Wireless lan with enhanced capture provision

Abstract

A receiver, and a method for operating the receiver, for a station in a wireless local area network using a common wireless communication channel and employing a CSMA/CA (carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance) protocol includes various modes. In normal mode, the receiver follows typical states in order to detect a message and demodulate data from the message properly. Meanwhile, a process implements a message-in-message (MIM) mode when an energy increase above a specified level is detected. While in the MIM mode, if a carrier is detected, the energy increase is caused by a new message; otherwise, the energy increase is caused by an interfering station. If the carrier is detected, the receiver begins retraining so that it can start receiving the new message as soon as the first message ends. If no carrier is detected, the receiver waits a specified time to detect a carrier or for the end of the first message, after which the receiver returns to the beginning of the normal mode. While in the normal mode, if a message is detected that is not addressed to the station, the receiver enters a hunt mode. While in the hunt mode, the receiver waits for the current message to finish. At the same time, a process implements retraining when both an energy increase above a specified level and a carrier are detected. If no carrier is detected within a specified time, or if the energy level decreases below the specified level, the receiver returns to the beginning of the normal mode.