multilink device.

[0060] For example, the station multilink device may transmit the first information on a link for which it has acquired TXOP ownership. Exemplarily, the TXOP ownership of the link may be acquired through an EDCA contention mechanism.

[0061] In some embodiments of the present application, the information of the target link may be indicated by a bitmap, or the first information may directly include link ID information of the target link, and the present application is not particularly limited to the indication method of the target link.

[0062] In some embodiments, the first information includes first indication information and / or a first bitmap, where the first indication information can be used to indicate that a target link identified by the first bitmap is used for uplink multilink aggregation, the first bitmap includes a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponding to a link, and different values ​​of each bit are used to indicate whether the corresponding link is a target link that requires monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device.

[0063] For example, the first indication information having a first value indicates that the target link identified by the first bitmap is used for uplink multilink aggregation, and the first indication information having another value indicates that the information carried by the first bitmap is not used for uplink multilink aggregation. In other words, when the first indication information has a first value, the content carried by the first bitmap is interpreted as information of the target link, and when the first indication information has another value, the content carried by the first bitmap is interpreted as another meaning.

[0064] As an example, when the maximum number of links corresponding to the multi-link aggregation is M, the first bitmap may include M bits, each bit corresponding to one link or each bit corresponding to one link ID, and the value of each bit is used to indicate whether the corresponding link is a target link or not, for example, a bit value of 1 indicates that the corresponding link is a target link, and a bit value of 0 indicates that the corresponding link is not a target link.

[0065] To take an example, the first bitmap includes six bits, denoted as B5 to B0, corresponding to link 5 to link 0 respectively, and the links for which the station multi-link device needs to perform multi-link aggregation include link 0 to link 3. When a STA in the station multi-link device has acquired TXOP ownership of link 0 and link 3, but has not acquired TXOP ownership of link 1 and link 2, the target links for which monitoring support by the access point multi-link device is required include link 1 and link 2. In this case, when the station multi-link device generates the first information, it can set the bits corresponding to link 1 and link 2 to 1, that is, to indicate the link states of link 1 and link 2 for which the access point multi-link device supports monitoring, B1 and B2 are set to 1 and other bits are set to 0.

[0066] It should be understood that in this embodiment, the station multilink device transmits the first information via any communication frame for interacting with the access point multilink device, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0067] In some embodiments, the first information is included in a first frame, where the first frame is one of a Control Wrapper frame, a Management frame, or a data frame.

[0068] As an example, the data frame may be a Quality of Service (QoS) data frame or a QoS Null frame.

[0069] It should be understood that the first information may be included in any field containing reserved bits or any field containing an undefined value (or an invalid value, reserved value) in any of the above frames, so long as the number of reserved bits is sufficient to carry the first information, and the present application is not limited to a specific location of the first information in the above frames.

[0070] As an example, the first information is included in an aggregation control (A-Control) subfield in a high throughput (HT) control field of the first frame.

[0071] For example, the A-Control subfield includes a Control ID field and / or a first bitmap field, where the Control ID field is used to carry the above-mentioned first indication information and the first bitmap field is used to carry the above-mentioned first bitmap.

[0072] In some embodiments, the value of the Control ID field being a first value indicates that the first bitmap field is used for uplink multilink aggregation, in which case the first bitmap field is used to determine target links that require monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device.

[0073] In some embodiments, the first value is a reserved value for the Control ID field. As an example, the first value may be 0111.

[0074] In some embodiments, the number of bits occupied by the first bitmap field can be determined based on a maximum number of links supported by multi-link aggregation, where each bit in the first bitmap field can correspond to one link or one link ID, and the value of each bit is used to indicate whether the corresponding link is a target link that requires monitoring assistance by the access point multi-link device.

[0075] In the following, a method for carrying the first information in each frame will be described with reference to specific examples of frame formats in FIGS.

[0076] FIG. 6 shows an example of the frame format of the Control Wrapper frame.

[0077] It should be understood that the frame format of the Control Wrapper frame in FIG. 6 is merely an example, and as standards evolve, the Control Wrapper frame may also be updated. In this case, the position at which the first information is carried in the Control Wrapper frame may also be adaptively adjusted, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0078] As shown in Figure 6, the Control Wrapper frame is It may include Frame Control, Duration / ID, Address1, Carried Frame Control, HT Control, Carried Frame, and Frame Check Sequence (FCS).

[0079] In some embodiments, the number of bytes occupied by each of the above fields are, in order: 2, 2, 6, 2, 4, a variable number of bytes, and 4.

[0080] In some embodiments, the Type value in the Frame Control field of the Control Wrapper frame is set to 01 and the Subtype value is set to 0111.

[0081] As shown in Fig. 6, the HT Control field of the Control Wrapper frame may further include an A-Control subfield. For example, the A-Control subfield may occupy the most significant 30 bits of the 4 bytes of the HT Control field, i.e., B31 to B2.

[0082] In some embodiments, the first information may be carried in an A-Control subfield in an HT Control field of a Control Wrapper frame.

[0083] For example, the A-Control subfield can be set to include a Control ID field and a first bitmap field.

[0084] As an example, the Control ID field may include 4 bits (e.g., B5-B2), the first bitmap field may include 6 bits (e.g., B11-B6), or other number of bits, and the specific number of bits may be determined according to the maximum number of target links that need to be monitored. In the following, the Control ID field includes 4 bits, and the first bitmap field includes 6 bits as an example, but the present application is not limited thereto.

[0085] As an example, a value of “0111” in the Control ID field (i.e., B5-B2) indicates that the first bitmap field (i.e., B11-B6) is used for uplink multilink aggregation, i.e., the content carried in the first bitmap field (i.e., B11-B6) is used to determine that the target link information requires monitoring support by the access point multilink device.

[0086] For example, if an access point multilink device receives a Control Wrapper frame and the Control ID in the A-Control field is "0111", the access point multilink device can analyze the first bitmap field in the A-Control field to obtain the target link information. Otherwise, the access point multilink device does not perform an operation to support multilink aggregation.

[0087] Exemplarily, the A-Control subfield may further include a Reserved field.

[0088] FIG. 7 shows an example of a frame format of the Management frame.

[0089] It should be understood that the frame format of the management frame in Figure 7 is only one example, and as standards evolve, the management frame may also be updated, in which case the transport position of the first information in the management frame may also be adaptively adjusted, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0090] In some embodiments, the management frame may include an Action Frame or may include other management frames, and this application is not limited thereto.

[0091] As shown in Figure 7, the management frame is as follows: The fields may include Frame Control, Duration / ID, Address1, Address2, Address3, Sequence Control, HT Control, Frame Body, and Frame Check Sequence (FCS). In some embodiments, the number of bytes occupied by each of the above fields is 2, 2, 6, 6, 6, 2, 4, variable number of bytes, and 4, in that order.

[0092] In some embodiments, the Type value in the Frame Control field of the Management frame is set to 00 and the Subtype value is set to 1101.

[0093] As shown in FIG. 7, the HT Control of the management frame can include an A-Control subfield.

[0094] As an example, the A-Control subfield may occupy the most significant 30 bits of the 4 bytes of the HT Control, that is, B31 to B2.

[0095] In some embodiments, the first information may be carried in an A-Control subfield in an HT Control field of a management frame.

[0096] For example, the A-Control subfield can be set to include a Control ID field and a first bitmap field.

[0097] As an example, the Control ID field may include 4 bits (e.g., B5-B2), and the first bitmap field may include 6 bits (e.g., B11-B6), or other numbers of bits, and the specific number of bits may be determined according to the maximum number of target links that need to be monitored. In the following, the Control ID field includes 4 bits, and the first bitmap field includes 6 bits, but the present application is not limited thereto.

[0098] As an example, a value of “0111” in the Control ID field (i.e., B5-B2) indicates that the first bitmap field (i.e., B11-B6) is used for uplink multilink aggregation, i.e., the content carried in the first bitmap field (i.e., B11-B6) is used to determine that the target link information requires monitoring support by the access point multilink device.

[0099] For example, when an access point multilink device receives a management frame and the control ID in the A-Control field is "0111", the access point multilink device can analyze the first bitmap field in the A-Control field to obtain the target link information. Otherwise, the access point multilink device does not perform an operation to support multilink aggregation.

[0100] Exemplarily, the A-Control subfield may further include a Reserved field.

[0101] FIG. 8 shows an example of a frame format of a data frame.

[0102] It should be understood that the frame format of the data frame in FIG. 8 is only one example, and as standards evolve, the data frame may also be updated, in which case the position at which the first information is carried in the data frame may also be adaptively adjusted, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0103] As shown in Figure 8, the data frame is It can include Frame Control, Duration / ID, Address1, Address2, Address3, Sequence Control, Address4, QoS Control, HT Control, FCS. As an example, the number of bytes occupied by each of the above fields is 2, 2, 6, 6, 6, 2, 6, 2, 4, and 4, respectively.

[0104] In some embodiments, the Type value in the Frame Control field of the data frame is set to 10 and the Subtype value is set to 1000 to indicate that the data frame contains a payload.

[0105] In some embodiments, the Type value in the Frame Control field of the data frame is set to 10 and the Subtype value is set to 1100 to indicate that the data frame does not contain a payload.

[0106] As shown in FIG. 8, the HT Control of the data frame may include an A-Control subfield.

[0107] As an example, the A-Control subfield may occupy the most significant 30 bits of the 4 bytes of the HT Control, that is, B31 to B2.

[0108] In some embodiments, the first information may be carried in an A-Control subfield in an HT Control field of a data frame.

[0109] For example, the A-Control subfield can be set to include a Control ID field and a first bitmap field.

[0110] As an example, the Control ID field may include 4 bits (e.g., B5-B2), the first bitmap field may include 6 bits (e.g., B11-B6), or other number of bits, and the specific number of bits may be determined according to the maximum number of target links that need to be monitored. In the following, the Control ID field includes 4 bits, and the first bitmap field includes 6 bits as an example, but the present application is not limited thereto.

[0111] As an example, a value of “0111” in the Control ID field (i.e., B5-B2) indicates that the first bitmap field (i.e., B11-B6) is used for uplink multilink aggregation, i.e., the content carried in the first bitmap field (i.e., B11-B6) is used to determine that the target link information requires monitoring support by the access point multilink device.

[0112] For example, when an access point multilink device receives a data frame and the Control ID in the A-Control field is "0111", the access point multilink device can analyze the first bitmap field in the A-Control field to obtain the target link information, otherwise the access point multilink device does not perform an operation to support multilink aggregation.

[0113] Exemplarily, the A-Control subfield may further include a Reserved field.

[0114] Correspondingly, as shown in FIG. 5, the access point multi-link device receives first information sent from the station multi-link device, and further, in S302, analyzes the first information to obtain information of the target link, and monitors the target link to determine the link state of the target link, for example, whether the target link is in an idle state.

[0115] Further, the access point multilink device may generate second information based on a link status of the target link.

[0116] In some embodiments, the first information is carried in an A-Control field in an HT Control field in a management frame, and the access point multilink device can obtain the first information from the A-Control field in the HT Control field in the management frame. If the values ​​of B5 to B2 in the A-Control field are 0111, the access point multilink device can determine that the contents carried in B11 to B6 are used to determine target link information that needs monitoring support by the access point multilink device, and can further obtain the information in B11 to B6, and if B11 to B6 are 000110 and correspond to link 5 to link 0 respectively, the access point multilink device can determine that link 1 and link 2 are target links that need monitoring support.

[0117] For example, if the target link includes link 2 and link 2 corresponds to AP2 of the access point multi-link device, when the network allocation vector (NAV) of AP2 is decremented to 0, AP2 can start point interframe space (PIFS) energy detection (ED), and if it detects that link 2 is in an idle state, generate second information and send the second information to the station multi-link device. Otherwise, continue the above steps after performing the normal EDCA mechanism.

[0118] In some embodiments of the present application, as shown in FIG. 5, the method 300 further includes the following steps.

[0119] In step S303, the station multilink device receives second information transmitted from the access point multilink device, and the second information is used to indicate the link status of the target link that the access point multilink device supports monitoring.

[0120] In some embodiments of the present application, the link status information of the target link may be indicated by a bitmap, or the second information may directly include a link ID of the target link and corresponding link status information, and the present application is not particularly limited to the indication method of the link status of the target link.

[0121] It should be understood that the number of target links fed back by the second information may be the same as or different from the number of target links in the first information that require monitoring assistance from the access point multi-link device, for example, the access point multi-link device may only feed back the link status of some of the links.

[0122] In some embodiments, if the link states of the target links that require monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device are all in busy state, the access point multilink device may not return the second information to the station multilink device.

[0123] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information includes second indication information and / or a second bitmap, where the second indication information is used to indicate whether the second information includes link status information of the target link, the second bitmap includes a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponds to a link, and different values ​​of each bit are used to indicate whether the corresponding link is in an idle state.

[0124] As an example, the second indication information may be 1 bit, and a value of the 1 bit is used to indicate whether the second information includes link status information of the target link, for example, a value of the 1 bit being 1 indicates that the second information includes link status information of the target link, and a value of the 1 bit being 0 indicates that the second information does not include link status information of the target link.

[0125] As an example, when the maximum number of links corresponding to the multi-link aggregation is M, the second bitmap may include M bits, each bit corresponding to one link or each bit corresponding to one link ID, and the value of each bit is used to indicate the link state of the corresponding link. For example, a bit value of 1 indicates that the link state of the corresponding link is idle, and a bit value of 0 indicates that the link state of the corresponding link is busy.

[0126] It should be understood that the number of bits corresponding to each link in the second bitmap can be determined according to the number of link states of each link, for example, if there are two link states, each link can correspond to one bit, or if there are more link states, each link can correspond to more bits, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0127] To take an example, the second bitmap includes 6 bits, denoted as B5 to B0, corresponding to link 5 to link 0 respectively, and the target links that require monitoring assistance from the access point multi-link device include link 1 and link 2. If the link state of link 1 is idle and the link state of link 2 is busy, when the access point multi-link device generates the second information, it can set B1 to 1, set B2 to 0, and leave the other bits unprocessed (the default values ​​of the other bits may be 0). After obtaining the second information, the station multi-link device can analyze the second information to obtain the link states corresponding to the target links, and thereby perform multi-link aggregation transmission.

[0128] It should be understood that in the present embodiment, the access point multilink device transmits the second information via any communication frame to interact with the station multilink device, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0129] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information is included in a control frame or a management frame.

[0130] In some embodiments, the control frame includes a Block Ack (BA) frame and / or a Control Wrapper frame.

[0131] In some embodiments, the management frame includes an action frame.

[0132] It should be understood that the above examples of control frames and management frames are merely illustrative, and in some other embodiments, the second information may be carried in other control frames or management frames, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0133] In the following, a method for carrying the second information in each frame will be described with reference to specific examples of frame formats in FIGS.

[0134] FIG. 9 shows the frame format of the BA frame.

[0135] It should be understood that the frame format of the BA frame in Figure 9 is only one example, and as standards evolve, the BA frame may also be updated, in which case the position at which the second information is carried in the BA frame may also be adaptively adjusted, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0136] As shown in FIG. 9, the BA frame is It may include Frame Control, duration, Receiver Address (RA), Transmitter Address (TA), BA Control, BA information, and FCS. In some embodiments, the number of bytes occupied by each of the above fields is 2, 2, 6, 6, 2, variable, and 4, respectively.

[0137] As shown in FIG. 9, the BA control field of the BA frame is It may further include subfields such as BA ACK Policy, Multi-TID, Compressed Bitmap, Groupcast with retries (GCR), Reserved, TID_INFO, etc. In some embodiments, the number of bits occupied by each of the above subfields is 1, 1, 1, 1, 8, and 4, respectively. That is, the reserved subfield may occupy B11 to B4 in the BA control field.

[0138] In some embodiments, the second information may be carried in a Reserved subfield in a BA control field of a BA frame.

[0139] For example, a Reserved subfield may be configured to include a feedback indication field and a second bitmap field, where the feedback indication field is used to carry the second indication information and the second bitmap field is used to carry the second bitmap.

[0140] As an example, the feedback indication field may include 1 bit (e.g., B4), and the second bitmap field may include 6 bits (e.g., B10-B5), or other number of bits, and the specific number of bits may be determined according to the maximum number of target links that need to be monitored. In the following, the feedback indication field is described as including 1 bit and the second bitmap field is described as including 6 bits, but the present application is not limited thereto.

[0141] Exemplarily, the Reserved subfield may further include a Reserved field.

[0142] As an example, a value of “1” in the feedback indication field (i.e., B4) indicates that the second bitmap field (i.e., B10-B5) contains link status information of the target link, i.e., the content carried in the second bitmap field (i.e., B10-B5) is used to determine the link status of the target link, i.e., the BA frame contains link status information of the target link.

[0143] FIG. 10 shows the frame format of an Action frame.

[0144] It should be understood that the frame format of the Action frame in FIG. 10 is merely an example, and as standards evolve, the Action frame may also be updated. In this case, the position at which the second information is carried in the Action frame may also be adaptively adjusted, and the present application is not limited thereto.

[0145] As shown in FIG. 10, the Action frame is as follows: It can include Frame Control, Duration / ID, Address1, Address2, Address3, Sequence Control, HT Control, Frame Body, and FCS. As an example, the number of bytes occupied by each of the above fields is 2, 2, 6, 6, 6, 2, 4, variable number of bytes, and 4, in order.

[0146] In some embodiments, the Type value of the Frame Control field of the Action frame is set to 00, the Subtype value is set to 1101, and the Category subfield is set to 00010110.

[0147] As shown in FIG. 10, the Frame Body field of the Action frame is: It may include subfields such as Category, Action Details, etc. As an example, the number of bytes occupied by each of the above subfields is 1, variable, in order.

[0148] In some embodiments, the second information may be carried in an Action Details subfield in a Frame Body field of an Action frame.

[0149] For example, an Action Details subfield may be configured to include a feedback indication field and a second bitmap field, where the feedback indication field is used to carry the second indication information and the second bitmap field is used to carry the second bitmap.

[0150] As an example, the feedback indication field may include 1 bit (e.g., B4), and the second bitmap field may include 6 bits (e.g., B10 to B5), or other number of bits, and the specific number of bits can be determined according to the maximum number of target links that need to be monitored. In the following, an example is described in which the feedback indication field includes 1 bit and the second bitmap field includes 6 bits, but the present application is not limited thereto.

[0151] As an example, a value of "1" in the feedback indication field (i.e., B4) indicates that the second bitmap field (i.e., B10-B5) includes link status information of the target link, i.e., the content carried in the second bitmap field (i.e., B10-B5) is used to determine the link status of the target link, i.e., the Action frame includes link status information of the target link.

[0152] Exemplarily, the Action Details subfield may further include a Reserved field.

[0153] In some embodiments, the second information may be transmitted on a link whose TXOP ownership is acquired by the station multilink device. For example, the station multilink devices include STA1 and STA2, STA1 has acquired TXOP ownership of link1, but STA2 has not acquired TXOP ownership of link2, STA1 can transmit first information to AP1 in the access point multilink device via link1, indicating the link status of link2 that the access point multilink device helps to monitor, and after the access point multilink device determines the link status of link2, AP1 can transmit second information to feed back the link status of link2 via link1.

[0154] In some other embodiments of the present application, the access point multilink device can inform the station multilink device of the link status of the target link through implicit information (the implicit information does not need to include the second information field). When using this method for feedback, there is no need to change the frame format.

[0155] In some embodiments, the implicit information is transmitted on a link where TXOP ownership is not acquired by the station multilink device (e.g., a link in an idle state among target links that need to support monitoring). For example, the station multilink device includes STA1 and STA2, STA1 has acquired TXOP ownership of link 1, but STA2 has not acquired TXOP ownership of link 2, STA1 can transmit first information indicating the link state of link 2 that the access point multilink device supports monitoring via link 1 to AP1 in the access point multilink device, and when the access point multilink device determines that link 2 is in an idle state, AP2 can transmit implicit information indicating that link 2 is in an idle state via link 2.

[0156] In some embodiments, the implicit information may include trigger frames, or other frames that may implicitly indicate link state, such as data frames.

[0157] As an example, after an access point multi-link device receives first information, it can determine the link state of the target link in the first information, and further transmit a data frame on the target link in an idle state, and when the station multi-link device receives a data frame returned from the access point multi-link device, the station multi-link device can determine that the link is in an idle state.

[0158] In some embodiments, the trigger frame may include a MU-RTS.

[0159] In the following, an example is described in which the access point multilink device feeds back to the station multilink device the link status of the target link for which the station multilink device has requested monitoring support via MU-RTS, but the present application is not limited thereto.

[0160] For example, an access point multilink device may transmit the MU-RTS over a target link that is in an idle state, so that a station multilink device may determine which link is in an idle state according to the link on which the MU-RTS was received. In some embodiments, the MU-RTS is further used by the access point multilink device to transfer TXOP ownership of the link on which the MU-RTS is transmitted to the station multilink device.

[0161] In some embodiments, the access point multilink device can transmit a CTS-to-self frame on an idle target link to inform other devices competing for the link that the access point multilink device has acquired TXOP ownership of the link, thereby preventing the link from being monopolized by other devices and increasing the success rate of multilink aggregation.

[0162] Further, as shown in FIG. 5, the method 300 further includes the following steps.

[0163] In step S304, the station multi-link device performs multi-link aggregation transmission based on the link state indicated by the second information.

[0164] For example, by analyzing the second information, it is possible to know which links are in an idle state, and further to perform multi-link aggregation transmission through the idle links, thereby improving the system throughput.

[0165] Taking the above-mentioned scenario 1 as an example, the implementation process of the multi-link aggregation method according to a specific embodiment of the present application will be described with reference to FIG. 11 and FIG.

[0166] Here, the station multi-link device (Non-STR STA MLD) may include STA1 and STA2, where STA1 corresponds to link 1 and STA2 corresponds to link 2, and the access point multi-link device (STR AP MLD) may include AP1 and AP2, where they respectively correspond to link 1 and link 2. Here, link 1 and link 2 may correspond to the same frequency band or may correspond to different frequency bands.

[0167] The station multi-link device executes normal EDCA contention mechanism on link 1 and link 2, and when the BC of station STA1 on link 1 gradually decreases to 0, it finds that link 2 is occupied by other devices and link 2 is in busy state, and the station multi-link device continues to wait for the BC of other links to become 0, the above-mentioned problem occurs, in this case, in the embodiment of the present application, the station multi-link device can generate first information. The specific embodiment of the first information can refer to the relevant description of the above-mentioned embodiment, and will not be described again here.

[0168] STA1 acquires TXOP ownership of link 1, and further, STA1 can send an uplink multilink aggregation frame (denoted as UA frame) to the access point multilink device via link 1, where the UA frame includes the first information, which may be any frame in the above-mentioned embodiments for carrying the first information, and is used to request the access point multilink device to assist in monitoring the link status of link 2.

[0169] In addition, STA1 can also transmit PPDU data, such as PPDU1, PPDU2, etc., to AP1 via link 1. AP1 can also return a BA frame to STA1 via link 1.

[0170] After receiving the first information, the access point multi-link device can obtain information of the links that need to be monitored from the first information, and can further monitor link 2 to determine the link state of link 2, for example, it can determine that link 2 is in an idle state, in which case AP1 can send the second information to STA1 via link 1, or AP2 can send implicit information (not including the second information field) via link 2, for example, AP2 can indicate that link 2 is in an idle state by sending MU-RTS via link 2. Meanwhile, the AP2 transfers the TXOP ownership of link 2 to STA2, and STA2 acquires the TXOP ownership of link 2.

[0171] For example, before sending MU-RTS, AP2 may first send a CTS-to-self frame on link 2 to inform other devices competing for link 2 that AP2 has acquired TXOP ownership of link 2, thereby preventing link 2 from being occupied by other devices.

[0172] In this embodiment, after receiving the MU-RTS, STA2 may return a CTS frame on link 2 as shown in FIG. 11, or may not return a CTS frame as shown in FIG.

[0173] Furthermore, the station multi-link device may perform multi-link aggregation transmission via link 1 and link 2, for example, transmitting PPDU 4 over link 2 while transmitting PPDU 3 over link 1.

[0174] In some embodiments of the present application, the method includes: The access point multilink device determines an end time of the first data unit based on preamble related information in the first data unit, where the first data unit is received on a first link, the target link does not include the first link, and during the period of receiving the first data unit, the second link is in an idle state, or during the period of receiving the first data unit, the second link is converted from a busy state to an idle state; and determining the number of CTS-to-self frames to be transmitted and / or the transmission manner of the CTS-to-self frames based on the end time of the first data unit, where the end time of the last CTS-to-self frame coincides with the end time of the first data unit.

[0175] Exemplarily, the first link is a link whose TXOP ownership is acquired by the station multilink equipment, and the TXOP ownership of the first link is acquired by an EDCA mechanism.

[0176] By way of example, the transmission manner of the CTS-to-self frame may include a selected frame format, an MCS, whether physical layer padding needs to be performed (e.g., padding using a signal extension field), etc.

[0177] As an example, as shown in Figures 11 and 12, when AP2 detects that link 2 is in an idle state, it calculates the end time of PPDU2, the number of CTS-to-self transmissions, and the transmission method of the CTS-to-self frame based on the preamble-related information of PPDU2, so that the end time of PPDU2 and the end time of the CTS-to-self frame match, and then transmits the CTS-to-self frame.

[0178] For example, the access point multi-link device can determine the end time of PPDU2 based on PPDU2 preamble related information, and the access point multi-link device can calculate information such as the number of CTS-to-self transmitted on link 2, the frame format adopted by each CTS-to-self, the modulation method, and whether the signal extension field is used for padding based on the end time of the PPDU2, thereby ensuring that the ends of PPDU2 and CTS-to-self match at the end.

[0179] In some cases, two PPDU end times can be considered to match if their difference is less than or equal to 8 μs ((aSIFSTime+aSignalExtension) / 2), where aSIFSTime represents the time of the short interframe space and aSignalExtension represents the time occupied by the padding field.

[0180] In some embodiments of the present application, the method includes: The method further includes transmitting the BA frame and the MU-RTS based on the length of the BA frame and the length of the MU-RTS of the first data unit, so that the end time of the BA frame and the end time of the MU-RTS coincide with each other.

[0181] As shown in FIG. 11 or 12, the end of the BA frame transmitted by the access point multilink device on link 1 and the end of the MU-RTS transmitted on link 2 must also match.

[0182] In one embodiment, the length of a BA frame is at least 22 bytes (including Frame Control, Duration, RA, TA, BA Control, and FCS) and the length of a MU-RTS (including Frame Control, Duration, RA, TA, Padding, and FCS) is at least 20 bytes, so that by filling the Padding field, it is possible to achieve (or ensure) that the ends of the BA and MU-RTS will match at the end.

[0183] In summary, in the present embodiment, the station multi-link device can solve the problem that Non STR MLD cannot monitor the link status of other links when transmitting or receiving data on one link through monitoring support of the access point multi-link device for the links, while performing multi-link aggregation based on the link status of the links whose monitoring is supported by the access point multi-link device, thereby improving the system throughput and increasing the success rate of link aggregation.

[0184] Above, an embodiment of the method of the present application has been described in detail with reference to Figures 5 to 12. Below, an embodiment of the apparatus of the present application will be described in detail with reference to Figures 13 to 17. It should be understood that the embodiment of the apparatus and the embodiment of the method correspond to each other, and similar parts can refer to the embodiment of the method.

[0185] 13 shows an exemplary block diagram of a station multi-link device 400 according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 13, the station multi-link device 400 includes: The station multilink device includes a communication unit 410 configured to transmit first information to the access point multilink device, the first information being used by the access point multilink device to determine target links that need to be monitored with the assistance of the station multilink device.

[0186] For example, the communication unit 410 transmits the first information on the link on which it has acquired TXOP ownership.

[0187] In some embodiments of the present application, TXOP ownership of the link is obtained by an Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mechanism.

[0188] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information includes identification (ID) information of the target link.

[0189] In some embodiments of the present application, the identification (ID) information of the target link is indicated by a bitmap.

[0190] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information includes a first bitmap, the first bitmap including a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponding to at least one link, and different values ​​of each bit are used to indicate whether the corresponding link is a target link requiring monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device.

[0191] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information further includes first indication information, which is used to indicate that a target link identified by the first bitmap is to be used for uplink multilink aggregation.

[0192] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information is included in a first frame, where the first frame is one of a control wrapper frame, a management frame, and a data frame.

[0193] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information is included in an aggregation (A) control subfield within a high throughput (HT) control field of the first frame.

[0194] In some embodiments of the present application, the A-control subfield includes a control identifier (ID) field and / or a first bitmap field, and a first value of the control ID field indicates that the first bitmap field is used for uplink multilink aggregation, and the first bitmap field is used to determine target links that require monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device.

[0195] In some embodiments of the present application, the first value is a reserved value for the Control ID field.

[0196] In some embodiments of the present application, the communication unit 410 further comprises: The access point is configured to receive second information transmitted from the multilink device, the second information being used to indicate a link status of the target link that the multilink device assists in monitoring.

[0197] In some embodiments of the present application, the link state information of the target link is represented by a bitmap.

[0198] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information includes a second bitmap, the second bitmap including a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponding to at least one link, and a different value of each bit is used to indicate whether the corresponding link is in an idle state or not.

[0199] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information includes second indication information, and the second indication information is used to indicate whether the second information includes link status information of the target link.

[0200] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information is included in a control frame or a management frame.

[0201] In some embodiments of the present application, the control frame includes a block acknowledgement (BA) frame and / or a control wrapper frame.

[0202] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information comprises a reserved subfield in a BA control field of the BA frame.

[0203] In some embodiments of the present application, the reserved field includes a feedback indication field and a second bitmap field, where the feedback indication field is used to indicate whether the BA frame includes link status information of the target link, and the second bitmap field is used to determine the link status of the target link.

[0204] In some embodiments of the present application, the management frame includes an action frame.

[0205] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information is included in an action details field in a frame body field of the action frame.

[0206] In some embodiments of the present application, the action details field includes a feedback indication field and / or a second bitmap field, where the feedback indication field is used to indicate whether the action frame includes link status information of the target link, and the second bitmap field is used to determine the link status of the target link.

[0207] In some embodiments of the present application, the communication unit 410 further comprises: The access point is configured to receive a trigger frame transmitted from the multilink device, the trigger frame being used to determine a link state of the target link that the multilink device assists in monitoring.

[0208] In some embodiments of the present application, the station multilink device further comprises: A processing unit configured to determine that a link receiving the trigger frame is in an idle state.

[0209] In some embodiments of the present application, the trigger frame includes a multi-user request to transmit (MU-RTS), which is further used by the access point multilink device to transfer transmission opportunity (TXOP) ownership of the link along which the MU-RTS is transmitted to the station multilink device.

[0210] In some embodiments of the present application, the communication unit 410 further comprises: and configured to perform multi-link aggregation transmission based on a link state of the target link.

[0211] In some embodiments of the present application, the station multilink device further comprises: A processing unit configured to generate the first information and analyze the second information to obtain a link status of the target link.

[0212] In summary, in the present embodiment, the station multi-link device can solve the problem that Non STR MLD cannot monitor the link status of other links when transmitting or receiving data on one link through monitoring support of the access point multi-link device for the links, while performing multi-link aggregation based on the link status of the links whose monitoring is supported by the access point multi-link device, thereby improving the system throughput and increasing the success rate of link aggregation.

[0213] Exemplarily, in some embodiments, the communication unit may be a communication interface or transceiver, or may be an input / output interface of a communication chip or a system on chip, and the processing unit may be one or more processors.

[0214] It should be understood that the station multilink equipment 400 in the embodiment of the present application may correspond to the station multilink equipment in the method embodiment of the present application, and the above operations and other operations and / or functions of each unit in the station multilink equipment 400 are for realizing the corresponding process of the station multilink equipment in the method 300 shown in Figures 5 to 12, respectively, and will not be repeated here for the sake of brevity.

[0215] 14 shows an example block diagram of an access point multilink device 500 according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 13, the access point multilink device 500 includes: The access point multilink device includes a communication unit 510 configured to receive first information transmitted from a station multilink device, the first information being used to determine a target link that the access point multilink device needs to assist the station multilink device in monitoring.

[0216] In some embodiments of the present application, the access point multilink device 500 further comprises: The system further comprises a processing unit configured to analyze the first information and obtain information of the target link in the first information.

[0217] In some embodiments of the present application, the access point multilink device 500 further comprises: a storage unit configured to store information of the target link (such as link ID information); In some embodiments of the present application, the access point multilink device further comprises: A processing unit configured to monitor the target link based on the first information to determine a link status of the target link.

[0218] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information includes a first bitmap, the first bitmap including a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponding to at least one link, and different values ​​of each bit are used to indicate whether the corresponding link is a target link requiring monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device.

[0219] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information is included in a first frame, where the first frame comprises: It can be a control wrapper frame, a management frame, or a data frame.

[0220] In some embodiments of the present application, the first information is included in an aggregation (A) control subfield within a high throughput (HT) control field of the first frame.

[0221] In some embodiments of the present application, the A-control subfield includes a control identifier (ID) field and / or a first bitmap field, and a first value of the control ID field indicates that the first bitmap field is used for uplink multilink aggregation, and the bitmap field is used to determine target links that require monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device.

[0222] For example, when the communication unit 510 receives one of a Control Wrapper frame, an Action frame, and a Data frame and the Control ID in the A-Control field is "0111", it can parse the first bitmap field in the A-Control field to obtain the target link information, otherwise it does not perform the operation of supporting multi-link aggregation.

[0223] In some embodiments of the present application, the communication unit 510 further comprises: The access point multilink device is configured to transmit second information to the station multilink device, the second information being used to indicate a link state of the target link that the access point multilink device assists in monitoring.

[0224] In some embodiments of the present application, the link state of the target link is indicated by a bitmap.

[0225] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information includes a second bitmap, the second bitmap including a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponding to at least one link, and a different value of each bit is used to indicate whether the corresponding link is in an idle state or not.

[0226] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information is included in a control frame or a management frame.

[0227] In some embodiments of the present application, the control frame includes a block acknowledgement (BA) frame and / or a control wrapper frame.

[0228] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information comprises a reserved subfield in a BA control field of the BA frame.

[0229] In some embodiments of the present application, the reserved field includes a feedback indication field and a second bitmap field, where the feedback indication field is used to indicate whether the BA frame includes link status information of the target link, and the second bitmap field is used to determine the link status of the target link.

[0230] In some embodiments of the present application, the management frame includes an action frame.

[0231] In some embodiments of the present application, the second information is included in an action details field in a frame body field of the action frame.

[0232] In some embodiments of the present application, the action details field includes a feedback indication field and / or a second bitmap field, where the feedback indication field is used to indicate whether the action frame includes link status information of the target link, and the second bitmap field is used to determine the link status of the target link.

[0233] In some embodiments of the present application, the communication unit 510 further comprises: The station is configured to transmit a trigger frame to a multilink device, the trigger frame being used to indicate a link state of the target link.

[0234] In some embodiments of the present application, the trigger frame includes a multi-user request to transmit (MU-RTS), which is used by the access point multilink device to transfer transmission opportunity (TXOP) ownership of the link over which the MU-RTS is transmitted to the station multilink device.

[0235] In some embodiments of the present application, the communication unit 510 further comprises: The second link is configured to transmit a clear-to-send (CTS)-to-self frame on the second link, the second link being a target link in an idle state.

[0236] In some embodiments of the present application, the access point multilink device 500 further comprises a processing unit: The processing unit determines an end time of the first data unit based on preamble-related information in the first data unit, where the first data unit is received on a first link, the target link does not include the first link, the second link is in an idle state during a period of receiving the first data unit, or the second link is converted from a busy state to an idle state during a period of receiving the first data unit; The method is configured to determine the number of CTS-to-self frames to be transmitted and / or the transmission manner of the CTS-to-self frames based on the end time of the first data unit, where the end time of the last CTS-to-self frame coincides with the end time of the first data unit.

[0237] In some embodiments of the present application, the first link is a link for which TXOP ownership is acquired by the station multilink equipment, and TXOP ownership of the first link is acquired by an Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mechanism.

[0238] In some embodiments of the present application, the access point multilink device 500 further comprises: A processing unit configured to transmit the BA frame and the MU-RTS based on the length of the BA frame and the length of the MU-RTS of the first data unit, wherein the end time of the BA frame coincides with the end time of the MU-RTS.

[0239] Exemplarily, in some embodiments, the communication unit may be a communication interface or transceiver, or may be an input / output interface of a communication chip or a system on chip, and the processing unit may be one or more processors.

[0240] It should be understood that the access point multilink device 500 of the present embodiment may correspond to the access point multilink device in the method embodiment of the present application, and the above operations and other operations and / or functions of each unit in the access point multilink device 500 are for realizing the corresponding process of the access point multilink device in the method 300 shown in Figures 5 to 12, respectively, and will not be repeated here for the sake of brevity.

[0241] 15 is an exemplary structural diagram of a communication device 600 according to an embodiment of the present application. The communication device 600 shown in FIG. 15 includes a processor 610, which can implement the method in the embodiment of the present application by calling and executing a computer program from a memory.

[0242] 15, the communication device 600 may further include a memory 620. Here, the processor 610 may call and execute a computer program from the memory 620 to realize the method in the embodiment of the present application.

[0243] Here, the memory 620 may be a separate device independent of the processor 610 or may be integrated into the processor 610 .

[0244] By way of example, as shown in FIG. 15 , the communication device 600 may further include a transceiver 630, and the processor 610 may control the transceiver 630 to communicate with other devices, specifically to transmit information or data to other devices or receive information or data transmitted by other devices.

[0245] Here, the transceiver 630 may include a transmitter and a receiver, and may further include an antenna, the number of which may be one or more.

[0246] For example, the communication device 600 may be specifically an access point multilink device in the present embodiment, and the communication device 600 may realize the corresponding processes performed by the access point multilink device in each method of the present embodiment, which will not be described again here for brevity. For example, the transceiver 630 may correspond to the communication unit 510 in the access point multilink device 500, and the processor 610 may correspond to the processing unit in the access point multilink device 500.

[0247] For example, the communication device 600 may be specifically a station multilink device in the present embodiment, and the communication device 600 may realize the corresponding processes performed by the station multilink device in each method of the present embodiment, which will not be described again for brevity. For example, the transceiver 630 may correspond to the communication unit 410 in the station multilink device 400, and the processor 610 may correspond to the processing unit in the station multilink device 400.

[0248] 16 is an exemplary structural diagram of a chip according to an embodiment of the present application. The chip 700 shown in FIG. 16 includes a processor 710, which can call and execute a computer program from a memory to realize the method according to the embodiment of the present application.

[0249] 16, the chip 700 may further include a memory 720. Here, the processor 710 may call and execute a computer program from the memory 720 to realize the method in the embodiment of the present application.

[0250] Here, the memory 720 may be a separate device independent of the processor 710 or may be integrated into the processor 710 .

[0251] Exemplarily, the chip 700 may further include an input interface 730. Here, the processor 710 may control the input interface 730 to communicate with other devices or chips, specifically, to obtain information or data sent by other devices or chips.

[0252] Exemplarily, the chip 700 may further include an output interface 740. Here, the processor 710 may control the output interface 740 to communicate with other devices or chips, specifically, to output information or data to other devices or chips.

[0253] For example, the chip can be applied to an access point multilink device in an embodiment of the present application, and the chip can realize the corresponding processes performed by the access point multilink device in each method of the embodiment of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0254] For example, the chip can be applied to a station multi-link device in an embodiment of the present application, and the chip can realize the corresponding processes performed by the station multi-link device in each method of the embodiment of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0255] It should be understood that the chips referred to in the embodiments herein may also be referred to as system level chips, system chips, chip systems, or systems on chips.

[0256] 17 is an exemplary block diagram of a communication system 900 according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 17, the communication system 900 includes a station multilink device 910 and an access point multilink device 920.

[0257] Here, the station multilink equipment 910 can be configured to realize the corresponding functions realized by the station multilink equipment in the above method, and the access point multilink equipment 920 can be configured to realize the corresponding functions realized by the access point multilink equipment in the above method, which will not be repeated here for the sake of brevity.

[0258] It should be understood that the processor in the present embodiment may be an integrated circuit chip having signal processing capabilities. In the implementation process, each step of the above method embodiment may be completed by instructions in the form of software or hardware integrated logic circuits in the processor. The above processor may be a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, etc., and may realize or execute each method, step, and logic block diagram disclosed in the present embodiment. The general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor, or the processor may be any conventional processor, etc. The steps of the method disclosed in the present embodiment may be directly performed by a hardware decoding processor, or may be performed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software modules may be located in conventional storage media such as random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory, or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers, etc. The storage medium is placed in a memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory and completes the steps of the above method in combination with the hardware.

[0259] It should be understood that the memory in the present embodiment may be volatile or non-volatile memory, or may include both volatile and non-volatile memory. Here, the non-volatile memory may be read-only memory (ROM), programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), or flash memory. The volatile memory may be random access memory (RAM), used as an external cache. By way of illustrative, but non-limiting example, many forms of RAM are available, such as, for example, static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM), enhanced synchronous dynamic random access memory (ESDRAM), synchlink dynamic random access memory (SLDRAM), and direct memory bus random access memory (DR RAM). It should be noted that memory in the systems and methods described herein is intended to include, but is not limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

[0260] It should be understood that the above-mentioned memories are exemplary and not limiting. For example, the memory in the present embodiment may be a static random access memory (SRAM), a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), a synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), a double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM), an enhanced synchronous dynamic random access memory (ESDRAM), a synch link dynamic random access memory (SLDRAM), and a direct memory bus random access memory (DR RAM), etc. Thus, the memory in the present embodiment is intended to include, but is not limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

[0261] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium having a computer program stored thereon.

[0262] For example, the computer-readable storage medium may be applied to an access point multi-link device in the embodiments of the present application, and the computer program causes a computer to execute corresponding processes implemented by the access point multi-link device in each method of the embodiments of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0263] For example, the computer-readable storage medium may be applied to a station multi-link device in the embodiments of the present application, and the computer program causes a computer to execute corresponding processes implemented by the station multi-link device in each method of the embodiments of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0264] Embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product including computer program instructions.

[0265] For example, the computer program product may be applied to an access point multilink device in the embodiments of the present application, and the computer program instructions cause a computer to execute corresponding processes implemented by the access point multilink device in each method of the embodiments of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0266] For example, the computer program product may be applied to a station multi-link device in the embodiments of the present application, and the computer program instructions cause a computer to execute corresponding processes implemented by the station multi-link device in each method of the embodiments of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0267] The present embodiment further provides a computer program.

[0268] For example, the computer program may be applied to an access point multilink device in an embodiment of the present application, and when the computer program is executed on a computer, the computer executes corresponding processes implemented by the access point multilink device in each method of the embodiment of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0269] For example, the computer program may be applied to a station multi-link device in the embodiments of the present application, and when the computer program is executed on a computer, the computer executes corresponding processes implemented by the station multi-link device in each method of the embodiments of the present application, which will not be described repeatedly here for the sake of brevity.

[0270] It is obvious to those skilled in the art that the units and algorithm steps of each embodiment described with reference to the embodiments disclosed herein can be realized by electronic hardware, or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are implemented in the form of hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Professionals can use different methods to realize the described functions according to each specific application, but such realization should not be considered as exceeding the protection scope of the present application.

[0271] It is obvious to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and conciseness of description, the specific work processes of the above systems, devices and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the above method embodiments, and will not be described repeatedly here.

[0272] In some embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, device and method can be realized in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are merely illustrative, for example, the division of the units is merely a division of logical functions, and in actual implementation, other division methods can be adopted, for example, multiple units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, and some features thereof can be ignored or not implemented. Furthermore, the shown or discussed mutual couplings or direct couplings or communication connections can be realized using some interfaces, and the indirect couplings or communication connections between the devices or units can be in electrical or mechanical form, or in other forms.

[0273] The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separated, and the components shown as units may or may not be physical units, i.e., they may be located in one place or distributed among multiple network units. According to actual needs, some or all of the units therein can be selected to achieve the objective of the solution of the present embodiment.

[0274] Furthermore, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may be a separate, independent physical unit, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit.

[0275] When the function is realized in the form of a software functional unit and sold or used as an independent product, it can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the essential part of the technical solution of the present application, i.e., the part contributing to the prior art, or a part of the technical solution, can be embodied in the form of a software product, and the computer software product is stored in a storage medium and includes several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the method described in each embodiment of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes various media that can store program codes, such as U disks, mobile hard disks, read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disks, or optical disks.

[0276] The above are only specific embodiments of the present application, and the scope of protection of the present application is not limited thereto. Any modifications or replacements that can be easily conceived by a person skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in the present application should be included in the scope of protection of the present application. Therefore, the scope of protection of the present application shall be subject to the scope of protection of the claims.

Claims

1. A multi-link aggregation method, comprising: The multilink aggregation method includes a station multilink device transmitting first information to an access point multilink device, the first information being used by the access point multilink device to determine a target link that needs to be monitored by assisting the station multilink device, and the access point multilink device assisting the station multilink device in monitoring whether the target link is in an idle state.

2. The first information includes identification (ID) information of the target link, the ID information being indicated by a bitmap. The multi-link aggregation method according to claim 1 .

3. The first information includes a first bitmap, the first bitmap including a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponding to at least one link, and different values ​​of each bit are used to indicate whether the corresponding link is a target link requiring monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device. The multi-link aggregation method according to claim 2 .

4. The first information further includes first indication information, the first indication information being used to indicate that the target link identified by the first bitmap is used for uplink multilink aggregation. The multi-link aggregation method according to claim 3 .

5. The first information is included in an aggregation (A) control subfield in a high throughput (HT) control field of a first frame, the first frame comprising: It is either a control wrapper frame, a management frame, or a data frame, A multi-link aggregation method according to any one of claims 1 to 4.

6. The A-control subfield includes a control identifier (ID) field and / or a first bitmap field, and a first value of the control ID field indicates that the first bitmap field is used for uplink multilink aggregation, and the first bitmap field is used to determine target links that require monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device. The multi-link aggregation method according to claim 5 .

7. The multi-link aggregation method includes: The method further includes: receiving a trigger frame transmitted by the access point multilink device, the trigger frame being used to determine a link status of the target link that the access point multilink device supports monitoring; A multi-link aggregation method according to any one of claims 1 to 6.

8. A multi-link aggregation transmission method, comprising: The multilink aggregation transmission method includes an access point multilink device receiving first information transmitted from a station multilink device, the first information being used by the access point multilink device to determine a target link that needs to be monitored by assisting the station multilink device, and the access point multilink device assisting the station multilink device in monitoring whether the target link is in an idle state.

9. The first information includes identification (ID) information of the target link, the ID information being indicated by a bitmap. The multi-link aggregation transmission method according to claim 8.

10. The first information includes a first bitmap, the first bitmap including a plurality of bits, each bit in the plurality of bits corresponding to at least one link, and different values ​​of each bit are used to indicate whether the corresponding link is a target link requiring monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device. The multi-link aggregation transmission method according to claim 9.

11. The first information is included in an aggregation (A) control subfield in a high throughput (HT) control field of a first frame, the first frame comprising: It is either a control wrapper frame, a management frame, or a data frame, The multi-link aggregation transmission method according to any one of claims 8 to 10.

12. The A-control subfield includes a control identifier (ID) field and / or a first bitmap field, and a first value of the control ID field indicates that the bitmap field is used for uplink multilink aggregation, and the bitmap field is used to determine target links that require monitoring assistance by the access point multilink device. The multi-link aggregation transmission method according to claim 11.

13. The multi-link aggregation transmission method includes: The method further includes the access point multilink device transmitting a trigger frame to the station multilink device, the trigger frame being used to indicate a link state of the target link; A multi-link aggregation transmission method according to any one of claims 8 to 12.

14. A station multilink device, a processor and a memory configured to store a computer program; The station multi-link equipment, wherein the processor is configured to execute the multi-link aggregation method according to any one of claims 1 to 7 by calling and executing a computer program stored in the memory.

15. An access point multilink device, a processor and a memory configured to store a computer program; The access point multi-link device, wherein the processor is configured to execute the multi-link aggregation transmission method according to any one of claims 8 to 13 by calling and executing a computer program stored in the memory.

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