Marvell International Limited

Marvellworld Trade Ltd.

Qualcomm Incorporated

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Sandesh Goel

Partho Pratim Mishra

Ashish Kumar Shukla

Raja Banerjea

Kapil Chhabra

Milind Kopikare

Timothy J Donovan

Rajesh Shreeram Bhagwat

Pradeep Jugraj Nemavat

Harish Ramamurthy

Chuong Vu

Kaustubh Shrikrishna Patwardhan

Kedar Shirali

Yungping Hsu

Atul Salhotra

Ken Kinwah Ho

Frank Huang

Zhenyu Zhang

Robert Lee, Jr

James Kang-Wuu Jan

Chia-Chun Chung

Chen Fan

Yao Chen

Bing Zhao

Tam Tran

Alireza Raissinia

Vincent K Jones

Brian Bosso

Pierre B Vandwalle

Rahul Kopikare

James Chieh-Tsung Chen

James Yee

Bart A Giordano

Prabhashanker Shastry

Shantanu Arun Gogate

Santosh Ramrao Patil

Prabhashankar Shastry

The present specification describes techniques and apparatuses that enable power conservation in a wireless network. In some cases these techniques and apparatuses enable power conservation during a discovery phase and for a wireless network subject to a government mandate requiring a device of the network to passively search for radar transmission prior to establishing communication with another device of the network.

Discovery-phase power conservation

A wireless network device includes a physical layer module configured to send and receive packets wirelessly. The wireless network device includes a mesh routing module configured to receive a first packet from a second wireless network device via the physical layer module. The first packet includes a metric and a source address. The mesh routing module is further configured to determine a cumulative metric based on (i) the metric from the first packet and (ii) a link metric. The mesh routing module is further configured to transmit a second packet to a third wireless network device via the physical layer module. The second packet includes the cumulative metric. The mesh routing module is further configured to determine the link metric based on (i) a state of charge of a power supply of the wireless network device and (ii) a transmission parameter of the second packet.

Cumulative route metrics for wireless mesh network routing

Methods and systems for providing location-aware WiFi access for a portable device include receiving, at a mobile communication device, locations and ranges for a set of one or more WiFi access points from a location provider system. The mobile communication device uses the locations and ranges to determine whether to power on a WiFi transceiver, and to determine for which WiFi access points to scan if the WiFi transceiver is powered on.

Method and apparatus for providing location-aware Wi-Fi access

An access point configured to be implemented in a wireless network, the access point including a beacon module and a transmit module. The access point is configured to communicate with one or more client stations in the wireless network. The beacon module is configured to generate (i) a first beacon and (ii) a second beacon, wherein the first beacon is shorter in duration than the second beacon. The transmit module is configured to periodically transmit, to the one or more client stations in the wireless network, each of the first beacon and the second beacon. Each time the first beacon and the second beacon are transmitted by the transmit module, the first beacon is transmitted prior to the second beacon.

Wireless LAN power savings

A host assembly of a wireless device enters into a handshaking procedure with firmware of the wireless device to initiate entry into or exit from a host sleep mode. Before such entry or exit, the handshaking procedure may require the host assembly to send an initiation handshake signal to the firmware, and require the firmware to send a confirmation handshake signal back to the host assembly. Entry or exit may be delayed until after the confirmation signal is received. The confirmation signal may vary depending on the handshaking configuration and activation data, and the confirmation signal may vary depending on whether the wireless device is in a power save mode or not.

Enhanced host sleep for WLAN devices

This disclosure describes techniques and apparatuses for wakeup beacons for mesh networks, which often permits nodes of a mesh network to save power when operating in a power-save mode. These wakeup beacons can be sent at high transmission rates and/or be small in size, thereby reducing the time a node must be awake to transmit and receive communications.

Wakeup beacons for mesh networks

The present specification describes techniques and apparatuses that enable power conservation in a wireless network. In some cases these techniques and apparatuses enable power conservation during a discover phase and for a wireless network subject to a government mandate requiring a device of the network to passively search for radar transmission prior to establishing communication with another device of the network.

Mixed mode security is provided for a mesh network comprising a plurality of open mesh points and at least one secure mesh point that is capable of sending and receiving encrypted traffic. Aspects of the exemplary embodiment include configuring the secure mesh point to forward unencrypted traffic received from one of the plurality of open mesh points; and configuring the secure mesh point to be a source of unencrypted source traffic, and to receive unencrypted traffic that is destined for the secure mesh point to enable routes in the mesh network to terminate at the secure mesh point.

Mixed mode security for mesh networks

A networking device includes a transmitting device and a host circuit. The transmitting device is configured to store packets in a transmit queue. The transmitting device is further configured to transmit the packets from the transmit queue in accordance with a local area network protocol. The transmitting device is further configured to selectively generate a signal indicating an available capacity of the transmit queue. The host circuit is configured to receive input packets for transmission by the transmitting device. The host circuit is further configured to, in response to an aggregation mode being enabled, (i) generate an aggregate packet using ones of the received input packets, and (ii) in response to the signal, provide the aggregate packet to the transmitting device for transmission. The host circuit is further configured to, in response to the aggregation mode being disabled, individually provide the received input packets to the transmitting device for transmission.

Packet aggregation

A client station including a communication circuit to communicate, via an infrastructure mode, with an access point in a basic service set; identify, based on signals transmitted by the access point, a plurality of client stations in the basic service set capable of communicating via a direct link setup mode; and during a predetermined time period, communicate, via the direct link setup mode, with the plurality of client stations; and a control circuit to, during the predetermined time period, determine strength of signals received from the plurality of client stations via the direct link setup mode, determine highest supportable data rates for communicating with the plurality of client stations via the direct link setup mode, and select, based on (i) the strength of the signals and (ii) the highest supportable data rates, one or more of the plurality of client stations for communicating via the direct link setup mode.

Direct link setup mechanisms for wireless LANs

A method of controlling transmission of data units in a network node includes receiving a current fragment of a data unit at the network node, the data unit having been fragmented into an ordered sequence of fragments prior to the current fragment being received at the network node. The method also includes determining, at the network node, whether the current fragment is expected. Determining whether the current fragment is expected includes determining a position of the current fragment within the ordered sequence of fragments. The method also includes, in response to determining that the current fragment is expected based on the determined position of the current fragment within the ordered sequence of fragments, transmitting the current fragment via a network link.

Determining a network node whether a received packet fragment should be transmitted

A method is provided in one example and includes determining that at least one performance characteristic of a broadband communication channel between an access point and a gateway and managing access point communication channel utilization based, at least in part, on the performance characteristic. In one or more example embodiments, the access point communication channel utilization pertains to the broadband communication channel, at least one user equipment communication channel, and/or the like.

System and method for managing access point communication channel utilization

A system-on-chip including a host interface module configured to interface the system-on-chip to a host processor of a wireless device and to communicate with the host processor of the wireless device via a bus. The bus uses an application programming interface of the system-on-chip. The host processor uses the application programming interface to configure a power save mode of the system-on-chip. A power management module operated the system-on-chip in the power save mode without performing a handshake with the host processor via the bus in response to the host processor stopping communication with the system-on-chip. The handshake includes (i) sending a request to enter the power save mode to the host processor via the bus and (ii) receiving an acknowledgement of the request from the host processor via the bus.

Power save modes for a system-on-chip and a host processor of a wireless device

A method in a communication network includes receiving a data unit that includes a request to transmit an aggregate data unit to a communication device, and, in response to receiving the data unit, generating an aggregate data unit for transmission to the communication device, where the aggregate data unit includes a plurality of component data units, each having a respective media access channel (MAC) header, and a duration of the aggregate data unit is determined using a parameter negotiated with the communication device.

Power saving features in a communication device

Various embodiments provide improved mesh networks with properties that address various shortcomings of current mesh network implementations. At least some embodiments are directed to improving operations of mesh networks in connection with battery powered devices and address concerns associated with latency issues due to power save nodes as well as load balancing. Yet other embodiments address route cache timeouts, reduce route discovery overhead, perform proactive route maintenance based on a node's battery, and provide a straightforward battery-aware process based sleep protocol.

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Sandesh Goel