System and method for incorporating dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing into wireless network protocols

1. A method performed by a wireless transmitter for implementing dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“OFDM”) in a wireless network, the method comprising:

acquiring information about a wireless channel, the channel for communicating between the transmitter and one or more receivers in accordance with a wireless protocol, the wireless channel comprising a plurality of sub-carriers in accordance with the OFDM scheme of the wireless protocol;

in accordance with the acquired information, generating a dynamic OFDM allocation;

modifying a value of a field of a header of a data frame specified by the wireless protocol to indicate that the data frame supports dynamic OFDM;

adding a new field to the header of the data frame to package the dynamic OFDM allocation for transmission to the one or more receivers; and

encoding data in the data frame in accordance with the dynamic OFDM allocation; and

transmitting the data frame according to the wireless protocol; wherein:

the acquired information comprises a gain of each sub-carrier; and

the dynamic OFDM allocation comprises at least one of a transmit power and a modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising establishing a control handshake between the transmitter and the one or more receivers.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein establishing a control handshake comprises transmitting a request to send frame to the one or more receivers and receiving one or more clear to send frames from the one or more receivers.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein acquiring information about the wireless channel comprises acquiring wireless channel state information from the one or more clear to send frames.

5. The method of claim 2 , further comprising transmitting a CTS-to-self frame prior to the request to send frame to indicate support for dynamic OFDM communications over the wireless channel.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising assigning a same transmit power to each sub-carrier.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising assigning a same modulation type to each sub-carrier.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein encoding data comprises encoding data in the data frame to achieve a substantially equal throughput for the one or more receivers.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising assigning different sets of OFDM sub-carriers to different receivers.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein modifying the value of the field of the header comprises introducing a signaling field in the header to indicate transmission of the dynamic OFDM allocation to the one or more receivers.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising receiving one or more acknowledgment packets from the one or more receivers.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising resetting a network allocation vector.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively comprises one of no modulation, BPSK modulation, QPSK modulation, 16-QAM modulation, and 64-QAM modulation.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmit power for each sub-carrier respectively comprises one of a power that in combination with the bit rate maximizes a total data rate over all sub-carriers, a same power, and a power that in combination with the modulation type is less than a maximum power.

15. A computer readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions to:

establish a control handshake between a transmitter and one or more receivers communicating in accordance with a wireless protocol governing communications across a wireless channel, the wireless channel comprising a plurality of sub-carriers in accordance with a orthogonal frequency-division (“OFDM”) scheme of the wireless protocol;

acquire information about the wireless channel responsive to the control handshake, the acquired information comprising a gain of each sub-carrier;

generate a dynamic OFDM allocation in accordance with the acquired information, the dynamic OFDM allocation comprising at least one of a transmit power and a modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively;

encode data in a data frame in accordance with the dynamic OFDM allocation;

modify a physical layer convergence protocol header of the data frame to include the dynamic OFDM allocation for the encoded data; and

transmit the data frame to the one or more receivers.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the wireless protocol comprises the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , further comprising executable instructions to manage a network allocation vector based on the acquired information.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the dynamic OFDM allocation further comprises a coding scheme.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the modulation type is selected from a list comprising no modulation, BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM.

20. A transmitter for transmitting dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“OFDM”) data to one or more receivers communicating in accordance with a wireless protocol across a wireless channel, the transmitter comprising:

a module for acquiring information about the wireless channel, the wireless channel comprising a plurality of sub-carriers in accordance with the OFDM scheme of the wireless protocol, the acquired information comprising a gain of each sub-carrier;

a module for generating a dynamic OFDM allocation in accordance with the acquired information, the dynamic OFDM allocation comprising at least one of a transmit power and a modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively;

a module for encoding data in accordance with the dynamic OFDM allocation; and

a module for packaging the dynamic OFDM allocation and the encoded data in a data frame in accordance with the wireless protocol, wherein the module for packaging modifies a header of the data frame to include the dynamic OFDM allocation.

21. The transmitter of claim 20 , wherein the wireless protocol comprises the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols.

22. The transmitter of claim 20 , wherein the module for acquiring information about the wireless channel acquires the information based on a control handshake between the transmitter and the one or more receivers.

23. A method performed by a wireless transmitter for implementing dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“OFDM”) in a wireless network, wherein the transmitter communicates with one or more receivers via a wireless channel in accordance with a wireless protocol, the wireless channel comprises a plurality of sub-carriers in accordance with the OFDM scheme of the wireless protocol, the receiver adapted for detecting a gain of each sub-carrier of the wireless channel, the method comprising:

in accordance with the detected gain of each sub-carrier, generating a dynamic OFDM allocation, the dynamic OFDM allocation comprising at least one of a transmit power and modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively;

modifying a header of a data frame specified by the wireless protocol to include the dynamic OFDM allocation;

encoding data in the data frame in accordance with the dynamic OFDM allocation; and

transmitting the data frame according to the wireless protocol.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein generating the dynamic OFDM allocation further comprises a coding scheme for each sub-carrier.

25. The method of claim 23 further comprising assigning the same modulation type for each sub-carrier.

26. The method of claim 23 further comprising encoding data in accordance with the dynamic OFDM allocation to achieve a substantially equal throughput for the one or more receivers.

27. The method of claim 23 further comprising assigning different sets of sub-carriers to different receivers.

28. The method of claim 23 further comprising encoding data in the frame in accordance with the dynamic OFDM allocation.

29. The method of claim 23 wherein modifying the header comprises introducing a signaling field into the header to indicate dynamic OFDM allocations to the one or more receivers.

30. The method of claim 23 further comprising transmitting a CTS-to-self frame prior to a request to send frame to indicate support for dynamic OFDM communications over the wireless channel.

31. The method of claim 23 wherein the modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively comprises one of no modulation, BPSK modulation, QPSK modulation, 16-QAM modulation, and 64-QAM modulation.

32. The method of claim 23 wherein the transmit power for each sub-carrier respectively comprises one of a power that in combination with the bit rate maximizes a total data rate over all sub-carriers, a same power, and a power that in combination with the modulation type is less than a maximum power.

33. A transmitter for transmitting dynamic orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (“OFDM”) data to one or more receivers communicating in accordance with a wireless protocol across a wireless channel, the wireless channel comprising a plurality of sub-carriers in accordance with the OFDM scheme of the wireless protocol, the transmitter comprising:

a module that generates a dynamic OFDM allocation in accordance with an information acquired about the wireless channel;

a module that encodes data according to the dynamic OFDM allocation; and

a module that packages the dynamic OFDM allocation and the encoded data in a data frame based on the wireless protocol, wherein the module for packaging modifies a header of the data frame to include the dynamic OFDM allocation; wherein:

the information acquired about the wireless channel comprises a gain of each subcarrier; and

the OFDM allocation comprises at least one of a transmit power and modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively.

34. The transmitter of claim 33 wherein the wireless protocol comprises the IEEE 802.11 family of protocols.

35. The transmitter of claim 33 wherein generating the dynamic OFDM allocation further comprises selecting a coding scheme for each sub-carrier.

36. The transmitter of claim 33 further comprising assigning the same transmit power for each sub-carrier.

37. The transmitter of claim 33 further comprising assigning the same modulation type for each sub-carrier.

38. The transmitter of claim 33 further comprising generating dynamic OFDM data to achieve a substantially equal throughput for the one or more receivers.

39. The transmitter of claim 33 further comprising assigning different sets of OFDM sub-carriers to different receivers.

40. The transmitter of claim 33 wherein modifying the header comprises introducing a signaling field in the header to provide dynamic OFDM allocations to the one or more receivers.

41. The transmitter of claim 33 further comprising transmitting a CTS-to-self frame prior to a request to send frame to indicate support for dynamic OFDM communications over the wireless channel.

42. The transmitter of claim 33 wherein the modulation type for each sub-carrier respectively comprises one of no modulation, BPSK modulation, QPSK modulation, 16-QAM modulation, and 64-QAM modulation.

43. The transmitter of claim 33 wherein the transmit power for each sub-carrier respectively comprises one of a power that in combination with the bit rate maximizes a total data rate over all sub-carriers, a same power, and a power that in combination with the modulation type is less than a maximum power.