ON THE FLY SCHEDULING AND POWER SAVING
Methods and devices are described in which an access point of a wireless network sends rendezvous time information to one or multiple associated stations. The rendezvous time information indicates a point in time at which the access point will try to access the wireless channel and schedule traffic for the stations. Based on that information, the stations will be able to decide if it is worth going into sleep mode until that rendezvous time or if it should stay awake.
1 . An apparatus for a wireless access point (AP), the apparatus comprising:
memory and processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to:
schedule download (DL) and/or upload (UL) traffic for a first set of one or more during a first transmit opportunity (TxOP);
before or during the first TxOP, determine a rendezvous time (RVT) at which the AP will access or attempt to access a wireless medium to schedule traffic for a second set of one or more STAs during a second TxOP subsequent to the first TxOP; and,
encode RVT information in a medium access control (MAC) frame for transmission to the second set of STAs during the first TxOP.
2 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the RVT information includes a duration between the time the RVT information is transmitted and when the RVT will occur.
3 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processing circuitry is to encode the RVT information in a control information subfield of a HE (high-efficiency) variant of an HT (high-throughput) control field.
4 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processing circuitry is to encode the RVT information in separate per user subfields of the MAC frame to inform multiple STAs of an RVT for each STA.
5 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processing circuitry is to encode the RVT information in a common subfield of the MAC frame to inform multiple STAs of an RVT for each STA.
6 . The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processing circuitry is to encode the RVT information in a multi-STA block acknowledgement (M-BA) frame.
7 . The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the processing circuitry is to encode the M-BA frame in response to UL transmissions from STAs on specific resources assigned to the STAs in a trigger frame sent by the AP.
8 . The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the specific resources assigned to the STAs in the trigger frame are subsets of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) subcarriers, referred to as resource units (RUs).
9 . The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the specific resources assigned to the STAs in the trigger frame are multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output (MU-MIMO) spatial streams.
10 . The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the specific resources assigned to the STAs in the trigger frame are resource blocks (RBs) where a particular RB corresponds to a particular subset of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) subcarriers, referred to as a resource unit (RU) and a particular multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output (MU-MIMO) spatial stream.
11 . The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the UL transmission of a STA in response to the trigger frame comprises energy in a high-efficiency long training field (HE-LTF) on the STA's assigned RB.
12 . The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the processing circuitry is to encode the M-BA in response to bandwidth requests from the STAs.
13 . The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the processing circuitry is to encode the M-BA in response to power saving poll (PS-poll) frames from the STAs.
14 . An apparatus for a wireless station (STA), the apparatus comprising:
memory and processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to:
during a first transmit opportunity (TxOP) of an access point (AP), demodulate rendezvous time (RVT) information sent in a medium access control (MAC) frame from the AP;
wherein the RVT is a time at which the AP will access or attempt to access a wireless medium to schedule traffic for the STA during a second TxOP subsequent to the first TxOP; and,
make a decision whether to enter a sleep state or remain in an awake state based upon the RVT information, wherein the RVT information includes a duration between the time the RVT information is transmitted and when the RVT will occur.
15 . The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the processing circuitry is to demodulate the M-BA in response to a bandwidth request from the STA.
16 . The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the processing circuitry is to demodulate the M-BA in response to a power saving poll (PS-poll) frame from the STA.
17 . A method for operating a wireless access point (AP), comprising:
scheduling download (DL) and/or upload (UL) traffic for a first set of one or more STAs in the network during a first transmit opportunity (TxOP);
before or during the first TxOP, determining a rendezvous time (RVT) at which the device will access or attempt to access the network to schedule traffic for a second set of one or more STAs during a subsequent second TxOP; and,
encoding RVT information in a medium access control (MAC) frame for transmission to the second set of STAs during the first TxOP.
18 . The method of claim 17 further comprising including in the RVT information a duration between the time the RVT information is transmitted and when the RVT will occur.
19 . The method of claim 17 further comprising encoding the RVT information in a control information subfield of a HE (high-efficiency) variant of an HT (high-throughput) control field.
20 . The method of claim 17 further comprising encoding the RVT information in a multi-STA block acknowledgement (M-BA) frame and encoding the M-BA frame in response to UL transmissions from STAs on specific resources assigned to the STAs in a trigger frame sent by the AP.
21 . A computer-readable medium comprising instructions to cause a wireless access point (AP), upon execution of the instructions by processing circuitry of the AP, to:
schedule download (DL) and/or upload (UL) traffic for a first set of one or more STAs in the network during a first transmit opportunity (TxOP);
before or during the first TxOP, determine a rendezvous time (RVT) at which the device will access or attempt to access the network to schedule traffic for a second set of one or more STAs during a subsequent second TxOP; and,
encode RVT information in a medium access control (MAC) frame for transmission to the second set of STAs during the first TxOP, wherein the RVT information includes a duration between the time the RVT information is transmitted and when the RVT will occur.
22 . The medium of claim 21 further comprising instructions to encode the RVT information in a DL rendezvous frame.
23 . The medium of claim 21 further comprising instructions to encode the RVT information in separate per user subfields of the MAC frame to inform multiple STAs of an RVT for each STA.
24 . The medium of claim 21 further comprising instructions to encode the RVT information in a common subfield of the MAC frame to inform multiple STAs of an RVT for each STA.
25 . The medium of claim 21 further comprising instructions to encode the RVT information in a multi-STA block acknowledgement (M-BA) frame.