Multi-AP TXOP Sharing With Completion Status Coordination
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing IEEE 802.11-based WLANs face challenges in coordinating efficient and coordinated transmission among multiple access points (APs) due to incomplete information exchange during coordinated transmission, leading to suboptimal transmission opportunities, coordinated transmission, for participating in a coordinated transmission, for instance a coordinated transmission, for instance, a coordinated beamforming transmission.
Innovation Solution
A sharing AP shares a portion of its transmission opportunity (TXOP) with other APs under a coordination agreement, receiving completion status information, generating a data structure indicating completion status, and transmitting this information to ensure all APs have completed their transmissions before proceeding with coordinated operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple APs share transmission opportunities in coordinated transmission, then resource utilization is improved, but information exchange completeness deteriorates leading to suboptimal transmission
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where APs exchange completion status information through completion status frames. Each AP reports whether it has completed its intra-BSS transmissions, and the sharing AP maintains a data structure tracking the completion status of all shared APs. This feedback loop ensures that coordinated transmissions only proceed when all participating APs have completed their respective transmissions, preventing information loss and ensuring complete information exchange across the multi-AP system.
2Reliability
If completion status tracking is implemented across all shared APs, then transmission coordination reliability is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary data structure that acts as a centralized tracking mechanism for completion status information. The sharing AP maintains this data structure that records the completion status of all shared APs in a standardized format. This intermediary structure simplifies the coordination process by providing a single point of reference for transmission status, reducing the complexity of direct peer-to-peer status tracking among multiple APs while ensuring reliable coordination.
Data Source
AI summary
A sharing access point (AP) configured to share a transmission opportunity (TXOP) with a plurality of shared APs operating under a coordination agreement within a multi-AP (M-AP) set for participating in a coordinated transmission to one or more non-AP stations associated with the sharing AP and a plurality of further non-AP stations associated with the shared APs. The sharing AP is configured to receive completion status information indicative of a completion status of transmitting information related to an operation under the coordination agreement to one or more of the plurality of further non-AP stations associated with the respective shared AP. Moreover, the sharing AP is configured, based on the completion status information of each of the one or more of the plurality of shared APs, to generate and maintain a data structure indicating the completion status for each of the plurality of shared APs.