Plume Design, Inc.

Patrick Hanley

William John McFarland

Yoseph Malkin

Richard Chang

Liem Hieu Dinh Vo

Jeffrey ChiFai Liew

Duc Minh Nguyen

Miroslav Samardzija

Nora Yan

Hiroshi Mendoza

The present disclosure relates to thermal management of wireless access points including local thermal management, cloud-based thermal management, and thermal management based on optimization and operation such as in a distributed Wi-Fi network. The objective of the present disclosure is for thermal management in access points allowing small form-factors and aesthetic designs, preventing overheating and without requiring reduced performance or reduced hardware. Generally, the systems and methods detect when access points are nearing overheating and alter their operation so as to minimize the reduction of performance in the network while reducing power consumption.

Thermal management of wireless access points

An antenna system reusing metallic components in a device includes a first antenna element which is also configured to transfer heat into surrounding air; a ground plane which is part of reused metallic components in the device for heat dissipation; and a first physical connection between the first antenna element and the ground plane which supports thermal conductivity based on an associated size and material of the first physical connection.

Antenna structure incorporated in heat spreader, heat sink, and cooling fins

Systems and methods of cloud-based thermal control of an access point performed by a cloud-based controller include periodically obtaining temperature measurements from the access point comprising one or more radio chips operating therein; responsive to the temperature exceeding a first threshold, causing one or more thermal mitigation techniques to modify operating conditions of the one or more radio chips; and, responsive to the temperature being lower than a second threshold, causing reversion back of the one or more thermal mitigation techniques.

Cloud-based thermal control of wireless access points

Systems and methods of local thermal control of an access point include determining temperature associated with the access point including one or more radio chips operating therein; responsive to the temperature exceeding a first threshold, performing one or more thermal mitigation techniques to modify operating conditions of the one or more radio chips; and, responsive to the temperature being lower than a second threshold, reverting back the one or more thermal mitigation techniques.

Local thermal control of wireless access points

An electronic device includes a first circuit board and a second circuit board each stacked relative to one another; and a mid-spreader disposed between the first circuit board and the second circuit board, wherein the mid-spreader includes a heat conductive material in thermal contact with one or more components on each of the first circuit board and the second circuit board to act as a heat sink, and wherein the mid-spreader is thermally connected to one or more heat sinks, the mid-spreader is one of disposed to or integrally formed with the one or more heat sinks, and the mid-spreader extends beyond a size of at least one of the first circuit board and the second circuit board to conduct and transfer heat therefrom.

Mid-spreader for stacked circuit boards in an electronic device

Systems and methods of optimizing a distributed Wi-Fi network considering thermal management of a plurality of access points in the distributed Wi-Fi network include periodically obtaining temperature measurements from the plurality of access points; performing an optimization to configure the distributed Wi-Fi network with the temperature measurements as thermal inputs used in the optimization, wherein the optimization determines configuration parameters including one or more of a topology of the distributed Wi-Fi network, band and channel of each hop in the topology, and which clients associate with which access point on which band, based in part on the temperature measurements and thermal constraints; and providing the configuration parameters to the distributed Wi-Fi network for implementation thereof.

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San Mateo, CA, United States of America

Patrick Hanley