Qualcomm Incorporated

Flarion Technologies, Inc.

Illumina Corporation

Tom Richardson

Junyi Li

Gavin Bernard Horn

Rajiv Laroia

Ashwin Sampath

Ravi Palanki

Hui Jin

Vladimir Novichkov

Frank A Lane

Xinzhou Wu

Aleksandar Jovicic

Vladimir G Parizhsky

Sathyadev Venkata Uppala

Tobias Mann

Husheng Li

Vladimir Parizhisky

Alexander Leonidov

Jocelyne Bruand

Vince Loncke

Rajiv Qualcomm Incorporated T-160D Laroia

Alex Leonidov

Hui Flarion Technologies Inc Jin

Hui c/o Qualcomm Incorporated Jin

In a first mode of dedicated control channel (DCCH) operation, a wireless terminal is allocated more segments than in a second mode. The wireless terminal uses different information bit to modulation symbol mapping in the different modes. On a per DCCH segment basis, the same number of modulation symbols are communicated in either mode but more information bits are conveyed in the second mode. Information bits for a DCCH segment are partitioned into two subsets. The two subsets are used to generate another set, each of the two subsets and the another set are input to the same mapping function to generate three equal size sets of modulation symbols which are transmitted via the DCCH segment. Uplink tone hopping is used such that one of the equal size sets of modulation symbols for the DCCH segment uses the same tone but a different set uses a different tone.

Methods and apparatus for communicating control information

Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate detecting and/or identifying peers in a local area peer-to-peer network. Times (e.g., peer discovery intervals) for performance of mutual detection and identification between peers may be synchronized (e.g., based upon a signal broadcast to the peers). Further, within each partitioned peer discovery interval, a wireless terminal may select a portion of time to transmit (e.g., broadcast) short messages that may be employed by peers to detect and/identify the wireless terminal. Moreover, the remainder of the time within the partitioned peer discovery interval may be employed to listen to short messages received from peers.

Wireless device discovery in a wireless peer-to-peer network

Wireless devices, e.g., in a cognitive radio network, discover and use locally available usable spectrum for communication. Beacon signaling facilitates available spectrum discovery, spectrum usage coordination, and device identification. A wireless terminal, which may have entered a new area and powered up, monitors to detect for the presence of beacon signals in a communications band. When the wireless terminal fails to detect a beacon, the wireless terminal assumes that the spectrum is available and transmits its user beacon signal thereby providing notification of its presence in the area to other wireless terminals. The wireless terminal maintains a coordinated timing relationship between its beacon transmit interval and beacon detect interval, which are performed on an ongoing basis. The combination of beacon TX interval and beacon monitoring interval represents a small fraction of total time, allowing for power conservation. The coordinated timing relationship, known to peers, facilitates efficient peer-peer communications session establishment.

Communication methods and apparatus which may be used in the absence or presence of beacon signals

Wireless terminal operation is coordinated to be responsive to dynamic communications frequency spectrum reallocation between infrastructure based communications usage and peer to peer communications usage. Methods and apparatus in which mobile nodes switch between cellular and peer to peer communication modes of operation are described. Broadcast signals, e.g., beacon signals, are monitored and detected by the mobile node to ascertain a current spectrum usage designation, and the mobile node switches operational modes in response to detected changes in the broadcast signals.

Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting multiple modes

Methods and apparatus supporting peer to peer communications are discussed. A base station serving as an access node for wireless terminals also communicates information supporting peer to peer communications. A base station transmits a beacon signal conveying information about a peer to peer frequency band and also receives user data from a plurality of wireless terminals, using the base station as a current point of network attachment. In some embodiments, the beacon signal is transmitted into the same frequency band being used for access node based communications and identifies a different frequency band which is to be used as a peer to peer frequency band. Alternatively, or in addition, in support of peer to peer communications, a beacon signal transmission apparatus, a free standing device which doesn't transmit user data, transmits a sequence of beacon signal bursts, each beacon signal burst including at least one high power beacon symbol.

Wireless communication methods and apparatus using beacon signals

Methods and apparatus supporting peer to peer communications are discussed. A base station, serving as an access node for wireless terminals also communicates information supporting peer to peer communications. A base station transmits a beacon signal conveying information about a peer to peer frequency band and also receives user data from a plurality of wireless terminals, using the base station as a current point of network attachment. In some embodiments, the beacon signal is transmitted into the same frequency band being used for access node based communications and identifies a different frequency band which is to be used as a peer to peer frequency band. Alternatively, or in addition, in support of peer to peer communications, a beacon signal transmission apparatus, a free standing device which doesn't transmit user data, transmits a sequence of beacon signal bursts, each beacon signal burst including at least one high power beacon symbol.

A first mobile node supports peer to peer communications but not cellular communications. Other mobile modes in the communication system support a cellular mode and may support a peer to peer communications mode. The communications system is such that spectrum may be dynamically reallocated between being designated to be used for peer to peer operations and being used primarily for cellular network based operations. Beacon signals are used to communicate a current mode of frequency spectrum usage designation. The first mobile node, being in an ongoing peer to peer communications session detects that the spectrum is being reallocated for cellular based operations. The first mobile node reduces its transmission power level in response to the detected spectrum reallocation. In some embodiments, the first mobile is allowed to continue its ongoing peer to peer session while the spectrum is primarily allocated for cellular communications, albeit at a lower transmission power level.

Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting peer to peer communications

A wireless terminal determines a desired mode of base station operation with regard to whether the base station is to function as a network access node or is to function in a peer to peer mode with regard to a frequency band, and communicates a change signal to the base station. Some change signals are request signals requesting a base station to dynamically reallocate spectrum usage, while other change signals are command signals ordering the base station to reallocate spectrum usage. Information indicating a level of authority corresponding to the change signals, in some embodiments, corresponds to one of a device identifier, a user identifier, and a priority level indicator. An exemplary command signal comes from a device used by a government agent with the authority to override spectrum usage.

Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting wireless terminal mode control signaling

Peer to peer communication timing, e.g., for an ad hoc network, is referenced with respect to an external broadcast signal from a terrestrial or satellite based transmitter. Wireless terminals, seeking to communicate via peer to peer communications, receive the reference broadcast signal, and set their internal timing structure with respect to the reference signal. This facilitates peer to peer timing coordination. A wireless terminal transmits a signal, e.g., a user beacon signal identifying its presence, during a time interval during which another wireless terminal is expected to be monitoring. Reference signal based coordinated timing and use of user beacon signals allows the wireless terminals to maintain situational awareness and coordinate peer to peer communications, while keeping power consumption low, since wireless terminal modules can be powered down during predetermined intervals in the coordinated timing structure where the wireless terminal does not need to transmit and/or receive.

Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting synchronization

Methods and apparatus supporting efficient paging in a wireless communications system supporting both access node based communications and peer to peer communications are described. Paging timing intervals are set aside in the timing structure such that multi-mode wireless terminals can monitor, e.g., in an infrastructure band, for pages from a base station whether the wireless terminal is operating in a base station attachment point mode or is operating in a peer to peer communications mode. Wireless terminals operating in a peer to peer mode, e.g., using a non-infrastructure band, suspends peer to peer communications during the paging intervals. The time periods, in which the wireless terminal checks pages are, in some embodiments, predetermined, so that both the wireless terminal and base station are synchronized on when a page should be delivered. This synchronization helps reduce the wastage of session time in the peer to peer sessions.

Wireless communication methods and apparatus supporting paging and peer to peer communications

Wireless devices, e.g., in a cognitive radio network, discover and use locally available usable spectrum for communication. Beacon signaling facilitates available spectrum discovery and spectrum usage coordination. A wireless terminal, which may have entered a new area and powered up, monitors to detect for the presence of beacon signals in a first communications band. The wireless terminal makes a decision as to whether or not to transmit based on the monitoring result. In addition, when beacon signals are detected, decoded information recovered by the wireless terminal from the received beacon signals is used in making the transmission decision. The decoded information includes, e.g., type information indicating that a second band is allowed to be used for peer-peer communications and/or identification information identifying at least one of a wireless communications device which transmitted the beacon signal and a current user of the wireless communications device which transmitted the beacon signal.

Communication methods and apparatus related to wireless terminal monitoring for and use of beacon signals

Wireless terminals receive beacon signals from other communication devices and make transmission decisions based on priority information communicated by the beacon signals. Priority information communicated in a beacon signal includes, e.g., one of device priority, user priority and session priority. A wireless terminal compares priority information recovered from received beacon signals with its own current level of priority. A transmission decision based on received priority information includes deciding not to transmit user data when received priority information indicates a higher priority than its own priority level. Another transmission decision based on received priority information includes deciding to transmit user data when the received priority information indicates a lower priority than its own priority level. Other exemplary transmission decisions, performed as a function of priority information from beacon signals, include deciding to perform a transmission power level adjustment and deciding to terminate an ongoing communications session.

Communications methods and apparatus related to beacon signals some of which may communicate priority information

Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate encoding and/or decoding signals utilized to identify a wireless terminal during peer discovery interval(s). Substantially any type of function that constrains encoding and/or decoding within a peer-to-peer network may be utilized. For example, a reversible function may be employed that enables a receiving peer to discern an identifier of a transmitting peer over a series of peer discovery intervals. Pursuant to another example, an irreversible function may be utilized whereby a receiving peer may be unable to decipher the identifier of the transmitting peer from a received signal; however, expected signal formats of buddy peers may be compared to the received signal to determine a presence of one of the buddy peers in a vicinity.

Encoding beacon signals to provide identification in peer-to-peer communication

A flexible and relatively hardware efficient LDPC decoder is described. The decoder can be implemented with a level of parallelism which is less than the full parallelism of the code structure used to control the decoding process. Each command of a relatively simple control code used to describe the code structure can be stored and executed multiple times to complete the decoding of a codeword. Different codeword lengths are supported using the same set of control code instructions but with the code being implemented a different number of times depending on the codeword length. The decoder can switch between decoding codewords of different lengths, without the need to change the stored code description information, by simply changing a code lifting factor that is indicative of codeword length and is used to control the decoding process. When decoding codewords shorter than the maximum supported codeword length some block storage locations may go unused.

Growing community of inventors

South Orange, NJ, United States of America

Tom Richardson