FIELD

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to the field of wireless communications. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods for using multiple resource units with a single wireless station within a wireless communication network.

BACKGROUND

Existing approaches to WLAN wireless communication involve tone plans used to map complex constellation points of codewords to nonadjacent addresses or index values. Interleaving the codeword mapping is important to reduce the error rate of wireless transmissions, for example, caused by burst errors. This type of mapping in effect spreads the data out over frequencies to make channel errors more correctable via error correction algorithms. Existing tone plans typically define resource units including a number of data tones (NSD) that can be assigned to specific users/clients. The size of the channel's resource units depends on the channel's bandwidth and tone spacing. The bands currently available for 5 GHz transmissions are 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and 160 MHz. Typically assigning narrower channel bandwidths per user can support a greater number of users/clients, where wider channel bandwidths can provide greater throughput.

Preamble puncturing can be used to avoid interference at certain frequencies that are otherwise available to a wireless network. For example, in some cases it is useful to “puncture” a hole or gap in the middle of a spectrum segment to avoid interference caused by radar. When a radar signal is detected, it is possible to puncture a 20 MHz segment that is used by radar out of an 80 MHz segment (resource unit), for example, thereby creating a 20 MHz segment and a 40 MHz segment on either side of the punctured portion. Under the existing protocols of IEEE 802.11ax, the 20 MHz segment and the 40 MHz segment can be treated as separate resource units and assigned to different wireless users/devices. However, it is not possible to assign both resource units to the same wireless user/device under the existing approach.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, what is needed is an approach to wireless transmissions that can assign multiple resource units (RUs) to a single wireless station (STA) to utilize the available spectrum more efficiently, enhanced spectral efficiency and network throughput when preamble puncturing is used, and achieve frequency diversity to improve the overall link quality. Embodiments of the present invention can assign multiple resource units (RUs) to a single wireless station using an aggregated Multi-RU (“virtual resource unit” or “vRU”) that aggregates multiple RUs, and the parameters of the virtual RU can be calculated according to existing standards such the padding schemes and RUs (e.g., RU26, RU52, RU106, RU242, RU484, RU996, RU2x996) as defined in IEEE 802.11ax. The Virtual RU associated parameters used for joint encoding can be directly calculated based on formulas described herein according to embodiments of the present invention and/or using pre-defined tables in certain implementations.

Embodiments of the present invention can perform independent encoding for each RU aggregated in the virtual RU, for joint encoding across multiple RUs, or for a mixed transmission scheme that allocates RUs into multiple groups that can be jointly encoded. The associated parameters for the Virtual RU are used for both the transmitter and receiver sides of the joint encoding process. Virtual RU based joint encoding methodology can be easily extended for general RU aggregations for any size of RU, and any number of RUs in the Multi-RU aggregations. Furthermore, this virtual RU-based methodology can be also extended to the unequal MCS or unequal number of spatial streams on each RU for the Multi-RU aggregation.

According to one embodiment, a method of transmitting data to a wireless station (STA) using a virtual resource unit (RU) assigned to the wireless STA is disclosed. The method includes calculating parameters for transmitting the virtual RU according to a multi-RU scheduling, where said virtual RU includes a plurality of RUs of the multi-RU scheduling, performing pre-FEC padding, FEC encoding, and post-FEC padding on the virtual RU according to the parameters, and transmitting data to the wireless STA using the virtual RU.

According to some embodiments, performing pre-FEC padding includes performing pre-FEC padding using a vNdbps value including a sum of Ndbps values of the RUs of the virtual RU, a vNcbps value including a sum of Ncbps values of the RUs of the virtual RU, and a vNsd,short value including a sum of Nsd,short values of the RUs of the virtual RU.

According to some embodiments, the performing post-FEC padding includes performing post-FEC padding using a vNcbps value, and where the vNcbps value includes a sum of Ncbps values of the RUs of the virtual RU.

According to some embodiments, the plurality of RUs of the virtual RU include adjacent physical RUs.

According to some embodiments, the plurality of RUs of the virtual RU include non-adjacent physical RUs.

According to some embodiments, the method includes determining RU parameters according to tables defined in IEEE 802.11ax, and calculating parameters for transmitting the virtual RU includes calculating parameters using the RU parameters according to the tables.

According to some embodiments, the pre-FEC padding includes performing pre-FEC MAC padding and pre-FEC PHY padding.

According to some embodiments, the method includes performing LDPC or BCC encoding on the virtual RU.

According to some embodiments, the method further includes passing the encoded data to a stream parser, a segment parser, BCC interleaver, a constellation mapper, and an LDPC tone mapper for transmission.

According to some embodiments, the plurality of RUs of the virtual RU is passed to different segment parsers, different constellation mappers, and different LDPC tone mappers.

According to another embodiment, a wireless communication device is disclosed. The wireless communication device includes a processor, and a memory coupled to the processor and including instructions executed by the processor to perform a method of transmitting data to a wireless station (STA) using a virtual resource unit (RU) assigned to the wireless STA. The method includes calculating parameters for transmitting the virtual RU according to a multi-RU scheduling, where said virtual RU includes a plurality of RUs of the multi-RU scheduling, performing pre-FEC padding, FEC encoding, and post-FEC padding on the virtual RU according to the parameters, and transmitting data to the wireless STA using the virtual RU.

According to a different embodiment, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having embedded therein program instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of a device, causes the device to execute a process for transmitting data to a wireless station (STA) using a virtual resource unit (RU) assigned to the wireless STA. The process includes calculating parameters for transmitting the virtual RU according to a multi-RU scheduling, where said virtual RU includes a plurality of RUs of the multi-RU scheduling, performing pre-FEC padding, FEC encoding, and post-FEC padding on the virtual RU according to the parameters, and transmitting data to the wireless STA using the virtual RU.

