Apple Inc.

Robert Golshan

Ayman Fawzy Naguib

Robert W Brumley

Yagil Burowski

Subash Marri Sridhar

Arun Yadav

Adwait N Dongare

Yong Liu

Lochan Verma

Merrick K McCracken

Jonathan R Schoenberg

In order to eliminate the reliance of ultra-high bandwidth (UWB) standalone transceivers and narrow-band-assisted (NB-assisted) UWB transceivers on BLUETOOTH™ (BLE) usage, an NB radio may be used. The NB radio may be tightly coupled with the UWB radio, for example driven by the same time source, to enable leveraged use of ACP (Acquisition Packet) for discovery, session setup, and maintenance over UWB and/or NB-assisted UWB without the use of BLE. Rules for advertising ACP and scanning for ACP may be defined for two modes of operation. An ad-hoc discovery may be based on external acquisition triggers, while a managed discovery may be based on an ongoing discovery advertisement process. ACPs may thereby be transmitted over UWB and/or NB.

Device discovery, session setup, and maintenance in IEEE 802.15.4ab communications

Techniques for ranging for a mobile device with one or more electronic devices using communication circuitry implementing a wireless protocol can include storing a schedule for a plurality of communication sessions. The technique can include broadcasting the advertising packets during a selected number of available time slots of a second time period, the advertising packets including information about the schedule for the plurality of communication sessions. After broadcasting an advertising packet during a selected time slot, the technique can include entering a reduced power state for the communication circuitry until a subsequent advertising packet is sent or a subsequent first time period for communicating the ranging packets as specified by the schedule. The technique can include exiting the reduced power state for the communication circuitry prior to the subsequent first time period. The technique can include transmitting a ranging packet via the wireless protocol according to the schedule.

Techniques for synchronizing ultra-wide band communications

An electronic device may receive a first signal from a first transmitting device at a first time. The electronic device may receive a second signal from a second transmitting device at a second time. The electronic device may access location information for the first transmitting device and the second transmitting device. The electronic device may receive a message from a second electronic device having a known distance relationship to the first transmitting device and the second transmitting device, wherein the second electronic device is configured to receive the first signal, the second signal, and the message including timing information of the signals. The electronic device may determine the position of the electronic device using the location information and the timing information, wherein the position is dependent on the known distance relationship.

Techniques for localizing an electronic device

Methods performed by a first device. The methods include transmitting a first ranging poll to a plurality of second devices, receiving a polling response message from each of at least a first subset of the second devices, determining a propagation delay for each of the received polling response messages and determining a distance to each of the first subset of the second devices based on at least the respective propagation delays. The methods further include receiving a ranging poll from a second device, wherein the ranging poll is one of a multicast transmission or a broadcast transmission, determining a type of response to be transmitted to the second device based on at least a capability of the first device and transmitting a response of the determined type to the second device.

Secure multicast/broadcast ranging

A mobile device can include ranging circuitry to determine distance to another mobile device. A first wireless protocol can establish an initial communication session to perform authentication and/or exchange ranging settings. One mobile device acting as a beacon device can define a ranging round including an initial timeslot and a plurality of non-overlapping response slots for discovering and performing ranging with any mobile device in a vicinity of the beacon. The beacon can broadcast a ranging request including a beacon device identifier at a request time. A first mobile device can transmit a first acknowledgement message during a first response slot. A second mobile device can transmit a second acknowledgement message during a second response slot. The beacon device can calculate a first distance from the first mobile device and a second distance from the second mobile device based at least upon information in the first and second acknowledgement messages.

One to many ranging techniques

A mobile device can include ranging circuitry to determine distance to another mobile device. Ranging between multiple mobile devices can present challenges due to clock drift between the devices resulting in missed messages due to collisions between ranging messages. Techniques can be implemented to reduce the number of collisions by designating time slots for ranging sessions based on timing from a coordinator mobile device. Alternative techniques allow for splitting up channels at different time amount different pairs of devices. The ranging techniques can be used to share information between devices with a predefined distance for applications such as augmented reality.

Many to many ranging techniques

An electronic device configures two or more virtual responders associated with different subsets of capabilities of a physical responder in the electronic device, where the physical responder comprises a radio-frequency (RF) transceiver and multiple antennas, and where a given virtual responder corresponds to the RF transceiver and a given antenna. Then, the electronic device performs, based at least in part on wirelessly communication with a second electronic device and using at least the virtual responders, measurements on wireless signals from the second electronic device to the electronic device, where the measurements correspond to a time of flight of the wireless signals. Next, the electronic device determines, based at least in part on the measurements, a range between the electronic device and the second electronic device, where the determination uses the measurements from different virtual responders to correct for an environmental condition and/or increase an accuracy of the determined range.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Robert Golshan