System and method for Wi-Fi downlink-uplink protocol design for uplink interference alignment

1. A method for enabling concurrent Wi-Fi uplink transmissions from a plurality of stations (STAs) to multiple access points (APs), the method comprising:

receiving, at one of the multiple APs, beamforming reports from the STAs;

performing channel estimation using the beamforming reports;

selecting at least some of the STAs according to estimated channel information for downlink;

computing beamforming information for interference alignment of concurrent uplink transmissions from the selected STAs to the multiple APs; and

sending, to the selected STAs, the beamforming information to enable interference alignment of the concurrent uplink transmissions from the selected STAs to the multiple APs, wherein the beamforming information is piggy-backed over downlink data packets using available space within the downlink data packets, and wherein the downlink data packets are transmitted with one or more other downlink data packets from one or more corresponding APs according to an interference alignment scheme for concurrent downlink transmissions from the APs.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the beamforming reports from the STAs includes estimation channel information for DL transmission, and wherein the channel estimation information for downlink transmission is used for selecting the STAs.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

broadcasting, at the AP, a null data packet (NDP) in a sounding period to the STAs; and

receiving the beamforming reports broadcasted from the STAs during the sounding period.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the beamforming reports are used for estimating uplink channels.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the NDP is broadcasted by the AP in order and without overlap with one or more other NDPs broadcasted by one or more other APs.

6. The method of claim 3 , wherein each of the beamforming reports includes a long training sequence (LTS) mapped from a space-time stream to a long training field (LTF) per tone, and wherein the LTF per tone is generated using a product of a spatial-mapping matrix per tone between a single stream and a number of transmissions per STA, a diagonal cyclic-delay diversity (CDD) phase-shift matrix per tone, a vector of ones, and a LTS tone.

7. The method of claim 3 , wherein the downlink data packets include shorter data packets that are padded to match a maximum size of the downlink data packets.

8. The method of claim 3 further comprising receiving concurrently, at the AP, uplink data frames from the selected STAs on corresponding uplink channels, the uplink channels configured for concurrent uplink transmissions according to the beamforming information for interference alignment.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the uplink data frames are received concurrently with one or more uplink data frames at one or more other APs according to the beamforming information for interference alignment.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein each of the uplink data frames includes a long training sequence (LTS) mapped from a space-time stream to a number of long training fields (LTFs) equal to a product of a number of selected STAs and a number of uplink transmission streams, and wherein the LTFs per tone are generated using a product of a beamforming matrix, a diagonal cyclic-delay diversity (CDD) phase-shift matrix per tone, a row of ones, and a LTS tone.

11. The method of claim 3 , wherein the NDP is broadcasted by the AP concurrently with one or more other NDPs broadcasted by one or more corresponding APs according to an interference alignment scheme for concurrent downlink transmissions from the APs.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the NDP includes a long training sequence (LTS) mapped from a space-time stream to transmission antennas with a same number of long training field (LTF) as a number of transmission space-time stream per AP multiplied by a number of APs concurrently transmitted, and wherein the LTFs per tone are generated using a product of a spatial-mapping matrix per tone between a number of streams and a number of downlink transmissions, a diagonal cyclic-delay diversity (CDD) phase-shift matrix per tone, a matrix of ones, and a LTS tone.

13. A network component supporting concurrent Wi-Fi uplink transmissions from a plurality of stations (STAs) to multiple access points (APs), the network component comprising:

a processor; and

a computer readable storage medium storing programming for execution by the processor, the programming including instructions to:

receive, at one of the multiple APs, beamforming reports including channel estimation information for downlink from the STAs;

perform channel estimation using the beamforming reports;

select at least some of the STAs according to estimated channel information;

compute beamforming information for interference alignment of concurrent uplink transmissions from the selected STAs to the multiple APs; and

send, to the selected STAs, the beamforming information to enable interference alignment of the concurrent uplink transmissions from the selected STAs to the multiple APs, wherein the beamforming information is piggy-backed over downlink data packets using available space within the downlink data packets, and wherein the downlink data packets are transmitted with one or more other downlink data packets from one or more corresponding APs according to an interference alignment scheme for concurrent downlink transmissions from the APs.

14. The network component of claim 13 , wherein the channel estimation information from the STAs includes channel estimation information for downlink transmission, and wherein the beamforming reports including the channel estimation information for downlink is used to obtain the beamforming information for concurrent uplink transmissions.

15. The network component of claim 13 , wherein the programming including instructions to:

broadcast, at the AP, a null data packet (NDP) in a sounding period to the STAs;

receive the beamforming reports broadcasted from the STAs during the sounding period;

and

receive concurrently, at the AP, uplink data frames from the selected STAs on corresponding uplink channels, the uplink channels configured for concurrent uplink transmissions according to the beamforming information for interference alignment.

16. The network component of claim 15 , wherein the beamforming reports are used for estimating uplink channels.

17. The network component of claim 15 , wherein the NDP is broadcasted by the AP in order and without overlap with one or more other NDPs broadcasted by one or more other APs.

18. The network component of claim 15 , wherein each of the beamforming reports includes a long training sequence (LTS) mapped from a space-time stream to a long training field (LTF) per tone, and wherein the LTF per tone is generated using a product of a spatial-mapping matrix per tone between a single stream and a number of transmissions per STA, a diagonal cyclic-delay diversity (CDD) phase-shift matrix per tone, a vector of ones, and a LTS tone.

19. The network component of claim 15 , wherein the downlink data packets include shorter data packets that are padded to match a maximum size of the downlink data packets.

20. The network component of claim 15 , wherein the programming further includes instructions to concurrently receive uplink data frames from the selected STAs on corresponding uplink channels, the uplink channels configured for concurrent uplink transmissions according to the beamforming information for interference alignment.

21. The network component of claim 20 , wherein the uplink data frames are received concurrently with one or more uplink data frames at one or more other APs according to the beamforming information for interference alignment.

22. The network component of claim 20 , wherein each of the uplink data frames includes a long training sequence (LTS) mapped from a space-time stream to a number of long training fields (LTFs) equal to a product of a number of selected STAs and a number of uplink transmission streams, and wherein the LTFs per tone are generated using a product of a beamforming matrix, a diagonal cyclic-delay diversity (CDD) phase-shift matrix per tone, a row of ones, and a LTS tone.

23. The network component of claim 15 , wherein the NDP is broadcasted by the AP concurrently with one or more other NDPs broadcasted by one or more corresponding APs according to an interference alignment scheme for concurrent downlink transmissions from the APs.

24. The network component of claim 23 , wherein the NDP includes a long training sequence (LTS) mapped from a space-time stream to transmission antennas with a same number of long training field (LTF) as a number of transmission space-time stream per AP multiplied by a number of APs concurrently transmitted, and wherein the LTFs per tone are generated using a product of a spatial-mapping matrix per tone between a number of streams and a number of downlink transmissions, a diagonal cyclic-delay diversity (CDD) phase-shift matrix per tone, a matrix of ones, and a LTS tone.

25. The network component of claim 13 , wherein the network component comprises the AP.