Obtaining distributed tone resource unit (DRU) tone feedback information

Abstract

An embodiment is method performed by an access point (AP) to obtain distributed tone resource unit (dRU) tone feedback information from one or more stations (STAs). The method includes transmitting a null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame, wherein the NDPA frame includes, for each of the one or more STAs, information regarding a dRU zone assigned to the STA and dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA, transmitting a null data packet (NDP) frame after transmitting the NDPA frame, transmitting a trigger frame to solicit dRU tone feedback information from the one or more STAs, and receiving, from each of the one or more STAs, dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA.

Description

SPECIFICATIONOBTAINING DISTRIBUTED TONE RESOURCE UNIT (DRU) TONE FEEDBACK INFORMATIONCROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63 / 620,109, filed January 11, 2024, titled “Distributed Tone RU (dRU) coexistence with regular RU (rRU) beyond IEEE 802.1 Ibe”, which is hereby incorporated by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD

[0002] The present disclosure generally relates to wireless communications, and more specifically, relates to obtaining distributed tone resource unit (dRU) feedback information.BACKGROUND

[0003] Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 is a set of standards for implementing wireless local area network communication in various frequencies, including but not limited to the 2.4 gigahertz (GHz), 5 GHz, 6 GHz, and 60 GHz bands. These standards define the protocols that enable Wi-Fi devices to communicate with each other. The IEEE 802.11 family of standards has evolved over time to accommodate higher data rates, improved security, and better performance in different environments. Some of the most widely used standards include 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.1 In, 802.1 lac, and 802.1 lax (also known as “Wi-Fi 6”). These standards specify the modulation techniques, channel bandwidths, and other technical aspects that facilitate interoperability between devices from various manufacturers. IEEE 802.11 has played an important role in the widespread adoption of wireless networking in homes, offices, and public spaces, enabling users to connect their devices to the internet and each other without the need for wired connections.

[0004] IEEE 802.1 Ibe, also known as “Wi-Fi 7”, is the next generation of the IEEE 802.11 family of standards for wireless local area networks. Currently under development, 802.1 Ibe aims to significantly improve upon the capabilities of its predecessor, 802.1 lax / Wi-Fi 6, by offering even higher data rates, lower latency, and increased reliability. The standard is expected to leverage advanced technologies such as multi-link operation (MLO), which allows devices to simultaneously use multiple frequency bands and channels for enhanced performance and reliability. Additionally, 802.1 Ibe will introduce 4096-QAM (Quadrature AmplitudeModulation), enabling higher data rates by encoding more bits per symbol. The standard will also feature improved medium access control (MAC) efficiency, enhanced power saving capabilities, and better support for high-density environments. With these advancements, 802.1 Ibe is expected to deliver theoretical maximum data rates of up to 46 gigabits per second (Gbps), making it suitable for bandwidth-intensive applications such as virtual and augmented reality, 8K video streaming, and high-performance gaming. The IEEE 802.1 Ibe standard is projected to be finalized by the end of 2024, paving the way for the next generation of Wi-Fi devices and networks.

[0005] A distributed tone resource unit (dRU) is a resource unit that is composed of tones that are distributed across a spectrum (non-contiguous tones) (whereas a regular resource unit (rRU) is composed of contiguous tones). The use of dRU can improve spectral efficiency by enabling wireless devices to transmit using higher transmit power. A wireless network may use dRUs and rRUs at the same time (dRUs and rRUs can coexist) to improve spectral efficiency. The wireless network needs to know the channel quality of dRU tones (e.g., signal -to-noise ratio (SNR)) to be able to allocate dRUs and rRUs to wireless devices in a spectrally efficient manner.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0006] The disclosure will be more fully understood from the detailed description provided below and the accompanying drawings that depict various embodiments of the disclosure. However, these drawings should not be interpreted as limiting the disclosure to the specific embodiments shown; they are provided for explanation and understanding only.

[0007] Figure 1 illustrates an example of a wireless local area network (WLAN) with a basic service set (BSS) that includes multiple wireless devices, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0008] Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of a wireless device, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0009] Figure 3A illustrates components of a wireless device configured to transmit data, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0010] Figure 3B illustrates components of a wireless device configured to receive data, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0011] Figure 4 illustrates interframe space (IFS) relationships, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0012] Figure 5 illustrates a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA / CA)-based frame transmission procedure, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0013] Figure 6 illustrates maximum physical layer (PHY) rates for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0014] Figure 7 provides a detailed description of fields in Extremely High Throughput (EHT) Physical Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) frames, including their purposes and characteristics, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0015] Figure 8 illustrates an example of multi-user (MU) transmission in Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0016] Figure 9 illustrates an example of an access point sending a trigger frame to multiple associated stations and receiving Uplink Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access Trigger-Based Physical Protocol Data Units (UL OFDMA TB PPDUs) in response, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0017] Figure 10 is a diagram showing a communication sequence for soliciting a regular resource unit (rRU)-based uplink (UL) transmission and a distributed tone resource unit (dRU)- based UL transmission, according to some embodiments.

[0018] Figure 11 is a diagram showing a situation when an access point (AP) solicits rRU- based UL transmission, according to some embodiments.

[0019] Figure 12 is a diagram showing a situation when an AP solicits dRU-based UL transmissions, according to some embodiments.

[0020] Figure 13 is a diagram showing groupings of stations (STAs), according to some embodiments.

[0021] Figure 14 is a diagram showing a dRU-tone plan in an 80 MHz bandwidth, according to some embodiments.

[0022] Figure 15 is a diagram showing a dRU tone assignment when two STAs operate in an 80 MHz dRU zone, according to some embodiments.

[0023] Figure 16 is a diagram showing a format of a variant null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame, according to some embodiments.

[0024] Figure 17 is a diagram showing a format of a modified sounding dialog token field that can be included in a variant NDPA frame, according to some embodiments.

[0025] Figure 18 is a diagram showing a table of an encoding for a modified NDP announcement variant field, according to some embodiments.

[0026] Figure 19 is a diagram showing a format of a modified STA info field, according to some embodiments.

[0027] Figure 20 is a diagram showing a table showing another encoding for a modified NDP announcement variant field, according to some embodiments.

[0028] Figure 21 is a diagram showing a table showing an encoding for a NDP announcement variant field, according to some embodiments.

[0029] Figure 22 is a diagram showing another format of a modified STA info, according to some embodiments.

[0030] Figure 23 is a diagram showing a format of a conventional partial BW info field and a format of a modified partial BW info field, according to some embodiments.

[0031] Figure 24 is a diagram showing a communication sequence for obtaining dRU tone feedback information using a variant NDPA frame, according to some embodiments.

[0032] Figure 25 is a flow diagram of a method for obtaining dRU tone feedback information from one or more STAs, according to some embodiments.

[0033] Figure 26 is a diagram showing various NDPA frame encodings for indicating that a NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited, according to some embodiments.

[0034] Figure 27 is a flow diagram of a method for providing dRU tone feedback information to an AP, according to some embodiments.

[0035] Figure 28 is a diagram showing various ways to determine that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information, according to some embodiments.DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0036] The present disclosure generally relates to wireless communications, and more specifically, relates to obtaining distributed tone resource unit (dRU) feedback information.

[0037] When dRUs and regular resource units (rRUs) are allowed to coexist in an operating bandwidth, an access point (AP) may need to know the channel quality (e.g., signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)) of dRU tones to be able to allocate dRUs and rRUs to stations (STAs) in an efficient manner. Techniques are described herein that allow STAs to provide dRU tone feedback information to an AP. The dRU tone feedback information may include informationregarding the channel quality of dRU tones. The AP may use the dRU tone feedback information when determining how to allocate dRU and rRU to STAs.

[0038] An existing channel sounding process (e.g., the channel sounding process specified in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 specifications) involves an AP transmitting a null data packet announcement frame (NDPA) followed by a null data packet (NDP) frame to STAs. The STAs may generate channel feedback information based on the NDP frame and transmit the channel feedback information to the AP. The existing channel sounding process is designed for providing channel feedback information for rRUs and does not allow STAs to provide dRU tone feedback information. A variant null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame is introduced herein that supports dRUs (and rRUs). The variant NDPA frame may support dRUs in that it may indicate which dRU tones are assigned to which STAs for channel sounding purposes. An AP may transmit the variant NDPA frame to solicit dRU tone feedback information from STAs. The variant NDPA frame may indicate the dRU tones are assigned to each STA. Each STA may determine its assigned dRU tones based on the variant NDPA frame, generate dRU tone feedback information for its assigned dRU tones, and transmit the dRU tone feedback information to the AP. The variant NDPA frame may be designed by modifying / repurposing fields included in a conventional NDPA frame (e.g., EHT NDPA frame). With the technique described herein, an AP may obtain dRU tone feedback information from STAs, which may allow the AP to allocate rRUs and dRUs to STAs in a spectrally efficient manner.

[0039] According to some embodiments, an AP transmits a NDPA frame, wherein the NDPA frame includes, for each of the one or more STAs, information regarding a dRU zone assigned to the STA and dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA. The AP may then transmit a NDP frame. Each of the one or more STAs that receive the NDPA frame and NDP frame may generate dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA based on the NDP frame. The AP may then transmit a trigger frame to solicit dRU tone feedback information from the one or more STAs. Responsive to receiving the trigger frame, each of the one or more STAs may transmit the dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA to the AP.

[0040] In an embodiment, the NDPA frame includes a sounding dialog token field, wherein the sounding dialog token field includes a NDP announcement variant field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs. In an embodiment, the NDPA frame further includes a STA information field for a STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a dRU indication field that carries a value indicatingthat dRU tone feedback information is being solicited. When a STA receives the NDPA frame, the STA may recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs based on based on the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field and may recognize that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited based on the value carried in the dRU indication field.

[0041] In an embodiment, the NDPA frame includes a sounding dialog token field, wherein the sounding dialog token field includes a NDP announcement variant field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited. When a STA receives the NDPA frame, the STA may recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited based on the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field.

[0042] In an embodiment, the NDPA frame includes a STA information (also referred to as “STA info” field) for a STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a format field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs. The STA information field for the STA may further include a dRU indication field that carries a value indicating that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited. When a STA receives the NDPA frame, the STA may recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs based on the value carried in the format field and may recognize that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited based on the value carried in the dRU indication field.

[0043] For purposes of illustration, various embodiments are described herein in the context of wireless networks that are based on IEEE 802.11 standards and using terminology and concepts thereof. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the embodiments disclosed herein can be modified / adapted for use in other types of wireless networks.

[0044] In the following detailed description, only certain embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, simply by way of illustration. As those skilled in the art would realize, the described embodiments may be modified in different ways, all without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention. Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not restrictive. Like reference numerals designate like elements throughout the specification.

[0045] Figure 1 shows a wireless local area network (WLAN) 100 with a basic service set (BSS) 102 that includes a plurality of wireless devices 104 (sometimes referred to as WLAN devices 104). Each of the wireless devices 104 may include a medium access control (MAC)layer and a physical (PHY) layer according to an IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) standard 802.11, including one or more of the amendments (e.g., 802.1 la / b / g / n / p / ac / ax / bd / be). In one embodiment, the MAC layer of a wireless device 104 may initiate transmission of a frame to another wireless device 104 by passing a PHY- TXSTART. request (TXVECTOR) to the PHY layer. The TXVECTOR provides parameters for generating and / or transmitting a corresponding frame. Similarly, a PHY layer of a receiving wireless device may generate an RXVECTOR, which includes parameters of a received frame and is passed to a MAC layer for processing.

[0046] The plurality of wireless devices 104 may include a wireless device 104A that is an access point (sometimes referred to as an AP station or AP STA) and the other wireless devices 104B1-104B4 that are non-AP stations (sometimes referred to as non-AP STAs). Alternatively, all the plurality of wireless devices 104 may be non-AP STAs in an ad-hoc networking environment. In general, the AP STA (e.g., wireless device 104A) and the non-AP STAs (e.g., wireless devices 104B1-104B4) may be collectively referred to as STAs. However, for ease of description, only the non-AP STAs may be referred to as STAs unless the context indicates otherwise. Although shown with four non-AP STAs (e.g., the wireless devices 104B1- 104B4), the WLAN 100 may include any number of non-AP STAs (e.g., one or more wireless devices 104B).

[0047] Figure 2 illustrates a schematic block diagram of a wireless device 104, according to an embodiment. The wireless device 104 may be the wireless device 104A (i.e., the AP of the WLAN 100) or any of the wireless devices 104B1-104B4 in Figure 1. The wireless device 104 includes a baseband processor 210, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver 240, an antenna unit 250, a storage device (e.g., memory device) 232, one or more input interfaces 234, and one or more output interfaces 236. The baseband processor 210, the storage device 232, the input interfaces 234, the output interfaces 236, and the RF transceiver 240 may communicate with each other via a bus 260.

[0048] The baseband processor 210 performs baseband signal processing and includes a MAC processor 212 and a PHY processor 222. The baseband processor 210 may utilize the memory 232, which may include a non-transitory computer / machine readable medium having software (e.g., computer / machine programing instructions) and data stored therein.

[0049] In an embodiment, the MAC processor 212 includes a MAC software processing unit 214 and a MAC hardware processing unit 216. The MAC software processing unit 214 may implement a first plurality of functions of the MAC layer by executing MAC software, which may be included in the software stored in the storage device 232. The MAC hardwareprocessing unit 216 may implement a second plurality of functions of the MAC layer in specialpurpose hardware. However, the MAC processor 212 is not limited thereto. For example, the MAC processor 212 may be configured to perform the first and second plurality of functions entirely in software or entirely in hardware according to an implementation.

[0050] The PHY processor 222 includes a transmitting (TX) signal processing unit (SPU) 224 and a receiving (RX) SPU 226. The PHY processor 222 implements a plurality of functions of the PHY layer. These functions may be performed in software, hardware, or a combination thereof according to an implementation.

[0051] Functions performed by the transmitting SPU 224 may include one or more of Forward Error Correction (FEC) encoding, stream parsing into one or more spatial streams, diversity encoding of the spatial streams into a plurality of space-time streams, spatial mapping of the space-time streams to transmit chains, inverse Fourier Transform (iFT) computation, Cyclic Prefix (CP) insertion to create a Guard Interval (GI), and the like. Functions performed by the receiving SPU 226 may include inverses of the functions performed by the transmitting SPU 224, such as GI removal, Fourier Transform computation, and the like.

[0052] The RF transceiver 240 includes an RF transmitter 242 and an RF receiver 244. The RF transceiver 240 is configured to transmit first information received from the baseband processor 210 to the WLAN 100 (e.g., to another WLAN device 104 of the WLAN 100) and provide second information received from the WLAN 100 (e.g., from another WLAN device 104 of the WLAN 100) to the baseband processor 210.

[0053] The antenna unit 250 includes one or more antennas. When Multiple-Input Multiple- Output (MIMO) or Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) is used, the antenna unit 250 may include a plurality of antennas. In an embodiment, the antennas in the antenna unit 250 may operate as a beam-formed antenna array. In an embodiment, the antennas in the antenna unit 250 may be directional antennas, which may be fixed or steerable.

[0054] The input interfaces 234 receive information from a user, and the output interfaces 236 output information to the user. The input interfaces 234 may include one or more of a keyboard, keypad, mouse, touchscreen, microphone, and the like. The output interfaces 236 may include one or more of a display device, touch screen, speaker, and the like.

[0055] As described herein, many functions of the WLAN device 104 may be implemented in either hardware or software. Which functions are implemented in software and which functions are implemented in hardware will vary according to constraints imposed on a design. The constraints may include one or more of design cost, manufacturing cost, time to market, power consumption, available semiconductor technology, etc.

[0056] As described herein, a wide variety of electronic devices, circuits, firmware, software, and combinations thereof may be used to implement the functions of the components of the WLAN device 104. Furthermore, the WLAN device 104 may include other components, such as application processors, storage interfaces, clock generator circuits, power supply circuits, and the like, which have been omitted in the interest of brevity.

[0057] Figure 3 A illustrates components of a WLAN device 104 configured to transmit data according to an embodiment, including a transmitting (Tx) SPU (TxSP) 324, an RF transmitter 342, and an antenna 352. In an embodiment, the TxSP 324, the RF transmitter 342, and the antenna 352 correspond to the transmitting SPU 224, the RF transmitter 242, and an antenna of the antenna unit 250 of Figure 2, respectively.

[0058] The TxSP 324 includes an encoder 300, an interleaver 302, a mapper 304, an inverse Fourier transformer (IFT) 306, and a guard interval (GI) inserter 308.

[0059] The encoder 300 receives and encodes input data. In an embodiment, the encoder 300 includes a forward error correction (FEC) encoder. The FEC encoder may include a binary convolution code (BCC) encoder followed by a puncturing device. The FEC encoder may include a low-density parity-check (LDPC) encoder.

[0060] The TxSP 324 may further include a scrambler for scrambling the input data before the encoding is performed by the encoder 300 to reduce the probability of long sequences of 0s or Is. When the encoder 300 performs the BCC encoding, the TxSP 324 may further include an encoder parser for demultiplexing the scrambled bits among a plurality of BCC encoders. If LDPC encoding is used in the encoder, the TxSP 324 may not use the encoder parser.

[0061] The interleaver 302 interleaves the bits of each stream output from the encoder 300 to change an order of bits therein. The interleaver 302 may apply the interleaving only when the encoder 300 performs BCC encoding and otherwise may output the stream output from the encoder 300 without changing the order of the bits therein.

[0062] The mapper 304 maps the sequence of bits output from the interleaver 302 to constellation points. If the encoder 300 performed LDPC encoding, the mapper 304 may also perform LDPC tone mapping in addition to constellation mapping.

[0063] When the TxSP 324 performs a MIMO or MU-MIMO transmission, the TxSP 324 may include a plurality of interleavers 302 and a plurality of mappers 304 according to a number of spatial streams (NSS) of the transmission. The TxSP 324 may further include a stream parser for dividing the output of the encoder 300 into blocks and may respectively send the blocks to different interleavers 302 or mappers 304. The TxSP 324 may further include a space-time block code (STBC) encoder for spreading the constellation points from the spatial streams into anumber of space-time streams (NSTS) and a spatial mapper for mapping the space-time streams to transmit chains. The spatial mapper may use direct mapping, spatial expansion, or beamforming.

[0064] The IFT 306 converts a block of the constellation points output from the mapper 304 (or, when MIMO or MU-MIMO is performed, the spatial mapper) to a time domain block (i.e., a symbol) by using an inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) or an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT). If the STBC encoder and the spatial mapper are used, the IFT 306 may be provided for each transmit chain.

[0065] When the TxSP 324 performs a MIMO or MU-MIMO transmission, the TxSP 324 may insert cyclic shift diversities (CSDs) to prevent unintentional beamforming. The TxSP 324 may perform the insertion of the CSD before or after the IFT 306. The CSD may be specified per transmit chain or may be specified per space-time stream. Alternatively, the CSD may be applied as a part of the spatial mapper.

[0066] When the TxSP 324 performs a MIMO or MU-MIMO transmission, some blocks before the spatial mapper may be provided for each user.

[0067] The GI inserter 308 prepends a GI to each symbol produced by the IFT 306. Each GI may include a Cyclic Prefix (CP) corresponding to a repeated portion of the end of the symbol that the GI precedes. The TxSP 324 may optionally perform windowing to smooth edges of each symbol after inserting the GI.

[0068] The RF transmitter 342 converts the symbols into an RF signal and transmits the RF signal via the antenna 352. When the TxSP 324 performs a MIMO or MU-MIMO transmission, the GI inserter 308 and the RF transmitter 342 may be provided for each transmit chain.

[0069] Figure 3B illustrates components of a WLAN device 104 configured to receive data according to an embodiment, including a Receiver (Rx) SPU (RxSP) 326, an RF receiver 344, and an antenna 354. In an embodiment, the RxSP 326, RF receiver 344, and antenna 354 may correspond to the receiving SPU 226, the RF receiver 244, and an antenna of the antenna unit 250 of Figure 2, respectively.

[0070] The RxSP 326 includes a GI remover 318, a Fourier transformer (FT) 316, a demapper 314, a deinterleaver 312, and a decoder 310.

[0071] The RF receiver 344 receives an RF signal via the antenna 354 and converts the RF signal into symbols. The GI remover 318 removes the GI from each of the symbols. When the received transmission is a MIMO or MU-MIMO transmission, the RF receiver 344 and the GI remover 318 may be provided for each receive chain.

[0072] The FT 316 converts each symbol (that is, each time domain block) into a frequency domain block of constellation points by using a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) or a fast Fourier transform (FFT). The FT 316 may be provided for each receive chain.

[0073] When the received transmission is the MIMO or MU-MIMO transmission, theRxSP 326 may include a spatial demapper for converting the respective outputs of the FTs 316 of the receiver chains to constellation points of a plurality of space-time streams, and an STBC decoder for despreading the constellation points from the space-time streams into one or more spatial streams.

[0074] The demapper 314 demaps the constellation points output from the FT 316 or the STBC decoder to bit streams. If the received transmission was encoded using LDPC encoding, the demapper 314 may further perform LDPC tone demapping before performing the constellation demapping.

[0075] The deinterleaver 312 deinterleaves the bits of each stream output from the demapper 314. The deinterleaver 312 may perform the deinterleaving only when the received transmission was encoded using BCC encoding, and otherwise may output the stream output by the demapper 314 without performing deinterleaving.

[0076] When the received transmission is the MIMO or MU-MIMO transmission, theRxSP 326 may use a plurality of demappers 314 and a plurality of deinterleavers 312 corresponding to the number of spatial streams of the transmission. In this case, the RxSP 326 may further include a stream deparser for combining the streams output from the deinterleavers 312.

[0077] The decoder 310 decodes the streams output from the deinterleaver 312 or the stream deparser. In an embodiment, the decoder 310 includes an FEC decoder. The FEC decoder may include a BCC decoder or an LDPC decoder.

[0078] The RxSP 326 may further include a descrambler for descrambling the decoded data. When the decoder 310 performs BCC decoding, the RxSP 326 may further include an encoder deparser for multiplexing the data decoded by a plurality of BCC decoders. When the decoder 310 performs the LDPC decoding, the RxSP 326 may not use the encoder deparser.

[0079] Before making a transmission, wireless devices such as wireless device 104 will assess the availability of the wireless medium using Clear Channel Assessment (CCA). If the medium is occupied, CCA may determine that it is busy, while if the medium is available, CCA determines that it is idle.

[0080] The PHY entity for IEEE 802.11 is based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). In eitherOFDM or OFDMA Physical (PHY) layers, a STA (e.g., a wireless device 104) is capable of transmitting and receiving Physical Layer (PHY) Protocol Data Units (PPDUs) (also referred to as PLCP (Physical Layer Convergence Procedure) Protocol Data Units) that are compliant with the mandatory PHY specifications. A PHY specification defines a set of Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCS) and a maximum number of spatial streams. Some PHY entities define downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) Multi-User (MU) transmissions having a maximum number of space-time streams (STS) per user and employing up to a predetermined total number of STSs. A PHY entity may provide support for 10 Megahertz (MHz), 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, 160 MHz, 240 MHz, and 320 MHz contiguous channel widths and support for an 80+80, 80+160 MHz, and 160+160 MHz non-contiguous channel width. Each channel includes a plurality of subcarriers, which may also be referred to as tones. A PHY entity may define signaling fields denoted as Legacy Signal (L-SIG), Signal A (SIG-A), and Signal B (SIG-B), and the like within a PPDU by which some necessary information about PHY Service Data Unit (PSDU) attributes are communicated. The descriptions below, for sake of completeness and brevity, refer to OFDM-based 802.11 technology. Unless otherwise indicated, a station refers to a non-AP STA.

[0081] Figure 4 illustrates Inter-Frame Space (IFS) relationships. In particular, Figure 4 illustrates a Short IFS (SIFS), a Point Coordination Function (PCF) IFS (PIFS), a Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) IFS (DIFS), and an Arbitration IFSs corresponding to an Access Category (AC) ‘i’ (AIF S [i]). Figure 4 also illustrates a slot time and a data frame is used for transmission of data forwarded to a higher layer. As shown, a WLAN device 104 transmits the data frame after performing backoff if a DIFS has elapsed during which the medium has been idle.

[0082] A management frame may be used for exchanging management information, which is not forwarded to the higher layer. Subtype frames of the management frame include a beacon frame, an association request / response frame, a probe request / response frame, and an authentication request / response frame.

[0083] A control frame may be used for controlling access to the medium. Subtype frames of the control frame include a request to send (RTS) frame, a clear to send (CTS) frame, and an acknowledgement (ACK) frame.

[0084] When the control frame is not a response frame of another frame, the WLAN device 104 transmits the control frame after performing backoff if a DIFS has elapsed during which the medium has been idle. When the control frame is the response frame of another frame, the WLAN device 104 transmits the control frame after a SIFS has elapsed without performing backoff or checking whether the medium is idle.

[0085] A WLAN device 104 that supports Quality of Service (QoS) functionality (that is, a QoS STA) may transmit the frame after performing backoff if an AIFS for an associated access category (AC) (i.e., AIFSfAC]) has elapsed. When transmitted by the QoS STA, any of the data frame, the management frame, and the control frame, which is not the response frame, may use the AIFS [AC] of the AC of the transmitted frame.

[0086] A WLAN device 104 may perform a backoff procedure when the WLAN device 104 that is ready to transfer a frame finds the medium busy. The backoff procedure includes determining a random backoff time composed of N backoff slots, where each backoff slot has a duration equal to a slot time and N being an integer number greater than or equal to zero. The backoff time may be determined according to a length of a Contention Window (CW). In an embodiment, the backoff time may be determined according to an AC of the frame. All backoff slots occur following a DIFS or Extended IFS (EIFS) period during which the medium is determined to be idle for the duration of the period.

[0087] When the WLAN device 104 detects no medium activity for the duration of a particular backoff slot, the backoff procedure shall decrement the backoff time by the slot time. When the WLAN device 104 determines that the medium is busy during a backoff slot, the backoff procedure is suspended until the medium is again determined to be idle for the duration of a DIFS or EIFS period. The WLAN device 104 may perform transmission or retransmission of the frame when the backoff timer reaches zero.

[0088] The backoff procedure operates so that when multiple WLAN devices 104 are deferring and execute the backoff procedure, each WLAN device 104 may select a backoff time using a random function and the WLAN device 104 that selects the smallest backoff time may win the contention, reducing the probability of a collision.

[0089] Figure 5 illustrates a Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Avoidance (CSMA / CA) based frame transmission procedure for avoiding collision between frames in a channel according to an embodiment. Figure 5 shows a first station STA1 transmitting data, a second station STA2 receiving the data, and a third station STA3 that may be located in an area where a frame transmitted from the STA1 can be received, a frame transmitted from the second station STA2 can be received, or both can be received. The stations STA1, STA2, and STA3 may be WLAN devices 104 of Figure 1.

[0090] The station STA1 may determine whether the channel is busy by carrier sensing. The station STA1 may determine channel occupation / status based on an energy level in the channel or an autocorrelation of signals in the channel, or may determine the channel occupation by using a network allocation vector (NAV) timer.

[0091] After determining that the channel is not used by other devices (that is, that the channel is IDLE) during a DIFS (and performing backoff if required), the station STA1 may transmit a Request-To-Send (RTS) frame to the station STA2. Upon receiving the RTS frame, after a SIFS the station STA2 may transmit a Clear-To-Send (CTS) frame as a response to the RTS frame. If Dual-CTS is enabled and the station STA2 is an AP, the AP may send two CTS frames in response to the RTS frame (e.g., a first CTS frame in a non-High Throughput format and a second CTS frame in the HT format).

[0092] When the station STA3 receives the RTS frame, it may set a NAV timer of the station STA3 for a transmission duration of subsequently transmitted frames (for example, a duration of SIFS + CTS frame duration + SIFS + data frame duration + SIFS + ACK frame duration) using duration information included in the RTS frame. When the station STA3 receives the CTS frame, it may set the NAV timer of the station STA3 for a transmission duration of subsequently transmitted frames using duration information included in the CTS frame. Upon receiving a new frame before the NAV timer expires, the station STA3 may update the NAV timer of the station STA3 by using duration information included in the new frame. The station STA3 does not attempt to access the channel until the NAV timer expires.

[0093] When the station STA1 receives the CTS frame from the station STA2, it may transmit a data frame to the station STA2 after a SIFS period elapses from a time when the CTS frame has been completely received. Upon successfully receiving the data frame, the station STA2 may transmit an ACK frame as a response to the data frame after a SIFS period elapses.

[0094] When the NAV timer expires, the third station STA3 may determine whether the channel is busy using the carrier sensing. Upon determining that the channel is not used by other devices during a DIFS period after the NAV timer has expired, the station STA3 may attempt to access the channel after a contention window elapses according to a backoff process.

[0095] When Dual-CTS is enabled, a station that has obtained a transmission opportunity (TXOP) and that has no data to transmit may transmit a CF-End frame to cut short the TXOP. An AP receiving a CF-End frame having a Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID) of the AP as a destination address may respond by transmitting two more CF-End frames: a first CF-End frame using Space Time Block Coding (STBC) and a second CF-End frame using non-STBC. A station receiving a CF-End frame resets its NAV timer to 0 at the end of the PPDU containing the CF-End frame. Figure 5 shows the station STA2 transmitting an ACK frame to acknowledge the successful reception of a frame by the recipient.

[0096] The IEEE 802.1 Ibn (Ultra High Reliability, UHR) working group has been established to address the growing demand for higher peak throughput and reliability in Wi-Fi. As shown inFigure 6, the peak PHY rate has significantly increased from IEEE 802.1 lb to IEEE 802.1 Ibe (Wi-Fi 7), with the latter focusing on further improving peak throughput. The UHR study group aims to enhance the tail of the latency distribution and jitter to support applications that require low latency, such as video-over- WLAN, gaming, AR, and VR. It is noted that various characteristics of UHR (e.g., max PHY rate, PHY rate enhancement, bandwidth / number of spatial streams, and operating bands) are still to be determined.

[0097] The focus of IEEE 802.1 Ibe is primarily on WLAN indoor and outdoor operation with stationary and pedestrian speeds in the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz frequency bands. In addition to peak PHY rate, different candidate features are under discussion. These candidate features include (1) a 320MHz bandwidth and a more efficient utilization of a non-contiguous spectrum, (2) multi -band / multi-channel aggregation and operation, (3) 16 spatial streams and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) protocol enhancements, (4) multi-Access Point (AP) Coordination (e.g., coordinated and joint transmission), (5) an enhanced link adaptation and retransmission protocol (e.g., Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ)), and (6) adaptation to regulatory rules specific to a 6 GHz spectrum.

[0098] The focus of IEEE 802.1 Ibn (UHR) is still under discussion, with candidate features including MLO enhancements (e.g., in terms of increased throughput / reliability and decreased latency), latency and reliability improvements (e.g., multi-AP coordination to support low latency traffic), bandwidth expansion (e.g., to 240, 480, 640 MHz), aggregated PPDU (A- PPDU), enhanced multi-link single-radio (eMLSR) extensions to AP, roaming improvements, and power-saving schemes for prolonging battery life.

[0099] Some features, such as increasing the bandwidth and the number of spatial streams, are solutions that have been proven to be effective in previous projects focused on increasing link throughput and on which feasibility demonstration is achievable.

[0100] With respect to operational bands (e.g., 2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz) for IEEE 802.1 Ibe, more than 1 GHz of additional unlicensed spectrum is likely to be available because the 6 GHz band (5.925- 7.125 GHz) is being considered for unlicensed use. This would allow APs and STAs to become tri -band devices. Larger than 160MHz data transmissions (e.g., 320 MHz or 640 MHz) could be considered to increase the maximum PHY rate. For example, 320 MHz or 160+160MHz data could be transmitted in the 6 GHz band. For example, 160+160 MHz data could be transmitted across the 5 and 6 GHz bands.

[0101] In the process of wireless communication, a transmitting station (STA) creates a Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) frame and sends it to a receiving STA. The receiving STA then receives, detects, and processes the PPDU.

[0102] The Extremely High Throughput (EHT) PPDU frame encompasses several components. It includes a legacy part, which comprises fields such as the Legacy Short Training Field (L-STF), Legacy Long Training Field (L-LTF), Legacy Signal Field (L-SIG), and Repeated Legacy Signal Field (RL-SIG). These fields are used to maintain compatibility with older Wi-Fi standards.

[0103] In addition to the legacy part, the EHT PPDU frame also contains the Universal Signal Field (U-SIG), EHT Signal Field (EHT-SIG), EHT Short Training Field (EHT-STF), and EHT Long Training Field (EHT-LTF). These fields are specific to the EHT standard and are used for various purposes, such as signaling, synchronization, and channel estimation.

[0104] Figure 7 provides a more detailed description of each field in the EHT PPDU frame, including their purposes and characteristics.

[0105] Regarding the Ultra High Reliability (UHR) PPDU, its frame structure is currently undefined and will be determined through further discussions within the relevant working group or study group. This indicates that the specifics of the UHR PPDU are still under development and will be finalized based on the outcomes of future deliberations.

[0106] The distributed nature of channel access networks, such as IEEE 802.11 WLANs, makes the carrier sense mechanism useful for ensuring collision-free operation. Each station (STA) uses its physical carrier sense to detect transmissions from other STAs. However, in certain situations, it may not be possible for a STA to detect every transmission. For instance, when one STA is located far away from another STA, it might perceive the medium as idle and start transmitting a frame, leading to collisions. To mitigate this hidden node problem, the network allocation vector (NAV) has been introduced.

[0107] As the IEEE 802.11 standard continues to evolve, it now includes scenarios where multiple users can simultaneously transmit or receive data within a basic service set (BSS), such as uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) multi-user (MU) transmissions in a cascaded manner. In these cases, the existing carrier sense and NAV mechanisms may not be sufficient, and modifications or newly defined mechanisms may be required to facilitate efficient and collision- free operation.

[0108] For the purpose of this disclosure, MU transmission refers to situations where multiple frames are transmitted to or from multiple STAs simultaneously using different resources. Examples of these resources include different frequency resources in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) transmission and different spatial streams in Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) transmission. Consequently, downlink OFDMA (DL-OFDMA), downlink MU-MIMO (DL-MU-MIMO), uplink OFDMA (UL-OFDMA), uplink MU-MIMO (UL-MU-MIMO), and OFDMA with MU-MIMO are all considered examples of MU transmission.

[0109] Figure 8 illustrates an example of multi-user (MU) transmission in Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0110] In the IEEE 802.1 lax and 802.1 Ibe specifications, the trigger frame plays a useful role in facilitating uplink multi-user (MU) transmissions. The purpose of the trigger frame is to allocate resources and solicit one or more Trigger-based (TB) Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) transmissions from the associated stations (STAs).

[0111] The trigger frame contains information required by the responding STAs to send their Uplink TB PPDUs. This information includes the Trigger type, which specifies the type of TB PPDU expected, and the Uplink Length (UL Length), which indicates the duration of the uplink transmission.

[0112] Figure 9 illustrates an example scenario where an access point (AP) operating in an 80MHz bandwidth environment sends a Trigger frame to multiple associated STAs. Upon receiving the Trigger frame, the STAs respond by sending their respective Uplink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (UL OFDMA) TB PPDUs, utilizing the allocated resources within the specified 80 MHz bandwidth.

[0113] After successfully receiving the UL OFDMA TB PPDUs, the AP acknowledges the STAs by sending an acknowledgement frame. This acknowledgement can be in the form of an 80MHz width multi-STA Block Acknowledgement (Block Ack) or a Block Acknowledgement with a Direct Feedback (DF) OFDMA method. The multi-STA Block Ack allows the AP to acknowledge multiple STAs simultaneously, while the Block Ack with DF OFDMA enables the AP to provide feedback to the STAs using the same OFDMA technique employed in the uplink transmission.

[0114] The trigger frame is a useful component in enabling efficient uplink MU transmissions in IEEE 802.1 lax and 802.1 Ibe networks, by allocating resources and coordinating the uplink transmissions from multiple STAs within the same bandwidth.

[0115] Wireless network systems can rely on retransmission of media access control (MAC) protocol data units (MPDUs) when the transmitter (TX) does not receive an acknowledgement from the receiver (RX) or MPDUs are not successfully decoded by the receiver. Using an automatic repeat request (ARQ) approach, the receiver discards the last failed MPDU before receiving the newly retransmitted MPDU. With requirements of enhanced reliability andreduced latency, the wireless network system can evolve toward a hybrid ARQ (HARQ) approach.

[0116] There are two methods of HARQ processing. In a first type of HARQ scheme, also referred to as chase combining (CC) HARQ (CC-HARQ) scheme, signals to be retransmitted are the same as the signals that previously failed because all subpackets to be retransmitted use the same puncturing pattern. The puncturing is needed to remove some of the parity bits after encoding using an error-correction code. The reason why the same puncturing pattern is used with CC-HARQ is to generate a coded data sequence with forward error correction (FEC) and to make the receiver use a maximum-ratio combining (MRC) to combine the received, retransmitted bits with the same bits from the previous transmission. For example, information sequences are transmitted in packets with a fixed length. At a receiver, error correction and detection are carried out over the whole packet. However, the ARQ scheme may be inefficient in the presence of burst errors. To solve this more efficiently, subpackets are used. In subpacket transmissions, only those subpackets that include errors need to be retransmitted.

[0117] Since the receiver uses both the current and the previously received subpackets for decoding data, the error probability in decoding decreases as the number of used subpackets increases. The decoding process passes a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) and ends when the entire packet is decoded without error or the maximum number of subpackets is reached. In particular, this scheme operates on a stop-and-wait protocol such that if the receiver can decode the packet, it sends an acknowledgement (ACK) to the transmitter. When the transmitter receives an ACK successfully, it terminates the HARQ transmission of the packet. If the receiver cannot decode the packet, it sends a negative acknowledgement (NAK) to the transmitter and the transmitter performs the retransmission process.

[0118] In a second type of HARQ scheme, also referred to as an incremental redundancy (IR) HARQ (IR-HARQ) scheme, different puncturing patterns are used for each subpacket such that the signal changes for each retransmitted subpacket in comparison to the originally transmitted subpacket. IR-HARQ alternatively uses two puncturing patterns for odd numbered and even numbered transmissions, respectively. The redundancy scheme of IR-HARQ improves the log likelihood ratio (LLR) of parity bit(s) in order to combine information sent across different transmissions due to requests and lowers the code rate as the additional subpacket is used. This results in a lower error rate of the subpacket in comparison to CC-HARQ. The puncturing pattern used in IR-HARQ is indicated by a subpacket identity (SPID) indication. The SPID of the first subpacket may always be set to 0 and all the systematic bits and the punctured parity bits are transmitted in the first subpacket. Self-decoding is possible when the receiving signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environment is good (i.e., a high SNR). In some embodiments, subpackets with corresponding SPIDs to be transmitted are in increasing order of SPID but can be exchanged / switched except for the first SPID.

[0119] AP coordination has been considered as a potential technology to improve WLAN system throughput in the IEEE 802.1 Ibe standard and is still being discussed in the IEEE 802.1 Ibn (UHR) standard. To support various AP coordination schemes, such as coordinated beamforming, OFDMA, TDMA, spatial reuse, and joint transmission, a predefined mechanism for APs is necessary.

[0120] In the context of coordinated TDMA (C-TDMA), the AP that obtains a transmit opportunity (TXOP) is referred to as the sharing AP. This AP initiates the AP coordination schemes to determine the AP candidate set by sending a frame, such as a Beacon frame or probe response frame, which includes information about the AP coordination scheme capabilities. The AP that participates in the AP coordination schemes after receiving the frame from the sharing AP is called the shared AP. The sharing AP is also known as the master AP or coordinating AP, while the shared AP is referred to as the slave AP or coordinated AP.

[0121] The operation of various AP coordination schemes has been discussed in the IEEE 802.1 Ibe and UHR standards:

[0122] Coordinated Beamforming (C-BF): Multiple APs transmit on the same frequency resource by coordinating and forming spatial nulls, allowing for simultaneous transmission from multiple APs.

[0123] Coordinated OFDMA (C-OFDMA): APs transmit on orthogonal frequency resources by coordinating and splitting the spectrum, enabling more efficient spectrum utilization.

[0124] Joint Transmission (JTX): Multiple APs transmit jointly to a given user simultaneously by sharing data between the APs.

[0125] Coordinated Spatial Reuse (C-SR): Multiple APs or STAs adjust their transmit power to reduce interference between APs.

[0126] By implementing these AP coordination schemes, WLAN systems can improve their overall throughput and efficiency by leveraging the cooperation between multiple APs.

[0127] Distributed tone resource unit (dRU) is a physical (PHY) layer feature that is being considered for use in future wireless networks to improve spectral efficiency. The use of dRUs may help overcome the power spectral density (PSD) limitation. Various power modes are defined in 6 GHz bands such as standard power (SP) mode, very low power (VLP) mode, and low power indoor (LPI) mode. The PSD limitation is stringent especially in VLP mode and LPI mode in 6 GHz bands and especially for non-AP STAs. For example, the PSD limitation of anon-AP STA in LPI mode is -1 dBM / MHz. As a result, using many RU tones in a limited bandwidth can decrease transmit power due to the stringent PSD limitation. To support the coexistence of dRUs and rRUs, a dRU tone plan can be designed similar to a conventional rRU tone plan. A dRU tone plan can be defined in 20 / 40 / 80 / etc. MHz bandwidths.

[0128] Figure 10 is a diagram showing a communication sequence for soliciting a rRU-based uplink (UL) transmission and a dRU-based UL transmission, according to some embodiments.

[0129] As shown in the diagram, an access point (API) may operate a basic service set (BSS) that includes a first STA (STA11) and a second STA (STA12). API may transmit a soliciting PPDU 1010 to solicit a dRU-based UL transmission from STA11 and a rRU-based UL transmission from STA12. The soliciting PPDU 1010 may be designed as a trigger frame (TF), a multi-user request-to-send (MU-RTS) frame, a beamforming report poll (BFRP) frame, a NDPA frame, or similar frame. Responsive to receiving the soliciting PPDU 1010 from API, STA11 may transmit a dRU-based UL PPDU 1015 to API and STA21 may transmit a rRU- based UL PPDU 1020 to API. The dRU-based UL PPDU 1015 may be transmitted in a dRU and the rRU-based UL PPDU 1020 may be transmitted in a rRU. STA1 l’s transmission of the dRU-based UL PPDU 1015 and STA21’s transmission of the rRU-based UL PPDU 1020 may occur simultaneously. Responsive to receiving the UL PPDUs from STA11 and STA12, API may transmit an acknowledgement (ACK) 1025 to STA11 and STA12 to acknowledge successful reception of the uplink transmissions.

[0130] It is expected that dRUs and rRUs will be able to coexist in next / future generation wireless networks (e.g., IEEE 802.1 Ibn (i.e., UHR) wireless networks). For example, if a device can operate in an 80 MHz operating bandwidth (OPBW), it may be able to transmit in a 40 MHz dRU and a 40 MHz rRU, respectively. When dRUs and rRUs coexist in an operating bandwidth, there is a need to allocate dRUs and rRUs in the operating bandwidth in a spectrally efficient manner. Also, there is a need to indicate which dRUs and rRUs are allocated to which STAs. For example, in the example shown in Figure 10, there is a need for API to indicate to STA11 that STA11 it is being allocated a particular dRU and to indicate to STA21 that STA21 is being allocated a particular rRU, similar to OFDMA operation.

[0131] Figure 11 is a diagram showing a situation when an AP solicits rRU-based UL transmission, according to some embodiments.

[0132] As shown in the diagram, API may solicit rRU-based UL transmissions from STA1, STA2, and STA3. In this example, API allocates a 52-tone rRU to each STA. In particular, STA1 is allocated rRUl (composed of the solid line tones shown in the diagram), STA2 is allocated rRU2 (composed of the dashed line tones shown in the diagram), and STA3 isallocated rRU3 (composed of the dashed-dotted line tones shown in the diagram). Responsive to API’s solicitation, STA1, STA2, and STA3 may transmit UL PPDUs to API in their allocated rRUs in an OFDMA manner. When the STAs transmit their rRU-based UL PPDUs in an OFDMA manner, unpredictable interference may occur. For example, as shown in the diagram, interference may occur near STAl's 52-tone rRU. This interference may occur due to overlapping basic service set (OBSS) signals. Due to the interference, API may not be able to decode STAl’s rRU-based UL PPDU, which can lead to performance degradation.

[0133] Figure 12 is a diagram showing a situation when an AP solicits dRU-based UL transmissions, according to some embodiments.

[0134] As shown in the diagram, API may solicit dRU-based UL transmissions from STA1, STA2, and STA3. In this example, API allocates a 52-tone dRU to each STA to enable power boost (higher transmit power). In particular, STA1 is allocated dRUl (composed of the solid line tones shown in the diagram), STA2 is allocated dRU2 (composed of the dashed line tones shown in the diagram), and STA3 is allocated dRU3 (composed of the dashed-dotted line tones shown in the diagram). Responsive to API’s solicitation, STA1, ST2, and STA3 may transit UL PPDUs to API in their allocated dRUs in an OFDMA manner. When the STAs transmit their dRU-based UL PPDUs in an OFDMA manner, unpredictable interference may occur. For example, as shown in the diagram, interference may affect a portion of each STA’s 52-tone dRU (unlike the situation shown in Figure 11, where only one of the STAs is affected by the interference). This interference can occur due to OBSS signals. Due to the interference, API may not be able to decode any of the dRU-based UL PPDUs, which can lead to performance degradation.

[0135] A variant NDPA frame is introduced herein that supports dRUs. The variant NDPA frame may support dRUs in that it may indicate which dRU tones are assigned to which STAs for channel sounding purposes. An AP may transmit the variant NDPA frame to solicit dRU tone feedback information from STAs. The variant NDPA frame may indicate the dRU tones that are assigned to each STA. Each STA may determine the dRU tones assigned to itself based on the NDPA frame, generate dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to itself, and transmit the dRU tone feedback information to the AP. The dRU tone feedback information for dRU tones may include channel quality information (e.g., signal-to-noise ratio) for the dRU tones. The AP may use the dRU tone feedback information it receives from the STAs to allocate rRUs and dRUs to STAs in a spectrally efficient manner. For example, the AP may use the dRU tone feedback information to allocate rRUs and dRUs in a manner that avoids parts of the spectrum that are affected by interference.

[0136] Figure 13 is a diagram showing groupings of STAs, according to some embodiments.

[0137] As shown in the diagram, API may operate a BSS that includes eight STAs (STA1- STA8). The operating bandwidth of API may be 320 MHz and the operating bandwidth of each STAs may be 80 MHz. Before transmitting a variant NDPA frame and NDP frame, API may divide the STAs into groups, with each group assigned to a particular dRU zone. In an embodiment, API divides the STAs into groups based on the following conditions.

[0138] Condition 1 : Each dRU zone can have a size of 20 / 40 / 80 / etc. MHz and be defined according to a dRU-tone plan. For example, if a dRU-tone plan can be designed for 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 60 MHz, and up to 320 MHz, each dRU zone also can have a size of 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 60 MHz, and up to 320MHz. In the example shown in the diagram, an 80 MHz dRU zone is assumed.

[0139] Condition 2: The channel information and / or the amount of data that STAs have to transmit / process, which may have been previously obtained through CSI, BSRP, BQRP, etc. For example, if STA1 and STA2 have poor channel conditions in a specific band (Y), the AP may avoid assigning these STAs to a group assigned to dRUs in this specific band (Y). As another example, if STA1 and STA2 have a large amount of data to process compared to other non-AP STAs, the AP may assign these STAs to a group assigned to a wider bandwidth.

[0140] In the example shown in the diagram, the AP divides the STAs into four groups. The first group (Group 1) includes STA1 and STA2. The second group (Group 2) includes STA3 and STA4. The third group (Group 3) includes STA5 and STA6. The fourth group (Group 4) includes STA7 and STA8. The first group is assigned to a dRU zone that occupies the first 80 MHz portion of the 320 MHz operating bandwidth, the second group is assigned to a dRU zone that occupies a second 80 MHz portion of the 320 MHz operating bandwidth, the third group is assigned to a dRU zone that occupies a third 80 MHz portion of the 320 MHz operating bandwidth, and the fourth group is assigned to a dRU zone that occupies a fourth 80 MHz portion of the 320 MHz operating bandwidth. STAs that belong to a particular group may operate in the particular 80 MHz assigned to that group. API may indicate the maximum allowable dRU tones to each group / STAs in a variant NDPA frame according to 80MHz dRU- tone plan. This may prevent multiple STAs from joining after receiving the variant NDPA frame (e.g., the indication may implicitly inform non-AP STAs that support 160 MHz dRU not to participate and implicitly inform non-AP STAs that support 80 MHz dRU to participate). In this example, each group is assigned an 80 MHz dRU zone and each group includes two STAs. Thus, each STA may be assigned a 484-tone dRU (e.g., the 484-tone dRUs shown in Figure 14).

[0141] Figure 14 is a diagram showing a dRU-tone plan in an 80 MHz bandwidth, according to some embodiments.

[0142] As shown in the diagram, a dRU-tone plan in an 80 MHz bandwidth may define two (2) 484-tone dRUs, four (4) 242-tone dRUs, eight (8) 106-tone dRUs, or sixteen (16) 52- tone dRUs. When two STAs operate in an 80 MHz bandwidth, each STA may use a 484-tone dRU when transmitting dRU-based UL PPDUs.

[0143] Table I below expresses an example of a dRU-tone plan in an 80 MHz bandwidth.Table I

[0144] Figure 15 is a diagram showing a dRU tone assignment when two STAs operate in an 80 MHz dRU zone, according to some embodiments.

[0145] As shown in the diagram, when STA1 and STA2 (group 1 STAs) are assigned to an 80 MHz dRU zone, STA1 may be assigned a first 484-tone dRU (composed of the solid line tones shown in the diagram) and STA2 may be assigned a second 484-tone dRU (composed of the dashed line tones shown in the diagram).

[0146] A variant NDPA frame that supports rRU and dRU may have the same or similar format as a conventional NDPA frame (e.g., HE (High Efficiency) NDPA frame) or have an entirely new format. In this description, it is assumed that the variant NDPA frame has a format that is similar to a conventional NDPA frame. As will be described in further detail herein below, the variant NDPA frame may be designed by modifying / repurposing fields included in a conventional NDPA frame.

[0147] Figure 16 is a diagram showing a format of a variant NDPA frame, according to some embodiments.

[0148] As shown in the diagram, the variant NDPA frame includes a frame control field 1605 (2 octets), a duration field 1610 (2 octets), a RA (receiver address) field 1615 (6 octets), a TA (transmitter address) field 1620 (6 octets), a sounding dialog token field 1625 (1 octet), STA info 1 field 1630-1 to STA info n field 1630-w (each STA info field 1630 is 4 octets), and a frame check sequence (FCS) field 1640 (4 octets).

[0149] When a STA receives a NDPA frame from an AP, it should be able to recognize whether the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRU and dRU. Also, if the frame is a variant NDPA frame, the STA should be able to recognize whether the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information. Various encodings / methods to indicate / recognize whether a NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame or not and whether a variant NDPA is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information or not are now described. Three encodings / methods (referred to as Encoding / Method 1, Encoding / Method 2, and Encoding / Method 3 herein below) are described below by way of example. It should be appreciated that other encoding / methods can be used to achieve the same result without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure.Encoding / Method 1

[0150] The variant NDPA frame shown in Figure 16 includes a sounding dialog token field 1625. As will be described in addition detail herein below, the sounding dialog token field 1625 may be a modified version of a conventional sounding dialog token field. The modified sounding dialog token field 1625 may be used for indicating whether a NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame or not.

[0151] Figure 17 is a diagram showing a format of a modified sounding dialog token field that can be included in a variant NDPA frame, according to some embodiments.

[0152] As shown in the diagram, the modified sounding dialog token field may include a NDP announcement variant field 1710 and a sounding dialog token number field 1720, similar to a conventional sounding dialog token field. However, the size of the NDP announcement variant field 1710 may be changed from 2 bits to 3 bits and the size of the sounding dialog token number field 1720 may be changed from 6 bits to 5 bits. The NDP announcement variant field 1710 may be used for indicating that a NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame using the encoding shown in Figure 18.

[0153] Figure 18 is a diagram showing a table of an encoding for a modified NDP announcement variant field, according to some embodiments.

[0154] The first column of the table indicates the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field and the second column of the table indicates the corresponding NDPA frame variant. The table indicates that a value of 0 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a VHT NDPA frame, a value of 1 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a ranging NDPA frame, a value of 2 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frameis a HE NDPA frame, a value of 3 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is an EHT NDPA frame, and a value of 4 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a UHR NDPA frame (which may be a variant NDPA frame that supports rRU and dRU). Values 5-7 in the NDP announcement variant field may be reserved (e.g., for future use).

[0155] If a STA receives a variant NDPA frame, the STA should be able to recognize whether the variant NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information or not. The variant NDPA frame shown in Figure 16 includes a STA info field 1630. As will be described in additional detail herein below, the STA info field 1630 may be a modified version of a conventional STA info field. The modified STA info field may be used for indicating whether the variant NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information or not.

[0156] Figure 19 is a diagram showing a format of a modified STA info field, according to some embodiments.

[0157] As shown in the diagram, the modified STA info field includes an AID11 field 1905 (11 bits), a partial BW info field 1910 (9 bits), a dRU indication field 1915 (1 bit), a Nc Index field 1920 (4 bits), a feedback type and Ng field 1925 (2 bits), a disambiguation field 1930 (1 bit), a codebook size field 1935 (1 bit), and a reserved field 1940 (3 bits). Notably, the modified STA info field includes a dRU indication field 1915, which does not exist in a conventional STA info field. The dRU indication field 1915 may occupy one of the bits that are currently reserved / unused in the STA info field. While the diagram shows the dRU indication field 1915 occupying bit B20, the dRU indication field 1915 may occupy a different bit in other embodiments.

[0158] In an embodiment, if the dRU indication field 1915 carries a value of 0, this indicates that the variant NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information and if the dRU indication field 1915 carries a value of 1, this indicates that the variant NDPA frame is for soliciting rRU tone feedback information.

[0159] A STA that receives a NDPA frame may recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame based on the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field 1710 (e.g., if the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field 1710 is 4 (or binary ‘ 100’)) and may recognize that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited based on the value carried in the dRU indication field 1915 (e.g., if the value carried in the dRU indication field 1915 is 0).Encoding / Method 2

[0160] In an embodiment, the modified sounding dialog token field shown in Figure 17 is used with the encoding shown in Figure 20 to indicate that a NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRU and dRU and is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information.

[0161] Figure 20 is a diagram showing a table showing another encoding for a modified NDP announcement variant field, according to some embodiments.

[0162] The first column of the table indicates the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field and the second column of the table indicates the corresponding NDPA frame variant. The table indicates that a value of 0 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a VHT NDPA frame, a value of 1 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a ranging NDPA frame, a value of 2 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a HE NDPA frame, a value of 3 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is an EHT NDPA frame, a value of 4 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a UHR NDPA frame (which may be a variant NDPA frame that supports rRU and dRU) that is not for soliciting dRU tone feedback information, and a value of 5 in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a UHR NDPA frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information. Values 6-7 in the NDP announcement variant field may be reserved (e.g., for future use).

[0163] A STA that receives a NDPA frame may recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field (e.g., if the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is 5 (or binary ‘ 101’)). This encoding / method allows the STA to recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information without having to decode the STA info field (e.g., as required by Encoding / Method 1 described above).Encoding / Method 3

[0164] In an embodiment, the conventional sounding dialog token field format (e.g., EHT sounding dialog token field) is used with the encoding shown in Figure 21. In this case, the STA that receives a NDPA frame can recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame after decoding the user info field.

[0165] Figure 21 is a diagram showing a table showing an encoding for a NDP announcement variant field, according to some embodiments.

[0166] The first column of the table indicates the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field and the second column of the table indicates the corresponding NDPA frame variant. The table indicates that a value of 0 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a VHT NDPA frame, a value of 1 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a ranging NDPA frame, a value of 2 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is a HE NDPA frame, and a value of 3 being carried in the NDP announcement variant field indicates that the NDPA frame is an EHT NDPA frame or a next / future generation NDPA frame (e.g., a UHR NDPA frame) (the next / future generation NDPA frame may be a variant NDPA frame that supports rRU and dRU).

[0167] A STA that receives a NDPA frame should be able to recognize whether the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame and whether the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information or not. In an embodiment, as shown in Figure 22, a STA user info field includes a format field 2240 for indicating the NDPA frame format and a dRU indication field 2215 for indicating whether dRU tone feedback information is being solicited. A STA that receives a NDPA frame may recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame based on the value carried in the format field and may recognize that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited based on the value carried in the dRU indication field.

[0168] Figure 22 is a diagram showing another format of a modified STA info, according to some embodiments.

[0169] As shown in the diagram, the modified STA info field includes an AID11 field 2205 (11 bits), a partial BW info field 2210 (9 bits), a dRU indication field 2215 (1 bit), a Nc Index field 2220 (4 bits), a feedback type and Ng field 2225 (2 bits), a disambiguation field 2230 (1 bit), a codebook size field 2235 (1 bit), and a format field 2240 (3 bits). Notably, the modified STA info field includes a dRU indication field 2215 and a format field 2240, which do not exist in a conventional STA info field. The dRU indication field 2215 and / or format field 2240 may occupy bits that are currently reserved / unused in the conventional STA info field. While the diagram shows the dRU indication field 2215 occupying bit B20 and the format field 2240 occupying bits B29-B31, the dRU indication field 2215 and / or the format field 2240 may occupy different bits in other embodiments.

[0170] In an embodiment, if the format field 2240 carries a value of binary ‘000’, this indicates that the variant NDPA frame is a UHR NDPA frame. The other values (binary ‘001’- ‘ 111’) may indicate future variants / versions of wireless networking standards.

[0171] In an embodiment, if the dRU indication field 2215 carries a value of 0, this indicates that the variant NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information and if the dRU indication field 2215 carries a value of ‘ 1’, this indicates that the variant NDPA frame is for soliciting rRU tone feedback information.

[0172] A STA that receives a NDPA frame may recognize that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame based on the value carried in the format field 2240 (e.g., if the value carried in the format field 2240 is binary ‘000’)) and may recognize that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited based on the value carried in the dRU indication field 2215 (e.g., if the value carried in the dRU indication field 2215 is 0).

[0173] After recognizing that a NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited, a STA needs to be able to determine the dRU tones assigned to the STA for purposes of channel sounding. As previously mentioned, an operating bandwidth can be divided into dRU zones. It is assumed that each dRU zone has a size of 80 MHz and the AP can manage / allocate dRUs within 80 MHz dRU zones. It should be appreciated, however, that dRU zones having different sizes can be used. The AP may indicate information regarding the dRU zones assigned to the STA and information regarding the dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA through a variant NDPA frame. In an embodiment, as will be described in additional detail herein below, the partial BW info field included in the user info field is modified / repurposed to indicate such information.

[0174] Figure 23 is a diagram showing a format of a conventional partial BW info field and a format of a modified partial BW info field, according to some embodiments.

[0175] As shown in the diagram, the conventional partial BW info field includes a resolution field 2310 (1 bit) and a feedback bitmap field 2320 (8 bits).

[0176] In contrast, as shown in the diagram, the modified partial BW info field includes a dRU zone indication field 2330 and a dRU tone signaling field 2340.

[0177] The dRU zone indication field 2330 may be used for indicating a dRU zone assigned to a STA. If it is assumed that dRU zones have a size of 80 MHz and the maximum operating bandwidth is 640 MHz, the dRU zone can be indicated using three (3) bits. For example, the dRU zone can be indicated as follows:

[0178] ‘000’ : lowest 80MHz

[0179] ‘001’ : lowest 80MHz + 1

[0180] ‘010’ : lowest 80MHz + 2

[0181]

[0182] ‘ 110’ : highest 80MHz - 1

[0183] ‘ 111’ : highest 80MHz

[0184] The dRU tone signaling field 2340 may be used for indicating the specific dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA. If it is assumed that the dRU tone plan in 80 MHz shown in Figure 14 is being used, the dRU tone signaling field 2340 may include six bits for indicating the dRU tones.

[0185] A STA that receives a NDPA frame that includes the modified partial BW info field may determine the dRU tones that it has been assigned based on the value carried in the dRU zone indication field 2330 and the dRU tone signaling field 2340. The STA may then generate dRU tone feedback information (e.g., channel quality information such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)) for its assigned dRU tones based on the NDP frame that it receives after the NDPA frame.

[0186] Figure 24 is a diagram showing a communication sequence for obtaining dRU tone feedback information using a variant NDPA frame, according to some embodiments.

[0187] As shown in the diagram, API may transmit a variant NDPA frame 2405 and a NDP frame 2410 in sequence. The variant NDPA frame 2405 may have a format / encoding that allows STAs to recognize that it is a variant NDPA frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information, as described herein above (e.g., using one of the encodings / methods described above). Also, the variant NDPA frame 2405 may indicate the dRU tones assigned to STA11, STA12, and STAB, respectively, as described herein above (e.g., using a modified partial BW info field). API may then transmit a trigger frame 2415 to solicit dRU tone feedback information from STA11, STA12, and STAB. Responsive to receiving the trigger frame 2415, STA11, STAB, and STAB may transmit feedback frame 2420, feedback frame 2425, and feedback frame 2430, respectively, that include dRU tone feedback information (e.g., SNR) for the dRU tones assigned to the respective STAs. The AP may use the the dRU tone feedback information that it received from the STAs to allocate rRUs and / or dRUs to the STAs in a spectrally efficient manner (e.g., in a scenario where rRUs and dRUs coexist, which may be the case if there are legacy devices that do not support dRUs and newer devices that do support dRUs).

[0188] Thus, the techniques described herein allow STAs to provide dRU tone feedback information (e.g., CQI) to an AP to allow the AP to allocate rRUs and / or dRUs to the STAs in a spectrally efficient manner.

[0189] Turning now to Figure 25, a method 2500 will be described for obtaining dRU tone feedback information from one or more STAs, in accordance with an example embodiment.The method 2500 may be performed by an AP. The AP may be implemented by a wireless device (e.g., wireless device 104).

[0190] Additionally, although shown in a particular order, in some embodiments the operations of the method 2500 (and the other methods shown in the other figures) may be performed in a different order. For example, although the operations of the method 2500 are shown in a sequential order, some of the operations may be performed in partially or entirely overlapping time periods.

[0191] At operation 2505, the AP transmits a NDPA frame, wherein the NDPA frame includes, for each of the one or more STAs, information regarding a dRU zone assigned to the STA and dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA. In an embodiment, block 2510 applies to each of the one or more STAs. As shown in block 2510, the NDPA frame includes a STA information field for the STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a partial bandwidth information field, wherein the partial bandwidth information field includes a dRU zone indication field and a dRU tone signaling field, wherein the dRU zone indication field carries a value indicating the dRU zone assigned to the STA and the dRU tone signaling field carries a value indicating the dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA. In an embodiment, the dRU zone assigned to the STA is an 80 MHz dRU zone within a 640 MHz operating bandwidth. In an embodiment, the dRU zone indication field includes three bits and the dRU tone signaling field includes six bits.

[0192] At operation 2515, the AP transmits a NDP frame after transmitting the NDPA frame.

[0193] At operation 2520, the AP transmits a trigger frame to solicit dRU tone feedback information from the one or more STAs.

[0194] At operation 2525, the AP receives, from each of the one or more STAs, dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA.

[0195] In an embodiment, at operation 2530, the AP determines a rRU to allocate to a first STA and dRU tones to allocate to a second STA based on the received dRU tone feedback information.

[0196] In an embodiment, at operation 2535, the AP transmits a second trigger frame that includes information regarding the rRU allocated to the first STA and the dRU tones allocated to the second STA (to cause the first STA and the second STA to simultaneously transmit frames to the AP in the rRU and the dRU tones, respectively).

[0197] Figure 26 is a diagram showing various NDPA frame encodings for indicating that a NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited, according to some embodiments.

[0198] As shown in the diagram, the first encoding (“Encoding 1”) may involve block 2610 and block 2615. At block 2615, the NDPA frame includes a sounding dialog token field, wherein the sounding dialog token field includes a NDP announcement variant field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs. In an embodiment, the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits. In an embodiment, the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is set to binary ‘ 100’ to indicate that the NDPA frame is the variant NDPA frame. At block 2615, the NDPA frame further includes a STA information field for a STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a dRU indication field that carries a value indicating that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited. In an embodiment, the value carried in the dRU indication field is a single bit that is set to binary ‘0’ to indicate that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

[0199] As shown in the diagram, the second encoding (“Encoding 2”) may involve block 2620. At block 2620, the NDPA frame includes a sounding dialog token field, wherein the sounding dialog token field includes a NDP announcement variant field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited. In an embodiment, the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits and the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is set to binary ‘ 101’ to indicate that the NDPA frame is the variant NDPA frame and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

[0200] As shown in the diagram, the third encoding (“Encoding 3”) may involve block 2625. At block 2625, the NDPA frame includes a STA information field for a STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a format field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs, wherein the STA information field for the STA further includes a dRU indication field that carries a value indicating that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited. In an embodiment, the format field includes three bits. In an embodiment, the value carried in the format field is set to binary ‘000’ to indicate that the NDPA frame is the variant NDPA frame. In an embodiment, the value carried in the dRU indication field is binary ‘0’ to indicate that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

[0201] Turning now to Figure 27, a method 2700 will be described for providing dRU tone feedback information to an AP, in accordance with an example embodiment. The method 2700 may be performed by a STA. The STA may be implemented by a wireless device (e.g., wireless device 104).

[0202] At operation 2705, the STA receives a NDPA frame from the AP, wherein the NDPA frame includes information regarding a dRU zone assigned to the STA and dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA. In an embodiment, as shown in block 2710, the NDPA frame includes a STA information field for the STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a partial bandwidth information field, wherein the partial bandwidth information field includes a dRU zone indication field and a dRU tone signaling field, wherein the dRU zone indication field carries a value indicating the dRU zone assigned to the STA and the dRU tone signaling field carries a value indicating the dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA. In an embodiment, the dRU zone indication field includes three bits and the dRU tone signaling field includes six bits. In an embodiment, the dRU zone assigned to the STA is an 80 MHz dRU zone within a 640 MHz operating bandwidth.

[0203] In an embodiment, at operation 2715, the STA determines that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information.

[0204] At operation 2720, the STA receives a NDP frame from the AP after receiving the NDPA frame.

[0205] At operation 2725, the STA generates dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA based on the NDP frame.

[0206] At operation 2730, the STA receives a trigger frame from the AP that solicits dRU tone feedback information from the STA.

[0207] At operation 2735, responsive to receiving the trigger frame, the STA transmit the dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA (that was generated at operation 2725) to the AP.

[0208] In an embodiment, the STA receives a second trigger frame from the AP, determines dRU tones allocated to the STA based on information included in the second trigger frame, and transmits a frame to the AP in the dRU tones allocated to the STA, wherein the frame is transmitted simultaneously with another frame transmitted by another STA to the AP in a rRU.

[0209] Figure 28 is a diagram showing various ways to determine that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs and that the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information, according to some embodiments. That is, the diagram shows various ways to perform operation 2715.

[0210] In an embodiment, when the NDPA frame is encoded using a first encoding (“Encoding 1”), operation 2715 may involve operations 2805 and 2810. At operation 2805, theSTA determines that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs based on a value carried in an NDP announcement variant field included in a sounding dialog token field included in the NDPA frame. In an embodiment, the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits. In an embodiment, the NDPA frame is determined to be the variant NDPA frame based on determining that the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is binary ‘ 100’. At operation 2810, the STA determines that the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on a value carried in a dRU indication field included in a STA information field for the STA included in the NDPA frame. In an embodiment, the dRU indication field includes a single bit, wherein the NDPA frame is determined to be for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on determining that the value carried in the dRU indication field is binary ‘O’.

[0211] In an embodiment, when the NDPA frame is encoded using a second encoding (“Encoding 2”), operation 2715 may involve operation 2815. At operation 2815, the STA determines that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on a value carried in a NDP announcement variant field included in a sounding dialog token field included in the NDPA frame. In an embodiment, the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits. In an embodiment, the NDPA frame is determined to be the variant NDPA frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on determining that the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is binary ‘ 101’.

[0212] In an embodiment, when the NDPA frame is encoded using a third encoding (“Encoding 3”), operation 2715 may involve operations 2820 and 2825. At operation 2820, the STA determines that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports rRUs and dRUs based on a value carried in a format field included in a STA information field for the STA included in the NDPA frame. In an embodiment, the format field includes three bits. In an embodiment, the NDPA frame is determined to be the variant NDPA frame based on determining that the value carried in the format field is binary ‘000’ . At operation 2825, the STA determines that the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on a value carried in a dRU indication field included in the STA information field for the STA. In an embodiment, the dRU indication field includes a single bit. In an embodiment, the NDPA frame is determined to be for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on determining that the value carried in the dRU indication field is binary ‘O’.

[0213] Although many of the solutions and techniques provided herein have been described with reference to a WLAN system, it should be understood that these solutions and techniquesare also applicable to other network environments, such as cellular telecommunication networks, wired networks, etc. In some embodiments, the solutions and techniques provided herein may be or may be embodied in an article of manufacture in which a non-transitory machine-readable medium (such as microelectronic memory) has stored thereon instructions which program one or more data processing components (generically referred to here as a “processor” or “processing unit”) to perform the operations described herein. In other embodiments, some of these operations might be performed by specific hardware components that contain hardwired logic (e.g., dedicated digital filter blocks and state machines). Those operations might alternatively be performed by any combination of programmed data processing components and fixed hardwired circuit components.

[0214] In some cases, an embodiment may be an apparatus (e.g., an AP STA, a non-AP STA, or another network or computing device) that includes one or more hardware and software logic structures for performing one or more of the operations described herein. For example, as described herein, an apparatus may include a memory unit, which stores instructions that may be executed by a hardware processor installed in the apparatus. The apparatus may also include one or more other hardware or software elements, including a network interface, a display device, etc.

[0215] Some portions of the preceding detailed descriptions have been presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the ways used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consi stent sequence of operations leading to a desired result. The operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.

[0216] It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. The present disclosure can refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage systems.

[0217] The present disclosure also relates to an apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus can be specially constructed for the intended purposes, or it can include a general-purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. For example, a computer system or other data processing system may carry out the computer-implemented methods described herein in response to its processor executing a computer program (e.g., a sequence of instructions) contained in a memory or other non- transitory machine-readable storage medium. Such a computer program can be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, each coupled to a computer system bus.

[0218] The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purpose systems can be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it can prove convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform the method. The structure for a variety of these systems will appear as set forth in the description below. In addition, the present disclosure is not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages can be used to implement the teachings of the disclosure as described herein.

[0219] The present disclosure can be provided as a computer program product, or software, that can include a machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which can be used to program a computer system (or other electronic devices) to perform a process according to the present disclosure. A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). In some embodiments, a machine-readable (e.g., computer-readable) medium includes a machine (e.g., a computer) readable storage medium such as a read only memory (“ROM”), random access memory (“RAM”), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory components, etc.

[0220] In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the disclosure have been described with reference to specific example embodiments thereof. It will be evident that various modifications can be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of embodiments of the disclosure as set forth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.

Claims

CLAIMSWhat is claimed is:

1. A method performed by an access point (AP) to obtain distributed tone resource unit (dRU) tone feedback information from one or more stations (STAs), the method comprising: transmitting a null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame, wherein the NDPA frame includes, for each of the one or more STAs, information regarding a dRU zone assigned to the STA and dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA; transmitting a null data packet (NDP) frame after transmitting the NDPA frame; transmitting a trigger frame to solicit dRU tone feedback information from the one or more STAs; and receiving, from each of the one or more STAs, dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the NDPA frame includes a sounding dialog token field, wherein the sounding dialog token field includes a NDP announcement variant field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports regular resource units (rRUs) and dRUs.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is set to binary ‘ 100’ to indicate that the NDPA frame is the variant NDPA frame.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the NDPA frame further includes a STA information field for a STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a dRU indication field that carries a value indicating that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the value carried in the dRU indication field is set to binary ‘0’ to indicate that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the NDPA frame includes a sounding dialog token field, wherein the sounding dialog token field includes a NDP announcement variant field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports regular resource units (rRUs) and dRUs and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits and the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is set to binary ‘ 101’ to indicate that the NDPA frame is the variant NDPA frame and that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the NDPA frame includes a STA information field for a STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a format field that carries a value indicating that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports regular resource units (rRUs) and dRUs, wherein the STA information field for the STA further includes a dRU indication field that carries a value indicating that dRU tone feedback information is being solicited.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the format field includes three bits.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the value carried in the format field is set to binary ‘000’ to indicate that the NDPA frame is the variant NDPA frame.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the NDPA frame includes a STA information field for a STA, wherein the STA information field for the STA includes a partial bandwidth information field, wherein the partial bandwidth information field includes a dRU zone indication field and a dRU tone signaling field, wherein the dRU zone indication field carries a value indicating the dRU zone assigned to the STA and the dRU tone signaling field carries a value indicating the dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the dRU zone indication field includes three bits and the dRU tone signaling field includes six bits.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the dRU zone assigned to the STA is an 80 Megahertz (MHz) dRU zone within a 640 MHz operating bandwidth.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining a regular resource unit (rRU) to allocate to a first STA and dRU tones to allocate to a second STA based on the received dRU tone feedback information; transmitting a second trigger frame that includes information regarding the rRU allocated to the first STA and the dRU tones allocated to the second STA; andsimultaneously receiving, as a response to the second trigger frame, a first frame from the first STA in the rRU allocated to the first STA and a second frame from the second STA in the dRU tones allocated to the second STA.

16. A method performed by a station (STA) to provide distributed tone resource unit (dRU) tone feedback information to an access point (AP), the method comprising: receiving a null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame from the AP, wherein the NDPA frame includes information regarding a dRU zone assigned to the STA and dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to the STA; receiving a null data packet (NDP) frame from the AP after receiving the NDPA frame; generating dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA based on the NDP frame; receiving a trigger frame from the AP that solicits dRU tone feedback information from the STA; and responsive to receiving the trigger frame, transmitting the dRU tone feedback information for the dRU tones assigned to the STA to the AP.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising: determining that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports regular resource units (rRUs) and dRUs based on a value carried in an NDP announcement variant field included in a sounding dialog token field included in the NDPA frame.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the NDPA frame is determined to be the variant NDPA frame based on determining that the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is binary ‘ 100’.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising: determining that the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on a value carried in a dRU indication field included in a STA information field for the STA included in the NDPA frame.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the dRU indication field includes a single bit, wherein the NDPA frame is determined to be for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on determining that the value carried in the dRU indication field is binary ‘O’.

22. The method of claim 16, further comprising: determining that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on a value carried in an NDP announcement variant field included in a sounding dialog token field included in the NDPA frame.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the NDP announcement variant field includes three bits, wherein the NDPA frame is determined to be the variant NDPA frame that is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on determining that the value carried in the NDP announcement variant field is binary ‘ 101’ .

24. The method of claim 16, further comprising: determining that the NDPA frame is a variant NDPA frame that supports regular resource units (rRUs) and dRUs based on a value carried in a format field included in a STA information field for the STA included in the NDPA frame; and determining that the NDPA frame is for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on a value carried in a dRU indication field included in the STA information field for the STA.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the format field includes three bits, wherein the NDPA frame is determined to be the variant NDPA frame based on determining that the value carried in the format field is binary ‘000’.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the dRU indication field includes a single bit, wherein the NDPA frame is determined to be for soliciting dRU tone feedback information based on determining that the value carried in the dRU indication field is binary ‘O’.

27. The method of claim 16, wherein the information regarding the dRU zone assigned to the STA is included in a dRU zone indication field included in a partial bandwidth information field included in a STA information field for the STA included in the NDPA frame, wherein the information regarding the dRU tones assigned to the STA within the dRU zone assigned to theSTA is included in a dRU tone signaling field included in the partial bandwidth information field.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the dRU zone indication field includes three bits and the dRU tone signaling field includes six bits.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the dRU zone assigned to the STA is an 80 Megahertz (MHz) dRU zone within a 640 MHz operating bandwidth.

30. The method of claim 16, further comprising: receiving a second trigger frame from the AP; determining dRU tones allocated to the STA based on information included in the second trigger frame; and transmitting a frame to the AP in the dRU tones allocated to the STA, wherein the frame is transmitted simultaneously with another frame transmitted by another STA to the AP in a regular resource unit (rRU).

31. A wireless device to implement an access point (AP), the wireless device comprising: a radio frequency transceiver; a memory device storing a set of instructions; and a processor coupled to the memory device, wherein the set of instructions, when executed by the processor, causes the AP to perform the method of any one of claims 1-15.

32. A wireless device to implement a station (STA), the wireless device comprising: a radio frequency transceiver; a memory device storing a set of instructions; and a processor coupled to the memory device, wherein the set of instructions, when executed by the processor, causes the STA to perform the method of any one of claims 16-30.

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