Interdigital Patent Holdings, Inc.

Cen Lin

Oghenekome Oteri

Xiaofei Wang

Hanqing Lou

Alphan Sahin

Rui Yang

Li-Hsiang Sun

Li Hsiang Sun

Systems and methods for multidimensional beam refinement procedures and signaling for millimeter wave WLANs. In some embodiments, there are multi-dimensional enhanced beam refinement protocol MAC and PHY frame designs that extend the MAC packet and the PPDU format with or without backwards compatibility. The multiple dimensions may be supported jointly or separately. In other embodiments, the increased data signaled in the eBRP frame designs may be more efficiently signaled with reduced BRP frame sizes, such as through a training type dependent BRP minimum duration selection procedure or use of null data packet BRP frames. In further embodiments, the maximum duration of the interframe spacing between BPR packets may be varied to improve the efficiency of BRP operation.

Multidimensional beam refinement procedures and signaling for mmWave WLANs

Systems, methods, and instrumentalities are disclosed for multi-resolution training, for example, in millimeter wave (mmW) WLAN systems. In a Multi-Resolution Beam Refinement Protocol (MR-BRP), an access point (AP)/PBSS control point (PCP) and a station (STA) may perform multi-resolution beamforming training, for example, by changing a sub-beam resolution or by maintaining sub-beam resolution while changing a resolution of the beamforming training between levels or stages of training. Sub-beam resolution may be changed, for example, by assigning different angular spreads to or by downselecting a number of antenna elements while keeping inter-element spacing constant between levels of training. Resolution of beamforming training may be changed, for example, by downsampling sub-beams or by downsampling antenna elements while adjusting inter-element spacing. Beamforming training (e.g. refinement) levels may refine beams by changing a resolution of antenna weight vectors (AWVs). An AP/PCP and STA may search through a sector multiple times with sub-beams of different resolution to identify a correct pair of sub-beams at a desired resolution. MR-BRP may be used for single or multiple beams, for example, to generate M sub-beams (AWVs) for N beams sequentially or in parallel. MR-BRP may be used for beam tracking. Devices may save the best sub-beam at each level of MR-BRP and may revert (fall back) to a sub-beam at previous level. MR-BRP signaling may indicate MR-BRP capability, type, frame format, etc.

Multi-resolution beam training in MMW WLAN systems

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Brookhaven, GA, United States of America

Cen Lin