Apple Inc.

Tashbeeb Haque

Lawrie Kurian

Yong Liu

Guoqing Li

Saravanan Balasubramaniyan

Anand Rajagopalan

Christiaan A Hartman

Andreas Wolf

Daniel R Borges

Peter N Heerboth

Su Khiong Yong

Pierre B Vandwalle

Lilach Zukerman

Oren Shani

Charles Francis Dominguez

Tito Thomas

Chiu Ngok E Wong

Rajneesh Kumar

Sudheer Konda

Tianyu Wu

Jarkko L Kneckt

Joseph Hakim

Yoel Boger

Veerendra Boodannavar

John Alexander Wilson

Tushar Ramanlal Shah

Koby Vainapel

Tony Chi Wang Ng

Ka Ho P Poon

Brian B Whitaker

Leor Kehaty

Mete Fikirlier

Shishir Gupta

Bryan J Follis

Dagbegnon H Bahini

Karthik R Mekala

Prasad Vasantha Gopinathan

Manav Gabhawala

Archish Y Rangan

Santosh Lnu

Roopkumar Parthasarathy Rao

Curtis J Schmidek

Jacob H Power

One or more wireless stations operate to configure Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN)—direct communication with neighboring wireless stations, i.e., direct communication between the wireless stations without utilizing an intermediate access point. Embodiments of the disclosure relate to reciprocating service between two or more wireless stations. The reciprocating service embodiments described herein provide a mechanism through which devices can participate in a same service instant.

Neighbor awareness networking datapath—reciprocation and coexistence

An electronic device (such as an access point) may provide a management frame, intended for at least a recipient electronic device, that includes slotted-operation information corresponding to a power-save mode of the electronic device for communication with at least the recipient electronic device. The slotted-operation information may include a sequence of temporal slots and associated channel information for the temporal slots. When a channel for a temporal slot comprises a null value, the power-save mode may include transitioning the electronic device into a lower-power-consumption mode during the temporal slot. Alternatively, when a channel for a temporal slot is different than a null value, the power-save mode may include performing another activity than communicating with the recipient electronic device during the temporal slot.

Coordinated multi-role access-point operation

An electronic device that communicates with a second electronic device is described. During operation, an electronic device communicates first messages with the second electronic device in time slots corresponding to first channels in a first band of frequencies using a peer-to-peer communication protocol (such as neighbor awareness networking or NaN), where, in a given time slot, a given first channel in the first band of frequencies is used in the communication of the first messages. Moreover, the electronic device communicates second messages with the second electronic device in the time slots corresponding to second channels in a second band of frequencies using the peer-to-peer communication protocol, where, in the given time slot, a given second channel in the second band of frequencies is used in the communication of the second messages. Note that the communicating of the first messages and the second messages may at least partially overlap in time.

Concurrent multi-band operation of a peer-to-peer link

This disclosure relates to methods for conducting multilink communications between a user equipment (UE) device and a remote device over a wireless local area network (WLAN). The UE device periodically transmits communications to the remote device over a first frequency band on the WLAN using a first radio. The UE device may determine to switch from transmitting communications to the remote device over the first frequency band to transmitting said communications over a second frequency band. The UE device then transmits communications to the remote device over the second frequency band on the WLAN.

Selective multi-link operation in a wireless local area network

Some aspects of this disclosure relate to apparatuses and methods for implementing wireless devices. A service is provided by a first application operating on a publisher device to a second application operating on a subscriber device over a first data path between the two devices in a NAN network. The publisher device includes a first recovery manager to receive an indication from a wireless controller of the publisher device or a distress message from a second recovery manager of the subscriber device. The received indication or distress message indicates that the first data path has been interrupted. The first recovery manager stores, in a memory, data generated by the first application. A second data path is established between the publisher device and the subscriber device. The first recovery manager sends the stored data to the second application that operates on a subscriber device.

Mechanisms for service recovery in neighbor awareness network (NAN)

Some embodiments include an apparatus and method for enabling concurrent peer-to-peer (P2P) communications via a scheduled resource unit (RU) allocated by an access point (AP). For example, the AP may use a trigger frame to schedule uplink (UL) multi-user (MU) access for a first station of a plurality of stations by allocating an RU to the first station. Instead of using the allocated RU for UL infrastructure communications with the AP, the first station may utilize the allocated RU for a P2P communications with a second station. In some embodiments the AP facilitates RU utilization for P2P communications between stations. In some embodiments, the first station uses the allocated RU and the AP may be unaware of the P2P communications.

Apparatus and method for scheduled uplink multi-user access with concurrent peer-to-peer communications

An apparatus comprises a memory and at least one processor in communication with the memory. The at least one processor is to detect, during a discovery window, a neighboring client station that is to perform peer-to-peer Wi-Fi communication via a Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) protocol and establish, via a negotiation after the discovery window, a datapath with the neighboring client station, wherein the negotiation includes an exchange of NAN data path setup attributes in parallel with an exchange of encryption cipher attributes and the encryption cipher is based on a simultaneous authentication of equals (SAE) protocol. The SAE protocol can be used to generate key material to encrypt the datapath.

Neighbor awareness networking password authentication

One or more wireless stations may operate to configure direct communication with neighboring mobile stations, e.g., direct communication between the wireless stations without utilizing an intermediate access point. A mechanism for wireless stations to learn preferred channels of neighboring wireless stations and to schedule channel sequences within a time period based on the learned channels may include advertisement of preferred channels and adaptation of channel sequences, based on the preferred channels, to maximize bandwidth utilization.

Neighbor awareness networking time slot allocation

This disclosure relates to transmitting multicast information over a network, such as a wireless local area network (WLAN). A source device may transmit a multicast and a request for feedback to a plurality of sink devices. The sink devices may transmit feedback based on whether they successfully decoded the multicast. The source device may retransmit the multicast (or a portion thereof) based on the feedback.

Scalable and reliable multicast protocols

One or more wireless stations may operate to configure Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN)&#x2014;direct communication with neighboring wireless stations, e.g., without utilizing an intermediate access point. Scheduling of NAN ranging procedures may include a first wireless station sending first information, including first scheduling preferences and a first ranging role, to a second wireless station. The first wireless station receives second information, including second scheduling preferences and a second ranging role, from the second wireless station. The first wireless station may initiate the ranging procedure based on the scheduling preferences and ranging parameters. Alternatively, the second wireless station and may initiate the ranging procedure based on the scheduling preferences and ranging parameters.

Neighbor awareness networking ranging

One or more wireless stations operate to configure direct communication with neighboring mobile stations, e.g., direct communication between the wireless stations without utilizing an intermediate access point. A wireless station may determine a further availability window schedule for a first time period, including specifying availability for particular channels at particular time slots at a first time slot increment. The wireless station may specify availability at a second time slot increment for a subset of the time slots specified at the first time slot increment. The second time slot increment may be less than the first slot time increment. The wireless station may negotiate, with a neighboring wireless station, a peer-to-peer communication schedule for the peer-to-peer communication application based on the further availability window schedule, including specifying a portion of the peer-to-peer schedule using the second time slot increment.

NAN fine-grained availability schedule indications

An interface circuit in an electronic device may contend for access to a shared communication channel on behalf of the electronic device and a recipient electronic device, where the access has a duration. Then, the electronic device may provide a schedule frame intended for the recipient electronic device that includes information that specifies one or more time slots during the duration that are associated with the recipient electronic device and one or more communication functions of the recipient electronic device in the one or more time slots. Moreover, the electronic device may provide a data frame with data intended for the recipient electronic device. In response, the electronic device may receive a response frame associated with the recipient electronic device, where the response frame is received during at least one of the one or more time slots.

Low-latency Wi-Fi MAC-layer protocol

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Tashbeeb Haque