阅读说明：本技术 无线局域网中的信道指示方法及相关装置 (Channel indication method in wireless local area network and related device ) 是由 杨懋 李波 于健 淦明 李云波 郭宇宸 于 2020-04-27 设计创作，主要内容包括：本申请涉及无线通信技术领域,尤其涉及一种信道指示方法及相关装置,比如应用于支持802.11be的无线局域网中。该方法包括：接入点向一个或多个站点发送携带信道指示信息的MAC帧,以指示一个或多个不同站点的驻留信道和临时主信道的位置；接收到MAC帧的站点,对MAC帧进行解析,并驻留到信道指示信息指示的驻留信道上,从而将不同站点分配到不同的驻留信道上,以支持多分片EHT-SIG传输机制,节省前导开销,提升传输效率；另外,站点在信道指示信息指示的临时主信道上读取U-SIG和EHT-SIG获取资源指示信息,根据资源指示信息在工作信道上接收数据,可以实现多分片EHT-SIG传输机制下的前导码打孔传输。(The present application relates to the field of wireless communications technologies, and in particular, to a channel indication method and a related apparatus, for example, the method and the related apparatus are applied to a wireless local area network supporting 802.11 be. The method comprises the following steps: the access point sends a MAC frame carrying channel indication information to one or more stations to indicate the positions of a resident channel and a temporary main channel of one or more different stations; the station receiving the MAC frame analyzes the MAC frame and resides on a residence channel indicated by the channel indication information, so that different stations are allocated to different residence channels to support a multi-fragment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism, thereby saving preamble overhead and improving transmission efficiency; in addition, the station reads the U-SIG and the EHT-SIG on the temporary main channel indicated by the channel indication information to acquire the resource indication information, and receives data on the working channel according to the resource indication information, so that preamble puncture transmission under a multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism can be realized.)

1. A method for indicating channels in a wireless local area network, comprising:

the access point generates a Media Access Control (MAC) frame;

the access point sends the MAC frame to one or more stations;

the MAC frame comprises channel indication information, wherein the channel indication information is used for indicating the positions of a resident channel and a temporary main channel of the one or more stations; the resident channel comprises the temporary main channel, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, and the bandwidth of the temporary main channel is 20 MHz.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

and the access point sends a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), the PPDU carries the signaling information of the one or more stations, and the signaling information of the one or more stations is borne on a resident channel.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the channel indication information comprises: a temporary primary channel location field to indicate a location of a temporary primary channel of the station.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: a dwell channel location field to indicate a location of a dwell channel of the station.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: and the working bandwidth indication field is used for indicating the working bandwidth of the station.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the operating bandwidth of the station comprises: any one of 40MHz, 80MHz,160MHz,240MHz or 320 MHz.

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: an association identifier of the one or more sites.

8. The method according to any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the MAC frame further comprises: a channel information presence indication for indicating whether the channel indication information is present in the MAC frame.

9. The method according to any of claims 1 to 8, wherein the MAC frame is a target wakeup time, TWT, request frame, TWT response frame or TWT setup frame, and the channel indication information is carried in a TWT element in the MAC frame.

10. Method according to any of claims 1 to 9, wherein the MAC frame is a TWT setup frame, a multi-user send request MU-RTS frame or a trigger frame.

11. A method for indicating channels in a wireless local area network, comprising:

a first station receives a MAC frame from an access point, wherein the MAC frame comprises channel indication information which is used for indicating the positions of resident channels and temporary main channels of one or more stations;

the first station analyzes the MAC frame to obtain the position of a resident channel and the position of a temporary main channel of the first station, which are indicated by the channel indication information;

the resident channel comprises the temporary main channel, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, and the bandwidth of the temporary main channel is 20 MHz.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

the first station receives a PPDU from the access point, the PPDU carries signaling information of the first station, and the signaling information of the first station is carried on a resident channel of the first station.

13. The method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the channel indication information comprises: a temporary primary channel location field to indicate a location of a temporary primary channel of the station.

14. The method according to any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: a dwell channel location field to indicate a location of a dwell channel of the station.

15. The method according to any one of claims 11 to 14, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: and the working bandwidth indication field is used for indicating the working bandwidth of the station.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the operating bandwidth of the station comprises: any one of 40MHz, 80MHz,160MHz,240MHz or 320 MHz.

17. The method according to any one of claims 11 to 16, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: an association identifier of the one or more sites.

18. The method according to any of claims 11-17, wherein the MAC frame further comprises: a channel information presence indication for indicating whether the channel indication information is present in the MAC frame.

19. The method according to any of claims 11-18, wherein the MAC frame is a TWT request frame, a TWT response frame or a TWT setup frame, and wherein the channel indication information is carried in a TWT element in the MAC frame.

20. The method according to any of claims 11-19, wherein the MAC frame is a TWT setup frame, a MU-RTS frame or a trigger frame.

21. A channel indication device applied in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), the device being applied in an Access Point (AP), the device comprising:

a processing unit for generating a media access control, MAC, frame;

a transceiving unit, configured to send the MAC frame to one or more stations;

the MAC frame comprises channel indication information, wherein the channel indication information is used for indicating the positions of a resident channel and a temporary main channel of the one or more stations; the resident channel comprises the temporary main channel, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, and the bandwidth of the temporary main channel is 20 MHz.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to send a PPDU, and the PPDU carries signaling information of the one or more stations, and the signaling information of the one or more stations is carried on a camping channel.

23. A channel indication device applied in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), the device being applied in a Station (STA), the device comprising:

a transceiving unit, configured to receive a MAC frame from an access point, where the MAC frame includes channel indication information indicating a location of a camping channel of the one or more stations and a location of a temporary main channel;

a processing unit, configured to analyze the MAC frame to obtain a location of a resident channel and a location of a temporary main channel of the first station indicated by the channel indication information;

the resident channel comprises the temporary main channel, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, and the bandwidth of the temporary main channel is 20 MHz.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to receive a PPDU from the access point, where the PPDU carries signaling information of the first station, and the signaling information of the first station is carried on a camping channel of the first station.

25. The apparatus according to any of claims 21 to 24, wherein the channel indication information comprises: a temporary primary channel location field to indicate a location of a temporary primary channel of the station.

26. The apparatus according to any one of claims 21 to 25, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: a dwell channel location field to indicate a location of a dwell channel of the station.

27. The apparatus according to any of claims 21 to 26, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: and the working bandwidth indication field is used for indicating the working bandwidth of the station.

28. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein the operating bandwidth of the station comprises: any one of 40MHz, 80MHz,160MHz,240MHz or 320 MHz.

29. The apparatus according to any of claims 21 to 28, wherein the channel indication information further comprises: an association identifier of the one or more sites.

30. The apparatus according to any of claims 21-29, wherein the MAC frame further comprises: a channel information presence indication for indicating whether the channel indication information is present in the MAC frame.

31. The apparatus according to any of claims 21-30, wherein a MAC frame is a TWT request frame, a TWT response frame or a TWT setup frame, and wherein the channel indication information is carried in a TWT element in the MAC frame.

32. The apparatus according to any of claims 21-31, wherein the MAC frame is a TWT setup frame, a MU-RTS frame, or a trigger frame.

33. A communication device, comprising: a processor and a memory for storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the communication device to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 10.

34. A communication device, comprising: a processor and a memory for storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the communication device to perform the method of any of claims 11 to 20.

35. A wireless communication system comprising an access point and a station, wherein:

the access point is the apparatus of claim 21;

the station is the apparatus of claim 23.

36. A readable storage medium, in which program instructions are stored which, when executed, cause the method of any of claims 1-10 or any of claims 11-20 to be performed.

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of wireless communications technologies, and in particular, to a channel indication method in a wireless local area network and a related device.

Background

With the development of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) communication standard, the WLAN communication standard starts from IEEE802.11 a/g, and develops into IEEE802.11ax (Wi-Fi alliance is called Wi-Fi 6, also called high-efficiency wireless (HEW) standard) and IEEE802.11be (Wi-Fi alliance is called Wi-Fi 7, also called very high throughput (EHT) standard), which allow transmission bandwidth and number of space-time streams to change gradually, and from the initial 20MHz bandwidth to the current 160MHz, even larger bandwidth, such as 240MHz/320 MHz. WLAN systems expect higher transmission rates by using larger bandwidths.

In the IEEE802.11ax protocol, a signaling portion (e.g., a universal signaling field (U-SIG) and an EHT-signal field (EHT-SIG)) in a high efficiency physical layer protocol data unit (HE PPDU) needs to be repeatedly carried on each 20MHz channel or on every two 20MHz channels, and when a bandwidth supported by a user in the WLAN is extended from 160MHz to 320MHz, as the number of users (or stations) increases, signaling information of multiple users still needs to be repeatedly transmitted on each 20MHz channel or on every two 20MHz channels, which results in excessive repeated signaling, large signaling overhead, and low transmission efficiency. Therefore, the IEEE802.11be protocol proposes a multi-fragmentation ultra high throughput signaling field (multi-fragmentation EHT-SIG) transmission mechanism: that is, the entire large bandwidth (e.g., 320MHz) is divided into several segments (segments), for example, every 80MHz is one segment, 320MHz can be divided into 4 segments, and each segment only transmits signaling information of the user who resides (park) on the segment. In other words, when a multi-slice (or multi-segment) EHT-SIG transmission mechanism adopts large bandwidth (e.g., 160Mhz,240Mhz, and 320Mhz) transmission, different U-SIG and EHT-SIG are used in units of every 80Mhz, so that a non-AP Station (non-AP STA, STA for short) residing in a certain 80Mhz can acquire resource allocation information by receiving corresponding EHT-SIG only on the 80Mhz channel, thereby saving preamble overhead.

However, how to make different STAs reside in different frequency domain segments to support the multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism, thereby saving preamble overhead becomes an urgent problem to be solved.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides a channel indication method and a related device in a wireless local area network, which can enable different STAs to reside in different frequency domain segments, thereby supporting a multi-segment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism, saving preamble overhead and improving transmission efficiency.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a channel indication method applied in a wireless local area network. The method comprises the following steps: the access point generates a Media Access Control (MAC) frame carrying channel indication information, wherein the channel indication information is used for indicating the positions of the resident channels and the positions of the temporary main channels of one or more stations; the access point transmits the MAC frame to one or more stations.

The camping channel may be an 80MHz channel in which the receiving end receives signaling information for itself during data transmission, and the temporary main channel may be a 20MHz channel in the camping channel with a bandwidth of 80MHz, so that the camping channel includes the temporary main channel.

With reference to the first aspect, in one possible design, the method further includes: the access point sends PPDU, the PPDU carries the signaling information of one or more stations, and the signaling information of one or more stations is loaded on the resident channel. The signaling information may be U-SIG and EHT-SIG.

On one hand, the station receiving the channel indication information can reside on the allocated resident channel by allocating the resident channel to different stations through the channel indication information, so that the STA can receive the EHT-SIG on the resident channel and acquire resource allocation information from the received EHT-SIG, thereby saving preamble overhead and improving transmission efficiency. On the other hand, because the rule for transmitting data by the transmitting end in the WLAN is that when the primary 20MHz channel is idle and can transmit data, it is further analyzed whether other channels (for example, the secondary 20MHz channel, the secondary 40MHz channel, or the secondary 80MHz channel, etc.) are idle and can transmit, so that in the present embodiment, the channel indication information indicates a temporary primary channel of different stations in the camping channel, so that when there is data transmission in the camping channel, there must be data transmission on the temporary primary channel, and thus, in the camping channel, part of the 20MHz channel is unavailable (for example, occupied or interfered), and the available channel is discontinuous, the STA can also receive a data packet, that is, preamble puncturing transmission under the multi-segment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism is implemented.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides another channel indication method applied in a wireless local area network. The method comprises the following steps: the first station receives the MAC frame from the access point and analyzes the MAC frame to obtain the channel indication information included by the MAC frame.

The channel indication information is used for indicating the positions of the resident channel and the temporary main channel of one or more stations, and the first station is any one of the one or more stations. The resident channel comprises a temporary main channel, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, and the bandwidth of the temporary main channel is 20 MHz.

With reference to the second aspect, in one possible design, the method further includes: the station receives PPDU from the access point, the PPDU carries signaling information of one or more stations, and the signaling information of one or more stations is loaded on the resident channel. The signaling information may be U-SIG and EHT-SIG.

In a third aspect, there is provided a channel indication apparatus applied in a wireless local area network, the apparatus being applicable in an access point AP, and the apparatus being an access point or a chip in the access point, such as a Wi-Fi chip, including:

a processing unit, configured to generate a MAC frame carrying channel indication information, where the channel indication information is used to indicate a location of a residential channel and a location of a temporary primary channel of one or more stations; and the transceiving unit is used for transmitting the MAC frame to one or more stations. The resident channel comprises a temporary main channel, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, and the bandwidth of the temporary main channel is 20 MHz.

With reference to the third aspect, in a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to send a PPDU, where the PPDU carries signaling information of one or more stations, and the signaling information of the one or more stations is carried on a camping channel. The signaling information may be U-SIG and EHT-SIG.

In a fourth aspect, a channel indication apparatus applied in a wireless local area network is provided, where the apparatus is applied in a station STA, and the apparatus may be a station or a chip in the station, such as a Wi-Fi chip, and includes:

a transceiving unit, configured to receive a MAC frame from an access point, where the MAC frame includes channel indication information, and the channel indication information is used to indicate a location of a camping channel and a location of a temporary primary channel of one or more stations; and the processing unit is used for analyzing the received MAC frame to obtain the position of the resident channel of the first station and the position of the temporary main channel indicated by the channel indication information.

Wherein the first site is any one of the one or more sites. The resident channel comprises a temporary main channel, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, and the bandwidth of the temporary main channel is 20 MHz.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in a possible design, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive a PPDU from an access point, where the PPDU carries signaling information of one or more stations, and the signaling information of the one or more stations is carried on a camping channel. The signaling information may be U-SIG and EHT-SIG.

In one implementation of any of the above aspects, the operating bandwidth of the station may be 20MHz, 40MHz, 80MHz,160MHz,240MHz, or 320 MHz. It will be appreciated that when the operating bandwidth of a station is greater than 160MHz, such as 240MHz or 320MHz, the channels in the wireless local area network may be in the form of frequency domain segments. It is further understood that the channel indication method in the embodiment of the present application is applicable to the IEEE802.11be protocol, and if the station is applicable to the IEEE802.11be protocol, the operating bandwidth of the station may be 240MHz or 320 MHz.

In an implementation manner of any of the foregoing aspects, the channel indication information may include a temporary primary channel location field, and the temporary primary channel location field may be used to indicate a location of a temporary primary channel of a station. Optionally, the position of the 80MHz channel where the temporary main channel is located may be the position of the camping channel according to the preset channel division.

Wherein, the channel indication information may include 8 bits, and the temporary primary channel location field may include 2 bits. Optionally, the temporary primary channel location field may further include 4 bits. When the temporary primary channel location field includes 4 bits, it can directly indicate which 20MHz channel after the preset channel division (assuming that 320MHz is divided into 16 20MHz channels) the temporary primary channel is.

Optionally, the temporary primary channels of the STAs residing in the same camping channel may be different or the same. For example, the camping channels of STA1, STA2, and STA3 are the same, the temporary primary channel of STA1 may be the 1 st 20MHz channel in the camping channel, the temporary primary channel of STA2 may be the 3 rd 20MHz channel in the camping channel, and the temporary primary channel of STA3 may be the 2 nd 20MHz channel in the camping channel. For another example, the temporary primary channels of STA2 and STA3 may be the 2 nd 20MHz channel in the camping channel, and the temporary primary channel of STA1 may be the 1 st 20MHz channel in the camping channel.

According to the embodiment of the application, the temporary main channel in the resident channels of different STAs is indicated through the position domain of the temporary main channel, so that when data are transmitted in the resident channels, the data are transmitted on the temporary main channel, and therefore under the condition that part of channels in the resident channels are unavailable (such as occupied or interfered), and the available channels are discontinuous, both communication parties can still transmit data by using other available channels, and the utilization rate and flexibility of the channels are improved.

In an implementation manner of any of the foregoing aspects, the channel indication information may further include a camping channel location field, where the camping channel location field may be used to indicate a location of a camping channel of a station. Wherein, the channel indication information may include 8 bits, and the camping channel location field may include 2 bits. Optionally, the temporary primary channel location field may include 2 bits.

In an implementation manner of any of the foregoing aspects, the channel indication information may further include an operating bandwidth indication field, where the operating bandwidth indication field may be used to indicate an operating bandwidth of a station. In particular, the operating bandwidth indication field may be used to indicate the size of the operating bandwidth of a station.

Optionally, the working channel may be determined based on the location of the camping channel and/or the location of the temporary main channel, and the size of the working bandwidth.

Wherein, the channel indication information may include 8 bits, and the operating bandwidth indication field may include 2 bits. Optionally, the temporary primary channel location field may include 2 bits, and the persistent channel location field may include 2 bits.

The embodiment of the application directly indicates the working bandwidth in the channel indication information without using additional signaling to indicate the working bandwidth, so that the signaling overhead can be reduced.

In an implementation manner of any of the foregoing aspects, the channel indication information may further include association identifiers of one or more stations.

According to the embodiment of the application, the positions of the resident channel and the temporary main channel of one or more sites are indicated simultaneously through the associated identifiers of the one or more sites, so that the indication of the resident channels and the temporary main channels of a plurality of STAs can be realized in one interaction, and the transmission efficiency is higher.

In an implementation manner of any of the foregoing aspects, the MAC frame may further include a channel information presence indication, where the channel information presence indication may be used to indicate whether the channel indication information is present in the MAC frame.

The embodiment of the application distinguishes whether the MAC frame is suitable for the IEEE802.11be protocol or not through the channel information existence indication.

In an implementation manner of any of the above aspects, the MAC frame is a TWT request frame, a TWT response frame, or a TWT setup frame, and the channel indication information may be carried in a TWT element in the MAC frame.

The embodiment of the application carries the channel indication information on the TWT element, and can realize the indication of the camping channel and the temporary primary channel with larger bandwidths (such as 240MHz and 320MHz) under the sub-channel selection transmission mechanism negotiated by the TWT.

In an implementation manner of any of the above aspects, the MAC frame is a TWT setup frame, a MU-RTS frame, or a trigger frame.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, specifically an access point AP, where the access point has a function of implementing an access point behavior in the foregoing method, and the function may be implemented by hardware or by software that executes a response by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the above-described functions.

In one possible design, the access point AP includes a processor configured to support the access point to perform the corresponding functions of the above-described method. The transceiver is used for supporting communication between the access point and the STA, and transmitting information, data packets or instructions related to the method to the STA. The access point may also include a memory for coupling with the processor that retains program instructions and data necessary for the access point.

In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a station, where the station has a function of implementing STA behavior in the above method design. The function can be realized by hardware, and can also be realized by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the functions described above. The module may be software and/or hardware.

In one possible design, the station may include a transceiver and a processor in a structure, where the transceiver is configured to support communication between the STA and the access point AP. The station may also include a memory for coupling with the processor that holds program instructions and data necessary for the station.

In a seventh aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless communication system, where the system includes the access point according to the fifth aspect, and the STA according to the sixth aspect.

In an eighth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a chip or a chip system, including an input/output interface and a processing circuit, where the input/output interface is used for exchanging information or data, and the processing circuit is used for executing instructions so as to cause an apparatus on which the chip or the chip system is mounted to perform the channel indication method of any of the above aspects.

In a ninth aspect, the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored therein, the instructions executable by one or more processors on a processing circuit. When run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the channel indication method of any of the above aspects.

In a tenth aspect, the present application provides a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the channel indication method of any of the above aspects.

In an eleventh aspect, the present application provides a chip system, where the chip system includes a processor, configured to support an apparatus in which the chip system is installed to implement the channel indication method of any of the above aspects, for example, to generate or process data and/or information involved in the channel indication method. In one possible design, the system-on-chip further includes a memory for storing program instructions and data necessary for the data transmission device. The chip system may be formed by a chip, and may also include a chip and other discrete devices.

According to the embodiment of the application, different STAs can reside in different frequency domain segments, so that a multi-segment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism is supported, preamble overhead is saved, and transmission efficiency is improved.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments will be briefly introduced below.

FIG. 1a is a schematic diagram of a channel profile for a 160MHz bandwidth;

FIG. 1b is a schematic diagram of a channel profile for a 320MHz bandwidth;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the structure of the signaling part of a PPDU in IEEE802.11 be;

fig. 3 is a block diagram of a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4a is a schematic diagram of an IEEE802.11ax indication that SST is accomplished via a single TWT interaction;

FIG. 4b is a schematic diagram of a single TWT element field in IEEE802.11 ax;

fig. 5 is a first schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 6 is a second schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7a is a first schematic diagram of an enhanced TWT channel domain provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7b is a second schematic diagram of an enhanced TWT channel domain provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7c is a third schematic diagram of an enhanced TWT channel domain provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7d is a fourth diagram of an enhanced TWT channel domain according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7e is a fifth schematic diagram of an enhanced TWT channel domain provided in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 8a is a first schematic diagram of a TWT element field in a TWT frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 8b is a second exemplary diagram of a TWT element field in a TWT frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 8c is a third schematic diagram of a TWT element field in a TWT frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 9 is a third schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of an interaction between an STA and an AP based on a channel switching element according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 11 is a diagram of a channel switch element field according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 12 is a fourth schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of an enhanced A-control domain provided by embodiments of the present application;

fig. 14 is a fifth schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 15a is a schematic diagram of an interaction between a GCR MU-BAR frame and a GCR BA frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 15b is a schematic diagram illustrating an interaction between a trigger frame and a TWT response frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 16a is a schematic diagram of a broadcast TWT element field provided by an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 16b is a schematic diagram of a TWT element field provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 17 is a sixth schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 18 is an interaction diagram of a MU-RTS frame and a CTS frame provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 19a is a schematic diagram of a common information field of an MU-RTS frame according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 19b is a first schematic diagram of a user information field of an MU-RTS frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 19c is a second schematic diagram of a user information field of an MU-RTS frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 20 is a seventh schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 21 is an interaction diagram of a first trigger frame and a response frame provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 22 is a schematic diagram of a common information field of a first trigger frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 23a is a first schematic diagram of a user information field of a first trigger frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 23b is a second schematic diagram of a user information field of a first trigger frame according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 24 is a schematic diagram of a multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 25 is a schematic flowchart of a method for indicating puncturing information according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 26a is a first schematic diagram of the puncturing information provided in the embodiment of the present application;

fig. 26b is a second schematic diagram of the puncturing information provided in the embodiment of the present application;

fig. 27 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 28 is another schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 29 is a schematic structural diagram of a channel indicating device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application.

For the convenience of understanding the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application, the following will briefly describe the meaning of various channels related to the embodiments of the present application:

one, main 20MHz channel (P20 channel)

In a WLAN, channels are typically divided into a master channel and a slave channel, where the slave channel may contain one or more sub-channels. In one example, if the division is performed with 20MHz as the basic bandwidth unit, when the channel bandwidth is 20MHz, only one main channel with a bandwidth of 20MHz is provided; when the channel bandwidth is larger than 20MHz, a main channel with the bandwidth of 20MHz is included, and the rest one or more channels with the bandwidth of 20MHz are auxiliary channels. Referring to fig. 1a, fig. 1a is a channel distribution diagram of a 160MHz bandwidth. As shown in fig. 1a, the 160MHz bandwidth includes a primary 80MHz channel and a secondary 80MHz channel. The channels in the 160MHz bandwidth are numbered sequentially as channel 1 through channel 8, with each number representing a 20MHz channel. Wherein, channel 1 represents a primary 20MHz channel (P20 for short), and channel 2 represents a secondary 20MHz channel (S20 for short). A primary 40MHz channel (P40 for short) includes a primary 20MHz channel and a secondary 20MHz channel, i.e., channel 1 and channel 2; a secondary 40MHz channel (S40 for short) includes two 20MHz sub-channels, i.e., channel 3 and channel 4. A primary 80MHz channel (P80 for short) includes a primary 40MHz channel and a secondary 40MHz channel, i.e., channels 1 to 4; one secondary 80MHz channel (S80 for short) includes four subchannels with a bandwidth of 20MHz, which are channels 5,6,7, and 8, respectively. Where channels 1 and 2, channels 2 and 3, channels 3 and 4, channels 5 and 6, channels 6 and 7, and channels 7 and 8 are adjacent, respectively.

It is understood that The primary channel is a common operating channel of stations belonging to members in a basic Service Set (STAs) that are The at areas of The Basic Service Set (BSS)). Stations in the basic service set can perform channel competition on the main channel to preempt channel resources. For example, a plurality of stations STA1, STA2, STA3, or access points in the basic service set may perform channel contention on channel 1 of fig. 1a to preempt channel resources.

It is understood that a master 80MHz channel means that the master channel has a bandwidth of 80MHz, and a slave 80MHz channel means that the slave channel has a bandwidth of 80 MHz. In the embodiment of the present application, a slave channel may also be referred to as a secondary channel, and a slave 80MHz channel may also be referred to as a secondary 80MHz channel.

In an example, the arrangement of the channels 1 to 8 may be as shown in fig. 1a, or may be another arrangement, which is not limited in this application. For the sake of convenience of introduction, in all embodiments of the present application, channel 1 is the primary 20MHz channel for the channel division in the WLAN. It is understood that 802.11 systems support various channel bandwidths of different sizes, and the channel may be a continuous bandwidth of 20MHz, 40MHz, 80MHz,160MHz, or a discontinuous bandwidth of 80MHz +80MHz, or a discontinuous bandwidth of 320MHz, 240MHz +80MHz,160MHz +160MHz, etc., and in the next generation 802.11 standard, the channel bandwidth may be other bandwidths. Optionally, the channel division method may be similar to the above 160MHz channel, and is not described herein again.

Alternatively, in a WLAN, a contiguous block of spectrum for transmission may be referred to as a frequency segment. A WLAN channel may comprise one or more frequency domain segments, where the bandwidth of each frequency domain segment may be 80MHz, 40MHz, 20MHz or 160 MHz. Taking the bandwidth of a segment as 80MHz as an example, referring to fig. 1b, fig. 1b is a schematic diagram of channel distribution of a 320MHz bandwidth, and as shown in fig. 1b, the 320MHz channel shown in fig. 1b can be divided into 4 segments. A frequency domain segment may also be referred to as a frequency domain slice, or simply a slice or segment. Wherein the 320MHz channels are numbered channel 1 through channel 16 in sequence, each number representing a 20MHz channel.

Two, park (park) channel, temporary primary channel, and working channel

In the IEEE802.11ax protocol, a signaling part in a high efficiency physical layer protocol data unit (HE PPDU) needs to be repeatedly carried on each 20MHz channel or on every two 20MHz channels, when a bandwidth supported by a user in the WLAN is extended from 160MHz to 320MHz, as the number of users (or stations) increases, signaling information of multiple users still needs to be repeatedly transmitted on each 20MHz channel, which results in excessive repeated signaling, large signaling overhead, and low transmission efficiency. In order to improve the transmission efficiency and reduce the signaling overhead, an improved idea is as follows: referring to fig. 2, fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a signaling part of a PPDU in IEEE802.11be, and as shown in fig. 2, a whole large bandwidth (e.g., 320MHz) is divided into a plurality of segments (segments), and each segment transmits only signaling information of a user who resides (park) on the segment. For example, the U-SIG of an extremely high throughput physical layer protocol data unit (EHT PPDU) includes a4 20MHz repeatedly carried universal signaling field (U-SIG) U-SIG1 over the first segment; the EHT-SIG of the EHT PPDU includes two content channel (content channel) CCs 1 and 2 that transmit an extremely high throughput signaling field (EHT-SIG) EHT-SIG1 on a first segment, wherein the U-SIG1 and the EHT-SIG1 contain transmission parameters needed for a station residing on the first segment to resolve the EHT PPDU; similarly, the U-SIG of the EHT PPDU includes U-SIG2 transmitted on the second slice, and the EHT-SIG of the EHT PPDU includes EHT-SIG2 transmitted on the second slice, where the U-SIG2 and the EHT-SIG2 contain transmission parameters needed by a station residing on the second slice to resolve the EHT PPDU. Therefore, the U-SIG in the EHT PPDU does not need to be repeatedly transmitted on each 20MHz channel on the whole 320MHz bandwidth, and the EHT-SIG in the EHT PPDU does not need to be repeatedly transmitted on two content channels of the EHT-SIG on the 320MHz bandwidth, so that the signaling overhead is greatly reduced, the number of symbols occupied by the signaling part is shortened, and the transmission efficiency is improved. The STA residing on the first segment may parse its own data according to CC1 and CC2 in U-SIG1 and EHT-SIG 1; STAs residing on the second segment may parse their data from CC1 and CC2 in U-SIG2 and EHT-SIG 2.

For example, STA1, STA2, STA3, and STA4 reside in 4 segments, STA1 resides in Segment 1(Segment 1), STA2 resides in Segment 2(Segment2), STA3 resides in Segment 3(Segment 3), and STA4 resides in Segment 4(Segment 4), so that the AP only needs to transmit signaling information of STA1 on Segment 1, only needs to transmit signaling information of STA2 on Segment2, transmits signaling information of STA3 on Segment 3, transmits signaling information of STA4 on Segment 4, and does not need to transmit signaling information of STA1 to STA4 on segments 1 to 4, respectively, thereby reducing signaling overhead and improving transmission efficiency.

Therefore, in order to realize that each segment only transmits the signaling information of the user who resides (park) on the segment, the AP needs to know which segment each STA resides (park on) or operates on, and each STA needs to know which segment its own camping channel is in the bandwidth.

In this application, a park (park) channel may refer to an 80MHz channel in which a receiving end receives signaling information for itself during data transmission, for example, an 80MHz channel in which U-SIG and/or EHT-SIG are located. It can be understood that the persistent channel mentioned in this application is defined in the case of 80MHz fragmentation, and the persistent channel in the case of 40MHz fragmentation, 20MHz fragmentation, or 160MHz fragmentation can refer to the definition of the persistent channel in the case of 80MHz fragmentation, which is not described herein again. For ease of description, the following embodiments are all illustrated with 80MHz slices as an example.

In this application, the temporary primary channel may refer to a 20MHz channel among the residential channels having a bandwidth of 80 MHz. Specifically, the temporary primary channel is a common operating channel temporarily used as a station of a member residing on a resident channel in one basic service set. And (3) the station residing on a certain 80MHz resident channel performs packet detection or listening on a temporary main channel. In other words, the temporary primary channel may be a channel used for packet detection or channel sensing in the camping channel. Optionally, the rule for transmitting data by the transmitting end is that when the temporary main channel is idle and available, it is further analyzed whether other channels are idle and available, so that in the data transmission process of the 80MHz resident channel, data transmission must occur on the temporary main channel in the 80MHz resident channel, otherwise, data transmission cannot be performed on the 80MHz resident channel. Optionally, the temporary main channel may also be referred to as a temporary channel or a temporary main 20MHz channel, and the name of the temporary main channel is not limited in this application embodiment.

In this application, an operating channel may refer to all 20MHz channels that may transmit data during a data transmission.

It should be noted that "data transmission" and "data transmission" in the embodiments of the present application generally refer to communication, and "data" generally refers to information of communication, and is not limited to data information, and may also be signaling information or the like.

The foregoing briefly explains the meaning of various channels involved in the embodiments of the present application, and in order to facilitate understanding of the channel indication method in the wireless local area network provided in the embodiments of the present application, a system architecture and an application scenario of the channel indication method in the wireless local area network provided in the embodiments of the present application will be described below. It is to be understood that the scenario described in the embodiment of the present application is for more clearly illustrating the technical solution of the embodiment of the present application, and does not constitute a limitation on the technical solution provided in the embodiment of the present application.

The embodiment of the application provides a channel indication method in a wireless local area network, which can be applied to a wireless communication system, such as a cellular network or a wireless local area network system. Referring to fig. 3, fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an architecture of a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 3, the wireless communication system may include an AP and one or more STAs (e.g., STA1 and STA2 in fig. 3). The AP and the STA support a WLAN communication protocol, which may include IEEE802.11be (or Wi-Fi 7, EHT protocol), and may further include IEEE802.11ax, IEEE802.11 ac, and other protocols. Of course, as the communication technology is continuously developed and developed, the communication protocol may also include the next generation protocol of IEEE802.11be, etc. Taking WLAN as an example, the device implementing the method of the present application may be an AP or STA in WLAN, or a chip or a processing system installed in the AP or STA.

An Access Point (AP) is a device with wireless communication function, supports communication using WLAN protocol, and has a function of communicating with other devices (such as stations or other access points) in the WLAN network, and of course, may also have a function of communicating with other devices. In a WLAN system, an access point may be referred to as an access point station (AP STA). The device with the wireless communication function can be a complete machine device, and can also be a chip or a processing system and the like installed in the complete machine device, and the device installed with the chip or the processing system can realize the method and the function of the embodiment of the application under the control of the chip or the processing system. The AP in the embodiment of the present application is a device for providing services to the STA, and may support 802.11 series protocols. For example, an AP may be a communication entity such as a communication server, router, switch, bridge, etc.; the AP may include various macro base stations, micro base stations, relay stations, and the like, and of course, the AP may also be a chip and a processing system in these various devices, so as to implement the method and the function of the embodiment of the present application.

A station (e.g., STA1 in fig. 3) is a device with wireless communication capabilities that supports communication using WLAN protocols and has the capability to communicate with other stations or access points in a WLAN network. In a WLAN system, a station may be referred to as a non-access point station (non-AP STA). For example, the STA is any user communication device that allows a user to communicate with the AP and further communicate with the WLAN, the apparatus with wireless communication function may be a device of a whole machine, and may also be a chip or a processing system installed in the device of the whole machine, and the device installed with the chip or the processing system may implement the method and function of the embodiment of the present application under the control of the chip or the processing system. For example, the STA may be a tablet, a desktop, a laptop, a notebook, an Ultra-mobile Personal Computer (UMPC), a handheld Computer, a netbook, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a mobile phone, or other network-enabled user equipment, or a node of the internet of things in the internet of things, or a vehicle-mounted communication device in the internet of things, or an entertainment device, a game device or system, a global positioning system device, or the like, and may also be a chip and a processing system in these terminals.

The WLAN system can provide high-rate low-delay transmission, and with the continuous evolution of WLAN application scenarios, the WLAN system will be applied to more scenarios or industries, for example, the internet of things industry, the car networking industry or the banking industry, the enterprise office, the stadium exhibition hall, the concert hall, the hotel room, the dormitory, the ward, the classroom, the business supermarket, the square, the street, the generation workshop, the warehouse, and the like. Of course, the devices (such as access points or stations) supporting WLAN communication may be sensor nodes (such as smart water meters, smart electric meters, smart air detection nodes) in smart cities, smart devices (such as smart cameras, projectors, display screens, televisions, sound equipment, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.) in smart homes, nodes in internet of things, entertainment terminals (such as wearable devices like AR, VR), smart devices (such as printers, projectors, loudspeakers, sound equipment, etc.) in smart offices, car networking devices in car networking, infrastructure in daily life scenes (such as vending machines, super self-help navigation stations, self-help cash registers, self-help ordering machines, etc.), devices in large-scale sports and music stadiums, and the like. In the embodiments of the present application, specific forms of the STA and the AP are not particularly limited, and are merely exemplary.

Optionally, fig. 3 is a schematic view only, and the channel indication method in the wireless local area network provided in the embodiment of the present application may be applied to a communication scenario between an AP and the AP, besides a scenario that the AP communicates with one or more STAs, and is also applicable to a communication scenario between an STA and an STA.

In the wireless communication system shown in fig. 3, an Access Point (AP) and an STA may temporarily switch to another 20MHz or 80MHz channel for listening and obtaining the service of the AP through a Target Wakeup Time (TWT) negotiation mechanism. In short, the AP and the STA (any STA in fig. 3) may implement channel switching within a certain service phase through a TWT negotiation mechanism, that is, a Subchannel Selective Transmission (SST) mechanism. Referring to fig. 4a, fig. 4a is a schematic diagram of an IEEE802.11ax indicator for SST completion by single TWT interaction. As shown in fig. 4a, taking the STA as a requester and the AP as a responder as an example, the STA sends an individual TWT (individual TWT) request frame to the AP to request to establish an individual TWT SP; the AP, upon receiving the TWT request frame sent by the STA, may reply to the STA with a TWT response frame, which may be used to approve the TWT request, or propose other TWT parameters, or to reject the TWT request. If the TWT between the STA and the AP is successfully established, the STA may enter a sleep state and switch to a corresponding SST channel to wait for the AP to schedule when a TWT SP arrives. The TWT request frame carries a TWT element field, where the TWT element field includes a TWT parameter information field (TWT parameter information) including a TWT channel field (TWT channel).

Referring to FIG. 4b, FIG. 4b is a diagram of a single TWT element field in IEEE802.11 ax. As shown in fig. 4b, the TWT element field includes an element identification field, a length field, a control field, and a TWT parameter information field. The TWT parameter information field includes a request type, a target wake-up time, a TWT group assignment, a nominal minimum TWT wake-up duration, a TWT wake-up interval mantissa, a TWT channel field, and a Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) paging (optional field). Wherein, the TWT channel field includes 8 bits, and the 8 bits form a bitmap (bitmap), and each bit in the bitmap corresponds to a 20MHz channel. The TWT channel field may therefore indicate up to 8 different 20MHz channels, with a channel indication of maximum supported 160MHz bandwidth. For the STA in the 20MHz operation mode, a certain bit in the TWT channel field is set to 1, which indicates that the STA requests to operate on the 20MHz channel corresponding to the bit set to 1 in the SP indicated in the TWT element field. If all the low 4 bits or the high 4 bits of the TWT channel field are set to 1, it indicates that the working channel of the STA in the SP is 80MHz low or 80MHz high.

As known from the TWT channel field in IEEE802.11ax, on one hand, because the TWT channel field in IEEE802.11ax is an 8-bit bitmap, the SST mechanism in IEEE802.11ax supports channel indication at a maximum bandwidth of 160MHz, but is not suitable for channel indication at a larger bandwidth (e.g., 240MHz or 320MHz) in IEEE802.11 be. On the other hand, because IEEE802.11be wants to support the multi-segment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism to save the preamble overhead, but the channel indication method in the IEEE802.11ax protocol is not suitable for the IEEE802.11be protocol, the STA working in a larger bandwidth (e.g., 240MHz or 320MHz) cannot know which 80MHz channel it resides in, and thus cannot cause different STAs to reside in different frequency domain segments, and cannot support the multi-segment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism. In another aspect, in the case that a part of 20MHz channels in a segment of 80MHz channels are not available (e.g., occupied or interfered), resulting in discontinuous available channels, the preamble puncturing transmission method allows the physical layer protocol data unit PPDU to be transmitted without transmitting the preamble (and subsequent data) in the part of 20MHz channels, thereby increasing the channel utilization of the part of channels in the case of interference. Therefore, how to support preamble puncturing transmission in a multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism, so as to improve the channel utilization under the interference condition, is also a problem to be solved urgently.

The embodiment of the application provides a channel indication method in a wireless local area network, which can support channel indication under a larger bandwidth of IEEE802.11be, and on one hand, a receiving party in data transmission can determine which 80MHz channel the receiving party resides in, so that signaling and data of the receiving party can be accurately acquired on the resident 80MHz channel, transmission of a PPDU shown in fig. 2 is supported, transmission efficiency is improved, and signaling overhead is reduced. On the other hand, the scheme of the embodiment of the application can also enable a receiver in data transmission to determine the temporary main channel residing in the 80MHz channel, and support preamble punching transmission in the data transmission process, that is, under the condition that part of the 20MHz channel in the residing 80MHz channel is unavailable (such as occupied or interfered), resulting in discontinuous available channels, both communication parties can still use other available channels for data transmission, thereby improving the utilization rate and flexibility of the channels.

The following describes a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application in detail with reference to fig. 5 to 26 b. In the embodiment of the present application, the method is described with a first communication device and a second communication device, and it can be understood that the first communication device may be an AP or an STA (for example, the AP or the STA shown in fig. 3), and the second communication device may also be an AP or an STA (for example, the AP or the STA shown in fig. 3).

Example one

Referring to fig. 5, fig. 5 is a first schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 5, a method for indicating a channel in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s101, the first communication device generates channel indication information, and the channel indication information is used for indicating the position of the resident channel and the position of the temporary main channel.

Specifically, the bandwidth of the resident channel is 80MHz, the position of the temporary main channel is 20MHz, and the resident 80MHz channel includes the 20MHz temporary main channel. Thus, based on the channel indication information, the first communication device may inform the second communication device which 80MHz channel the second communication device camps on and which temporary primary channel of the 80MHz camping channels the second communication device listens on, so that the second communication device may receive signaling information on the camped 80MHz channel. Alternatively, the location of the camping channel may be understood as the location in the system bandwidth, and the location of the temporary primary channel may be understood as the location in the system bandwidth. For example, 802.11be can support a system bandwidth of 320MHz or 240MHz at maximum.

Optionally, the system bandwidth may include 240MHz channels or 320MHz channels, and the 240MHz channels may include one 160MHz channel and one 80MHz channel; or, include 3 80MHz channels; the 320MHz channels may include 2 160MHz channels; or, 2 80MHz channels and 1 160MHz channel, or, 4 80MHz channels, or 1 240MHz channel and 1 80MHz channel.

Optionally, the system bandwidth may include one or more frequency domain segments, wherein the bandwidth of one frequency domain segment may be 40MHz or 80MHz or 160 MHz. For convenience of description, the embodiment of the present application is illustrated by taking the bandwidth of the frequency domain segment as 80MHz as an example. For example, as shown in FIG. 1b, a 320MHz bandwidth includes 4 frequency domain segments.

Accordingly, the channel indication information may indicate a position (position) of the camped 80MHz channel and a position of the temporary primary 20MHz channel in 320MHz or 240MHz supported by the 802.11 be. That is, the location of the parking channel may refer to which frequency domain segment the parking channel with a bandwidth of 80MHz is. The location of the temporary primary channel may refer to which 20MHz channel the temporary primary channel having a bandwidth of 20MHz is in the camping channel having a bandwidth of 80 MHz.

In a possible implementation manner, the channel indication information may include a location of the temporary primary channel, where the location of the temporary primary channel implicitly indicates a location of the parked 80MHz channel, for example, the temporary primary channel is the channel 7 shown in fig. 1b, one 80MHz channel where the channel 7 is located, and the second 80MHz channel is the parked 80MHz channel.

In another possible implementation, the channel indication information includes both the location of the camping channel and the location of the temporary primary channel. For example, the camping channel is the second 80MHz channel, and the temporary primary channel is channel 5 in the second 80MHz channel.

Optionally, the channel indication information further includes an operating bandwidth indication, which is used to indicate the bandwidth of the operating channel. The bandwidth of the working channel may be: 20MHz, 40MHz, 80MHz,160MHz,240MHz, or 320 MHz. Optionally, based on the location of the camping channel and/or the location of the temporary primary channel, and the size of the operating bandwidth, the operating channel may be determined, for example, the location of the camping channel is a third 80MHz in the system bandwidth, and the bandwidth indicated by the operating bandwidth is 160MHz, then the second communication device may determine that its operating channel is a secondary 160MHz channel, that is, the third 80MHz and the fourth 80MHz are included.

S102, the first communication equipment sends channel indication information to the second communication equipment. Accordingly, the second communication device receives the channel indication information.

Correspondingly, the second communication device receives the channel indication information so that the location of the camping channel and the location of the temporary main channel can be determined. Optionally, the second communication device may also determine the working channel, so that in the subsequent data transmission process, the second communication device may monitor the channel or perform packet detection on the temporary main 20MHz channel, may receive the signaling information of itself on the resident 80MHz channel, and further acquires the data information of itself according to the signaling information.

Optionally, the operating bandwidth may refer to a bandwidth required by the communication device when operating or transmitting data, the operating channel refers to a 20MHz channel that may transmit data, and all 20MHz channels in the operating bandwidth are operating channels. Thus, the operating bandwidth may indirectly indicate the operating channels, in particular, all 20MHz channels within the operating bandwidth are operating channels. It is to be understood that in the case of supporting the preamble puncturing technique, the channel for transmitting data in the data transmission process may be a 20MHz channel included in the portion of the operating bandwidth.

In some possible embodiments, the communication protocol supported by the first communication device and the second communication device may be ieee802.11be (or Wi-Fi 7, EHT protocol). In the embodiment of the present application, the first communication device may be an AP or an STA, and the second communication device may also be an AP or an STA. Specifically, different cases of the first communication apparatus and the second communication apparatus will be explained below.

1. The first communication equipment is an AP, and the second communication equipment is an STA; or the first communication equipment is STA and the second communication equipment is AP

In a case where the first communication device is an AP and the second communication device is an STA, in example one: the AP can send channel indication information to the STA, and directly indicate one or more of the position of a resident channel of the STA, the position of a temporary main channel and the working bandwidth; after receiving the channel indication information, the STA may return response information to the AP, where the response information may be used to approve or reject the channel indication of the AP.

In example two: the AP may send channel indication information to the STA, directly indicate one or more of a location of a resident channel of the STA, a location of a temporary primary channel, and a working bandwidth, and after receiving the channel indication information, the STA may also send acknowledgement information to inform whether the AP channel indication information is successfully received, and if the channel indication information is successfully received, the default STA may communicate using the information indicated by the AP, and if the channel indication information is unsuccessfully received, the AP may confirm that the STA has not successfully received the channel indication information and cannot communicate using the indicated information, and therefore the STA may not send response information.

In example three, the AP may send channel indication information to the STA, indicating one or more of a location of a camping channel suggested by the AP, a location of a temporary primary channel, and an operating bandwidth; after receiving the channel indication information, the STA may return response information to the AP, where the response information may be used to agree with, reject or modify one or more of the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and the operating bandwidth suggested by the AP.

In a case where the first communication device is an STA and the second communication device is an AP, in example one: the STA can send channel indication information to the AP, wherein the channel indication information indicates one or more of the position of the resident channel, the position of the temporary main channel and the working bandwidth requested by the STA; after receiving the channel indication information, the AP may return response information to the STA, where the response information may be used to grant, reject or modify one or more of the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and the operating bandwidth requested by the STA. In example two: the STA sends channel indication information to directly inform the AP of one or more of the position of a resident channel, the position of a temporary main channel and the working bandwidth, and the AP feeds back confirmation information after receiving the channel indication information.

2. The first communication device and the second communication device are both APs

In the AP-AP cooperation scenario: the master AP can directly indicate or suggest one or more of the position of the resident channel, the position of the temporary master channel and the working bandwidth of the slave AP through the channel indication information; the slave AP may agree, reject or modify one or more of the camping channel, temporary primary channel, operating bandwidth indicated or suggested by the master AP through the response information. Similarly, the slave AP may also request the master AP for one or more of the location of its own residence channel, the location of the temporary master channel, and the operating bandwidth through the channel indication information; the master AP may grant, deny or modify one or more of the camping channel, temporary master channel, operating bandwidth requested from the AP by the response message.

3. The first communication device and the second communication device are both STAs

In a STA-to-STA scenario: the STA1 may directly indicate, or suggest, or request one or more of a channel location of the camping channel, a channel location of the temporary primary channel, and an operating bandwidth through the channel indication information; STA2 may grant, deny, or modify one or more of the camping channel, temporary primary channel, operating bandwidth indicated, or suggested, or requested by STA1 by responding to the information.

Of course, it can be understood that there are other ways for the first communication device to interact with the second communication device in the channel indication information flow, and the present application is not limited thereto.

In one implementation, the channel indication information is carried in a Medium Access Control (MAC) frame, and the MAC frame is used for interacting with a second communication device to obtain the camping channel and the temporary main channel information. The MAC address of the second communication device may be included in the MAC frame.

In an implementation manner, optionally, the channel indication information may further include an identifier of one or more stations, indicating a station camping on the indicated camping channel. The identification may be a MAC address of the station, an association identifier AID, or other identification information. In one example, multiple pieces of channel indication information can be carried in one MAC frame, so that the camping channel and temporary main channel information of multiple stations can be indicated through one frame interaction, and the transmission efficiency is higher.

Optionally, the channel indication information in the embodiment of the present application may have multiple bearer manners. For example, the channel indication information of the embodiment of the present application may be carried in any Medium Access Control (MAC) frame, such as a TWT request frame, a TWT response frame, a TWT setup frame, a frame including an a-Control field (a-Control), a multi-user request transmission frame, or other newly designed behavior frame, a trigger frame, and the like. The following embodiments will further describe an implementation of the channel indication information and an interaction flow between the communication devices in combination with some or all of the above.

It can be further understood that the channel indication information provided by the embodiment of the present application may be used to indicate not only one or more of the location of the camping channel, the location of the temporary main channel, and the operating bandwidth in the channels with the bandwidth greater than 160MHz, but also one or more of the location of the camping channel, the location of the temporary main channel, and the operating bandwidth in the channels with the bandwidth of 160MHz or the bandwidth less than 160MHz (e.g., 80MHz, 40 MHz).

The method of the embodiment of the application can support the resident channel indication under the larger bandwidth of IEEE802.11 be. On one hand, the method of the embodiment of the application enables a receiver in data transmission to determine which 80MHz channel the receiver resides in, so that the receiver can accurately acquire a signaling of the receiver on the resident 80MHz channel, supports transmission of multi-slice EHT-SIG shown in fig. 2, improves transmission efficiency, and reduces signaling overhead. On the other hand, the scheme of the embodiment of the application can also enable a receiver in data transmission to determine the temporary main channel residing in the 80MHz channel, and support preamble punching transmission in the data transmission process, that is, under the condition that part of the 20MHz channel in the residing 80MHz channel is unavailable (such as occupied or interfered), resulting in discontinuous available frequency domain resources, both communication parties can still use other available channels for data transmission, thereby improving the utilization rate and flexibility of the channels.

Example two

In the embodiment of the application, channel indication information is carried by a single TWT (individual TWT) element field, and a camping channel, a temporary primary channel or a working bandwidth is negotiated with an STA through one TWT element field interaction, so that indication of the camping channel, the temporary primary channel and/or the working bandwidth of a single STA under an SST mechanism and/or a multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism is realized.

In some possible embodiments, the enhanced TWT channel domain (enhanced TWT channel) mentioned in the embodiments of the present application may also be referred to by other terms, such as an enhanced TWT channel indication domain, an EHT TWT indication domain (or EHT TWT indication field), an enhanced SST indication domain (or enhanced SST indication field), and the name of the enhanced TWT channel domain is not specifically limited in the embodiments of the present application.

Referring to fig. 6, fig. 6 is a second schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 6, the method for indicating a channel in a wireless local area network according to the embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s201, the first communication device generates a TWT frame including an enhanced TWT channel domain, where the enhanced TWT channel domain carries channel indication information.

S202, the first communication device sends a TWT frame to the second communication device. Accordingly, the second communication device receives the TWT frame.

In some possible embodiments, the TWT frame may include a TWT element field, which may include an element identification field, a length field, a control field, and a TWT parameter information field including a request type field and an enhanced TWT channel field. The enhanced TWT channel domain may be used to indicate one or more of a location of a camping channel, a location of a temporary primary channel, a location of an operating channel, and an operating bandwidth. In one example, the enhanced TWT channel domain carries channel indication information.

Alternatively, the TWT frame may be a TWT request frame or a TWT response frame. The TWT response frame includes an element field type that is the same as the element field type included in the TWT request frame. The TWT request frame and the TWT response frame are distinguished in that: the request type (request type) field contains 1 bit TWT request bit, and bit position 1 indicates that the TWT element is a TWT request; setting 0 indicates that the TWT element is a TWT response. Correspondingly, the TWT frame carrying the TWT request may be referred to as a TWT request frame, and the TWT frame carrying the TWT response may be referred to as a TWT response frame.

Optionally, if the TWT frame is a TWT request frame, the TWT request frame may be used to request to communicate using information indicated by the enhanced TWT channel domain of the TWT request frame. If the TWT frame is a TWT response frame, the TWT response frame may be used to allow communication using information indicated by the enhanced TWT channel region of the TWT response frame.

In some possible embodiments, the control field of the TWT frame may include a large bandwidth indication field, which may be used to indicate whether the enhanced TWT channel field is included in the TWT parameter information field of the TWT frame. The large bandwidth indication field may be represented by a reserved bit (reserved) in the control field, for example, the large bandwidth indication field is a 1-bit reserved bit in the control field. For example, when the value of the large bandwidth indication field is 1, the TWT parameter information field indicating the TWT frame includes an enhanced TWT channel field; when the value of the large bandwidth indication field is 0, it indicates that the TWT parameter information field of the TWT frame does not include the enhanced TWT channel field, or it may indicate that the TWT parameter information field of the TWT frame includes the TWT channel field of IEEE802.11 ax. It is understood that the TWT channel domain of IEEE802.11ax is used to indicate the operating channel. In a colloquial way, the value of the large bandwidth indication field is 0, which may represent that the frame structure of the TWT element field of IEEE802.11ax is maintained, and the value of 1 may represent that the TWT parameter information field changes. Specifically, when the large bandwidth indication field takes 1, the TWT parameter information field (TWT parameter information) is generally consistent with the individual TWT parameter set field (induced TWT parameter set field) of IEEE802.11ax, except that the original TWT channel field (TWT channel) in IEEE802.11ax is changed to an enhanced TWT channel field (enhanced TWT channel).

Optionally, in the embodiment of the present application, except that the reserved bits may be multiplexed into a large bandwidth indication field to distinguish different versions (here, IEEE802.11ax and IEEE802.11 be), the different versions may also be distinguished based on the standard types supported by the two transmitting and receiving ends. For example, if both the transceiving ends support the IEEE802.11be standard, the TWT channel domain means the scheme of the present application; otherwise, it means IEEE802.11 ax.

The large bandwidth indication field may be referred to as a "> 160MHz indication field (>160MHz indication)", and may also be referred to as an add TWT channel presence field. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the specific name of the large bandwidth indication domain.

A specific implementation of the enhanced TWT channel domain will be described below.

In a first possible implementation, the enhanced TWT channel domain may include a camping channel location domain and a temporary primary channel location domain. The camping channel position field may be used to indicate the position (channel position) of the 80MHz channel where the first communication device requests or allows camping (park), i.e., to indicate the position of the 80MHz camping channel where the first communication device requests or allows camping. The temporary primary channel location field may be used to indicate the location of a temporary primary channel (or temporary primary 20MHz channel) in 80MHz channels where the first communication device requests or allows camping (park), i.e. to indicate the location of a 20MHz channel in which the first communication device needs to camp on within the 80MHz camping channel. It can be understood that in the embodiment of the present application, there are 1 temporary primary channel in one 80MHz channel for one STA or multiple STAs.

Alternatively, the camping channel location field may be referred to as an 80MHz location field (80MHz location), and the temporary primary channel location field may be referred to as a temporary primary 20MHz location field (temporary P20 location). The embodiment of the present application does not limit the specific names of the residential channel location domain and the temporary main channel location domain.

Optionally, the length of the enhanced TWT channel field may be 1 byte, i.e. 8 bits (bit). The length of the parking channel position field may be 2 bits, the length of the temporary main channel position field may be 2 bits, and the remaining 4 bits are reserved bits. Wherein the lengths (i.e., the number of bits) of the dwell channel location field and the temporary primary channel location field are merely exemplary descriptions. Understandably, the lengths of the resident channel position domain and the temporary main channel position domain can be both 3 bits, and the remaining 2 bits are reserved bits; or the lengths of the resident channel position domain and the temporary main channel position domain are both 4 bits without reserved bits; or the length of the channel-resident location field is 2 bits, the length of the temporary main channel location field is 3 bits, the remaining 3 bits are reserved bits, and the like.

Referring to fig. 7a, fig. 7a is a first schematic diagram of an enhanced TWT channel domain provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 7a, the enhanced TWT channel domain includes a 2-bit 80MHz location domain, a 2-bit temporary primary 20MHz location domain, and a 4-bit reserved bit. The embodiment of the application can indicate the position of the resident channel and the position of the temporary main channel by using 4 bits in the enhanced TWT channel domain, and can indicate more information quantity by adopting the least bits.

The value of the 80MHz location domain can be referred to in table 1, and the value of the temporary main 20MHz location domain can be referred to in table 2. It is understood that tables 1 and 2 are only exemplary, and the corresponding order between the values and meanings of the 80MHz location domain and the corresponding order between the values and meanings of the temporary main 20MHz location domain are not limited in the embodiments of the present application. It is also understood that the value of the 80MHz location field in table 1 may also mean that the highest frequency 80MHz is the first 80MHz, and then each 80MHz with gradually decreasing frequency is the 2 nd 80MHz, the 3 rd 80MHz, and so on. In another corresponding relationship, the 1 st 80MHz in table 1 may be a main 80MHz channel, the 2 nd 80MHz may be a slave 80MHz channel, and the 3 rd 80MHz and the 4 th 80MHz are respectively a higher 80MHz channel and a lower 80MHz channel of the slave 160 MHz. Similarly, in an example, the value of the temporary main 20MHz location field in table 2 may also mean that the 20MHz with the highest frequency is the first 20MHz, and then each 20MHz with gradually decreasing frequency is the 2 nd 20MHz, the 3 rd 20MHz, and so on. The embodiments of the present application are not limited.

Table 1: the value meaning of the 80MHz position domain is explained

Table 2: numeric interpretation of the temporary Primary 20MHz location Domain 1

Optionally, the temporary primary channel location field may be represented by a 4-bit bitmap, where one bit corresponds to one 20MHz channel, and specifically, a certain bit 1 in the 4-bit bitmap of the temporary primary channel location field indicates that the 20MHz channel corresponding to the bit 1 is a temporary primary channel. For example, the value (binary) of the temporary main channel location field is 1000, which represents the 1 st 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the first location field; the value of the temporary main channel position field is 0100, which represents the 2 nd 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the first position field; the value of the temporary main channel position domain is 0010 (binary system), which represents the 3 rd 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the first position domain; the value of the temporary primary channel location field is 0001 (binary), which represents the 3 rd 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the first location field. It can be understood that, the embodiment of the present application does not limit the corresponding order between the value and the meaning of the temporary primary channel location field. The embodiment of the application adopts the 4-bit bitmap to indicate the position of the temporary main channel, and the receiving end does not need to carry out binary and decimal conversion when analyzing the position domain of the temporary main channel, thereby reducing the complexity of the analysis of the receiving end.

Optionally, the enhanced TWT channel domain may further include an operating bandwidth indication (operating bandwidth indication). The operating bandwidth indication field may be used to indicate an operating bandwidth (operating bandwidth) requested or allowed by the first communication device. The working bandwidth in the embodiments of the present application may refer to an equivalent bandwidth.

Since the operating bandwidth in IEEE802.11ax is reflected by the operating channel, i.e., the sum of the bandwidths of the operating channels indicated by the 8-bit TWT channel field of IEEE802.11ax is the operating bandwidth, the 8-bit TWT channel field of IEEE802.11ax cannot indicate the operating bandwidth of the communication device having a bandwidth greater than 160 MHz. The embodiment of the application can realize the indication of the operating bandwidth under larger bandwidth (such as 240MHz or 320MHz) by directly indicating the operating bandwidth of the communication equipment with the bandwidth larger than 160MHz in the enhanced TWT channel domain. It is to be appreciated that embodiments of the present application may also be indicative of operating bandwidths of less than 160MHz (e.g., 80MHz) and/or 160 MHz.

Optionally, the length of the enhanced TWT channel field may be 1 byte, i.e. 8 bits. The length of the parking channel location field may be 2 bits, the length of the temporary main channel location field may be 2 bits, the length of the working bandwidth indication field may be 2 bits, and the remaining 2 bits may be reserved bits. Wherein, the lengths (i.e. the number of bits) of the camping channel position field, the temporary main channel position field and the operating bandwidth indication field are only exemplary descriptions. Understandably, the lengths of the resident channel position domain and the temporary main channel position domain can be both 3 bits, the length of the working bandwidth indication domain is 2 bits, and no reserved bit exists; or the length of the resident channel position domain is 2 bits, the lengths of the temporary main channel position domain and the working bandwidth indicating domain are both 3 bits, and no reserved bit exists; or the resident channel position domain is 3 bits, the lengths of the temporary main channel position domain and the working bandwidth indication domain are both 2 bits, and the rest 1 bit is a reserved bit, and the like. The length (i.e., bit number) of the parking channel position field, the temporary main channel position field, and the working bandwidth indication field is not specifically limited in the embodiments of the present application.

Referring to fig. 7b, fig. 7b is a second schematic diagram of the enhanced TWT channel domain provided in the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 7b, the enhanced TWT channel domain includes a 2-bit 80MHz location domain, a 2-bit temporary primary 20MHz location domain, a 2-bit operating bandwidth indication domain, and a 2-bit reserved bit. The embodiment of the application uses 2 bits to indicate the working bandwidth in the enhanced TWT channel domain, does not need to use other fields to indicate the working bandwidth independently, and can reduce the signaling overhead by increasing the information amount of the enhanced TWT channel domain.

The value meaning of the 80MHz location domain can be referred to table 1, the value meaning of the temporary main 20MHz location domain can be referred to table 2, and the value meaning of the working bandwidth indication domain can be referred to table 3. It can be understood that table 3 is only an exemplary illustration, and the embodiment of the present application does not limit the corresponding order between the values and meanings of the operating bandwidth indication fields.

Table 3: value meaning description of working bandwidth indication field

Value taking	Means of
		0	The working bandwidth is 80MHz
1	The working bandwidth is 160MHz
		2	The working bandwidth is 240MHz
3	The working bandwidth is 320MHz

In a second possible implementation, the enhanced TWT channel domain may include a temporary primary channel location domain. The temporary primary channel location field may be used to indicate the location of a temporary primary channel (or temporary primary 20MHz channel) on which the first communication device requests or allows camping. The 80MHz channel in which the temporary primary channel resides may be a camping channel of the first communication device. Wherein the temporary primary channel location field may be referred to as a temporary primary 20MHz location field. It can be understood that in the embodiment of the present application, there are 1 temporary primary channel in one 80MHz for one STA or multiple STAs. The position of the temporary main channel is indicated through the position domain of the temporary main channel of the enhanced TWT channel domain, the position of the resident channel is indirectly indicated through the position of the temporary main channel, the positions of the temporary main channel and the resident channel can be obtained only by indicating one piece of information in the enhanced TWT channel domain, and the complexity of signaling is reduced.

Optionally, the enhanced TWT channel domain may further include an operating bandwidth indication domain. The operating bandwidth indication field may be used to indicate the operating bandwidth that the first communication device requests or allows to employ.

Optionally, the length of the enhanced TWT channel field may be 1 byte, i.e. 8 bits (bit). The length of the temporary main channel position field may be 4 bits, the length of the working bandwidth indication field may be 2 bits, and the remaining 2 bits may be reserved bits. The length (i.e., the number of bits) of the temporary main channel location field and the working bandwidth indication field is not specifically limited in the embodiments of the present application.

Referring to fig. 7c, fig. 7c is a third schematic diagram of the enhanced TWT channel domain provided in the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 7c, the enhanced TWT channel domain includes a 4-bit temporary primary 20MHz location domain, a 2-bit operating bandwidth indication domain, and a 2-bit reserved bit. It will be appreciated that fig. 7c is a combination of the first two fields (i.e., the 80MHz location field and the temporary master 20MHz location field) of fig. 7b or fig. 7a into one field, directly indicating which of the 16 20MHz channels the temporary master 20MHz location is.

According to the embodiment of the application, the position of the temporary main channel is indicated to inform a receiving end of subsequent data transmission to monitor a channel or detect a data packet on the temporary main channel, and the U-SIG in the temporary main channel is read to acquire bandwidth information and punching related information, so that the EHT-SIG is read to acquire resource indication information, a preamble punching transmission technology is supported, and the channel utilization rate is improved.

The value meaning of the temporary main 20MHz location domain can be referred to in table 4 below, and the value meaning of the working bandwidth indication domain can be referred to in table 3 above. It is understood that table 4 is only an exemplary illustration, and the corresponding order between the values and meanings of the temporary main 20MHz location domain is not limited in the embodiments of the present application.

Table 4: numeric interpretation of the temporary Primary 20MHz location Domain 2

Optionally, the 80MHz channel in which the temporary main channel is located may be a camping channel of the first communication device. In one example, the lowest frequency 80MHz in the whole bandwidth is the first 80MHz, and then the respective 80MHz with gradually increasing frequency are the 2 nd 80MHz, the 3 rd 80MHz, and so on. If the temporary main channel is any one of the 1 st 20MHz to the 4 th 20MHz (or channel 1 to channel 4), the 80MHz channel where the temporary main channel is located is the 1 st 80 MHz. If the temporary main channel is any one of the 5 th 20MHz to the 8 th 20MHz (or channel 5 to channel 8), the 80MHz channel where the temporary main channel is located is the 2 nd 80 MHz. If the temporary main channel is any one of the 9 th 20MHz to 12 th 20MHz (or channel 9 to channel 12), the 80MHz channel where the temporary main channel is located is the 3 rd 80 MHz. If the temporary main channel is any one of the 13 th 20MHz to the 16 th 20MHz (or the channel 13 to the channel 16), the 80MHz channel where the temporary main channel is located is the 4 th 80 MHz. In another example, based on the preset channel partition manner, the location of the temporary primary channel implicitly may indicate the location of the persistent channel, for example, in the channel distribution of the 320MHz bandwidth as shown in fig. 1b, if the enhanced TWT channel domain indicates that the temporary primary channel is channel 5, the secondary 80MHz channel where the temporary primary channel is located is the persistent channel.

In a third possible implementation, the enhanced TWT channel domain may include a dwell channel location domain and a channel bitmap domain (channel bitmap). The park channel location field may be used to indicate the location of an 80MHz channel that the first communication device requests or allows park (park), i.e., to indicate the location of an 80MHz park channel that the first communication device requests or allows park. The channel bitmap field may be used to indicate the location of an operating channel in an 80MHz channel where the first communication device requests or allows camping (park), i.e., the first communication device operates or transmits data on one or more 20MHz channels corresponding to one or more bits of set 1 in the channel bitmap field. One bit in the channel bitmap field corresponds to one 20MHz channel.

In the embodiment of the present application, different STAs are made to reside in different frequency domain segments by enhancing the TWT channel domain, so as to support the signaling transmission mode of the multi-segment U-SIG and EHT-SIG shown in fig. 2.

Alternatively, if there is only 1 bit, position 1, in the channel bitmap field, it may indicate that the operating bandwidth requested or allowed by the first communication device is 20 MHz. If the channel bit map field exceeds 1 bit position 1, it may indicate that the first communication device requests or allows the use of an operating bandwidth greater than 20 MHz. When the channel bitmap field exceeds 1 bit position 1, the size of the working bandwidth needs to be further indicated through the working bandwidth indication, that is, the size of the working bandwidth is indicated to be any one of 80MHz,160MHz,240MHz and 320 MHz.

The channel bitmap field may also be referred to as a bitmap field, and the specific names of the channel bitmap field and the channel bitmap field are not limited in this embodiment.

Optionally, the enhanced TWT channel domain may further include an operating bandwidth indication domain. The operating bandwidth indication field may be used to indicate the operating bandwidth that the first communication device requests or allows to employ. The operating bandwidth requested or allowed to be employed by the first communications device may be greater than or equal to the bandwidth of the camping channel requested or allowed to be employed by the first communications device.

Optionally, the length of the enhanced TWT channel field may be 1 byte, i.e. 8 bits. The length of the channel location field may be 2 bits, the length of the channel bitmap field may be 4 bits, and the length of the operating bandwidth indication field may be 2 bits. The channel bitmap domain of the embodiment of the application multiplexes the bitmap form of the TWT channel domain in IEEE802.11ax to indicate the working channel in the 80MHz resident channel in the channel with the bandwidth larger than 160MHz, can fully utilize the 8-bit resource of the enhanced TWT channel domain, and simultaneously indicates the resident channel, the working channel in the resident channel and the working bandwidth information.

Referring to fig. 7d, fig. 7d is a fourth schematic diagram of the enhanced TWT channel domain provided in the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 7d, the enhanced TWT channel domain includes a 2-bit 80MHz location domain, a 4-bit channel bitmap domain, and a 2-bit operating bandwidth indication domain. The value meaning of the 80MHz location domain can be referred to table 1, the value meaning of the working bandwidth indication domain can be referred to table 3, and the value meaning of the channel bitmap domain can be referred to table 5. It can be understood that table 5 is only an exemplary illustration, and the embodiment of the present application does not limit the corresponding order between the values and meanings of the channel bitmap fields.

Table 5: meaning description of channel bitmap field

In a fourth possible implementation, the enhanced TWT channel domain may include a dwell channel location domain, a content channel 1 (CC 1) location domain (CC1 location), and a content channel 2 location domain (CC2 location). The park channel location field may be used to indicate the location of an 80MHz channel that the first communication device requests or allows park (park), i.e., to indicate the location of an 80MHz park channel that the first communication device requests or allows park. The content channel 1 location field and the content channel 2 location field may be used to indicate the channel location of content channel 1 and content channel 2, respectively, within the 80MHz channel that the first communication device requests or allows to camp on.

The location of the content channel herein may refer to the location of a 20MHz channel that carries a portion of the resource scheduling information in the data transmission by the first communication device.

Optionally, the enhanced TWT channel domain may further include an operating bandwidth indication domain. The operating bandwidth indication field may be used to indicate the operating bandwidth that the first communication device requests or allows to employ.

Optionally, the length of the enhanced TWT channel field may be 1 byte, i.e. 8 bits. The length of the dwell channel location field, the content channel 1 location field, the content channel 2 location field, and the operating bandwidth indication field may all be 2 bits.

Referring to fig. 7e, fig. 7e is a fifth schematic diagram of the enhanced TWT channel domain provided in the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 7e, the enhanced TWT channel domain includes a 2-bit 80MHz location domain, a 2-bit content channel 1 location domain, a 2-bit content channel 2 location domain, and a 2-bit operating bandwidth indication domain. According to the embodiment of the application, the content channel position domain is used for indicating which 20MHz channels in the 80MHz resident channel have data transmission in the subsequent data transmission process, so that a receiving end for data transmission is informed of which 20MHz channels to listen to signals, and normal data communication is ensured.

The value meaning of the 80MHz location domain can be referred to table 1, and the value meaning of the working bandwidth indication domain can be referred to table 3. Since the resource indication information of the first communication device can be stored in CC1 and CC2, and in an 80MHz channel range, 4 20MHz carriers CC1, CC2, CC1, and CC2 from low to high in absolute frequency. Therefore, CC1 is carried on the 1 st and 3 rd 20MHz channels within one 80MHz channel; the CC2 is carried on the 2 nd and 4 th 20MHz channels within one 80MHz channel. Therefore, the value of the content channel 1 location field can be referred to the following table 6, and the value of the content channel 2 location field can be referred to the following table 7. It is understood that tables 6 and 7 are only exemplary illustrations, and the embodiment of the present application does not limit the correspondence order between the values and meanings of the location fields of the content channel 1 and the correspondence order between the values and meanings of the location fields of the content channel 2.

Table 6: description of the value meaning of the CC1 position field

Table 7: description of the value meaning of the CC2 position field

It can be understood that, in general, when an AP transmits data, at least one CC1 and one CC2 need to be guaranteed to exist, so that a STA can acquire all resource allocation information. However, for the STA in the 20MHz operating mode, it is only necessary to ensure that there is one CC1 or one CC2 when the AP sends data, so in this embodiment, there is at least one CC1 or at least one CC2 in the 80MHz indicated by the "80 MHz location domain", that is, there is at least one 20MHz channel in the 80MHz indicated by the "80 MHz location domain" to transmit data in the subsequent data transmission process. In other words, as shown in tables 6 and 7, the values of the CC1 location field and the CC2 location field in the embodiment of the present application cannot be 00 at the same time.

Optionally, the content channel 1 location field and the content channel 2 location field may be indicated by 1 bit respectively; the camping channel position field and the working bandwidth indication field can be indicated by 2 bits; the remaining 2 bits may be reserved bits. If the content channel 1 location field is set to 1, it represents the 1 st 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the dwell channel location field; if the content channel 1 location field is set to 0, it represents the 3 rd 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the dwell channel location field. Similarly, if content channel 2 location field is set to 1, it represents the 2 nd 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the dwell channel location field; if the content channel 2 location field is set to 0, it represents the 4 th 20MHz of the 80MHz indicated by the dwell channel location field. It can be understood that, in the embodiment of the present application, the corresponding order between the value and the meaning of the content channel 1 location field is not limited, for example, the content channel 1 location field has a location 0, which indicates the 3 rd 20MHz of the 80MHz indicated by the camping channel location field; content channel 1 location field 1, representing the 1 st 20MHz of 80MHz indicated by the dwell channel location field. Similarly, the embodiment of the present application does not limit the corresponding sequence between the value and the meaning of the location domain of the content channel 2. It is also understood that if the content channel 1 location field is empty, it may indicate that no CC1 is present; if the content channel 2 location field is empty, it may indicate that no CC2 is present.

In a fifth possible implementation, the enhanced TWT channel field may be used to indicate the location of all 20MHz operating channels that the first communication device requests or allows to employ. The enhanced TWT channel domain may be represented using a 2-byte (i.e., 16-bit) bitmap. Specifically, a bit position 1 in the enhanced TWT channel domain indicates that the 20MHz channel corresponding to the bit position of the bit position 1 is an operating channel requested or allowed by the first communication device. The embodiment of the application indicates the working channel in the channel with the bandwidth larger than 160MHz through the bitmap with 2 bytes (namely 16 bits), and solves the problem that the TWT channel domain of IEEE802.11ax cannot indicate the working channel with the bandwidth larger than 160 MHz.

For example, the 20MHz with the lowest frequency in the whole bandwidth (here, 320MHz) is the first 20MHz channel, then each 20MHz with gradually increasing frequency is the 2 nd 20MHz channel, the 3 rd 20MHz channel, and so on. Assuming that the enhanced TWT channel domain takes the value of 0010110101011001, it indicates that the operating channels requested or allowed by the first communication device are the 1 st, 4 th, 7 th, 5 th, 9 th, 11 th, 12 th and 14 th 20MHz channels. As another example, assuming that the enhanced TWT channel domain takes the value of 0010000001001001, it indicates that the operating channels requested or allowed by the first communication device are the 1 st, 4 th, 7 th and 14 th 20MHz channels.

In a sixth possible implementation, the enhanced TWT channel field may be used to indicate the location of a temporary primary channel (or a temporary primary 20MHz channel) on which the first communication device requests or allows camping. The enhanced TWT channel field may be represented by a 2-byte (i.e. 16-bit) bitmap, and there is only one bit position 1 in the enhanced TWT channel field, and the 20MHz channel corresponding to the bit position 1 is a temporary primary channel requested or allowed to reside by the first communication device. The 80MHz channel on which the temporary primary channel resides may be an 80MHz camping channel that the first communication device requests or allows camping. It can be understood that in the embodiment of the present application, there are 1 temporary primary channel in one 80MHz for one STA or multiple STAs.

For example, the 20MHz with the lowest frequency in the whole bandwidth (here, 320MHz) is the first 20MHz channel, then each 20MHz with gradually increasing frequency is the 2 nd 20MHz channel, the 3 rd 20MHz channel, and so on. Similarly, the lowest frequency 80MHz in the whole bandwidth (here, 320MHz) is used as the first 80MHz channel, and then each 80MHz with gradually increasing frequency is used as the 2 nd 80MHz channel, the 3 rd 80MHz channel, and so on. Assuming that the value of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 0000000001000000, it means that the temporary primary channel is the 7 th 20MHz channel, and the persistent channel is the 2 nd 80MHz channel. For another example, if the value of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 0001000000000000, it indicates that the temporary primary channel is the 13 th 20MHz channel, and the persistent channel is the 4 th 80MHz channel.

Optionally, the enhanced TWT channel field may be used to indicate a location of a camping channel where the first communication device requests or allows camping. The enhanced TWT channel domain may be represented by a 2-byte (i.e. 16-bit) bitmap, and only a certain 80MHz channel in the enhanced TWT channel domain corresponds to 4-bit position 1, and the 80MHz channel is a dwell channel.

For example, the lowest frequency 80MHz in the whole bandwidth (here, 320MHz) is used as the first 80MHz channel, then each 80MHz channel with gradually increasing frequency is sequentially used as the 2 nd 80MHz channel, the 3 rd 80MHz channel, and so on. If the value of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 0000111100000000, the resident channel is a3 rd 80MHz channel; if the value of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 0000000011110000, the resident channel is a2 nd 80MHz channel; if the value of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 1111000000000000, the resident channel is represented as a4 th 80MHz channel; if the value of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 0000000000001111, it indicates that the camping channel is the 1 st 80MHz channel.

In summary, in the six possible embodiments, if the enhanced TWT channel field does not indicate the operating bandwidth requested or allowed by the first communication device, the operating bandwidth (operating bandwidth) information may be indicated by other indication information, such as an Operating Mode Indication (OMI) control field or an operating Element (operating Element) field. Of course, in the six alternative embodiments, if the enhanced TWT channel domain already indicates the operating bandwidth requested or allowed by the first communication device, the operating bandwidth (operating bandwidth) information does not need to be indicated by other indication information.

It can be understood that the above six possible embodiments are applicable to not only the channel indication with the bandwidth greater than 160MHz, but also the channel indication with the bandwidth less than 160MHz, or 160 MHz.

In some possible embodiments, if the enhanced TWT channel domain is represented by 1 byte, i.e. 8 bits, the structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain may refer to any one of the descriptions of the first possible embodiment to the fourth possible embodiment, and will not be described herein again. Referring to fig. 8a, fig. 8a is a first schematic diagram of a TWT element field in a TWT frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 8a, the TWT element field includes an element identification field (element ID), a length field (length), a control field (control), and a TWT parameter information field. Wherein the control field comprises a 1-bit "> 160MHz indication field" and other fields and reserved bits (see fig. 8a in particular). The TWT parameter information field includes a 1-byte (i.e., 8-bit) enhanced TWT channel field and other fields (see fig. 8a in particular). The embodiment of the application multiplexes the TWT frame in IEEE802.11ax as much as possible, does not change the frame structure of the TWT frame (here, the TWT request frame and/or the TWT response frame) in IEEE802.11ax, does not increase the length of the TWT frame, and realizes channel indication under larger bandwidth (such as 240MHz and 320MHz) by changing the meaning of the TWT channel domain in IEEE802.11ax, thereby saving signaling overhead and improving compatibility.

Optionally, if the enhanced TWT channel domain is represented by 2 bytes, that is, 16 bits, the structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain may refer to any one of the descriptions of the fifth possible embodiment to the sixth possible embodiment, and will not be described herein again. Referring to fig. 8b, fig. 8b is a second schematic diagram of a TWT element field in a TWT frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 8b, the TWT element field includes an element identification field (element ID), a length field (length), a control field (control), and a TWT parameter information field. Wherein, the control field includes a 1-bit "> 160MHz indication field" and other indication fields and reserved bits (see fig. 8b in particular). The TWT parameter information field includes a 2-byte (i.e., 16-bit) enhanced TWT channel field and other indication fields (see fig. 8b in particular). The embodiment of the application does not change the frame structure of the TWT frame (here, the TWT request frame and/or the TWT response frame) in the IEEE802.11ax, and realizes the indication of the working channel under larger bandwidth (such as 160MHz,240MHz and 320MHz) by increasing the length of the TWT channel domain in the IEEE802.11ax and multiplexing the meaning of the TWT channel domain in the IEEE802.11 ax.

Optionally, if the TWT parameter information field further includes a temporary primary channel location field, the structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel field may refer to the corresponding description in the fifth possible implementation, and are not described herein again. The temporary primary channel location field may be used to indicate the location of the temporary primary channel. The 80MHz channel on which the temporary primary channel resides may be an 80MHz camping channel that the first communication device requests or allows camping. The temporary primary channel location field may be before the enhanced TWT channel field or after the enhanced TWT channel field, which is not limited in this embodiment of the application. This temporary primary channel location field may be referred to as a temporary primary 20MHz location field (temporal P20 location).

Specifically, the length of the temporary primary 20MHz location field may be 4 bits, and the length of the enhanced TWT channel field may be 2 bytes, i.e., 16 bits. In the case that the TWT parameter information field includes both the temporary primary channel location field of 4 bits and the enhanced TWT channel field of 2 bytes, the TWT frame may indicate both the temporary primary channel and the operating channel at a bandwidth greater than 160 MHz. Referring to fig. 8c, fig. 8c is a third schematic diagram of a TWT element field in a TWT frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 8c, the TWT element field includes an element identification field (element ID), a length field (length), a control field (control), and a TWT parameter information field. Wherein, the control field includes a 1-bit "> 160MHz indication field" and other indication fields and reserved bits (see fig. 8c in particular). The TWT parameter information field includes a 2-byte (i.e., 16-bit) enhanced TWT channel field and a 4-bit temporary primary 20MHz location field, as well as other indication fields (see fig. 8c in particular). The embodiment of the application changes the frame structure of the TWT frame (here, the TWT request frame and/or the TWT response frame) in IEEE802.11ax, increases the length of the TWT frame in IEEE802.11ax, and indicates the position of the temporary main channel in the channel with the bandwidth larger than 160MHz by adding the temporary main 20MHz position domain in the TWT frame in IEEE802.11 ax.

In some possible embodiments, if the first communication device is a STA, the second communication device may be an AP. The TWT frame is a TWT request frame, and the STA sends the TWT request frame to the AP for requesting one or more of the position of a resident channel, the position of a temporary main channel and the working bandwidth of the STA; after the AP receives the TWT request frame, the AP may send a TWT response frame back to the STA to grant or deny the information indicated by the TWT request frame for communication, or the TWT response frame carries the modified indication information.

In other possible embodiments, if the first communication device is an AP, the second communication device may be a STA. In the first example: the TWT frame is a TWT response frame, and the AP may receive a TWT request frame sent by the STA before sending the TWT response frame. In example two: the AP directly transmits the TWT frame indicating one or more of the position of the resident channel, the position of the temporary primary channel and the working bandwidth of the STA without the STA transmitting the TWT request frame.

In example three: the TWT frame is a TWT response frame, and the AP sends a TWT request frame to the STA for suggesting one or more of the position of a resident channel, the position of a temporary main channel and the working bandwidth of the STA; after receiving the TWT request frame sent by the AP, the STA returns a TWT response frame to the AP to grant or deny the communication using the information indicated by the TWT request frame, or the TWT response frame carries the modified indication information.

Wherein, because the data transmission is bidirectional, the request can be made by anyone. The STA and the AP are only schematic diagrams, and more broadly, a party sending the TWT request is called a TWT requesting STA (which may be an AP or a non-AP STA, and is collectively referred to as an STA); the party that sends the TWT response is called a TWT responding STA.

In some possible implementations, the first communication device and the second communication device may negotiate one or more of a location of the park channel, a location of the temporary primary channel, and an operating bandwidth through multiple rounds of interaction. For example, after the step S202, the first communication device and the second communication device negotiate a channel position of the camping channel, a channel position of the temporary primary channel, or an operating bandwidth through one round of interaction, thereby completing TWT establishment.

In the embodiment of the application, on one hand, channel indication information is carried in the enhanced TWT channel domain, so that both the transmitting and receiving parties in data transmission know where the resident channel is, and thus, the signaling of the transmitting and receiving parties can be accurately acquired on the resident 80MHz channel, and data is analyzed according to the signaling information, thereby supporting the transmission of PPDU shown in fig. 2, improving the transmission efficiency and reducing the signaling overhead. On the other hand, preamble puncturing transmission under a multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism is supported by indicating a temporary main channel in an 80MHz dwell channel, that is, when an available channel is discontinuous due to unavailability (for example, occupied or interfered) of a part of 20MHz channels in the 80MHz dwell channel, both communication parties can still use other available channels for data transmission, thereby improving the utilization rate and flexibility of the channel.

EXAMPLE III

The embodiment of the application carries the channel indication information through the channel switching element field to realize the indication of the resident channel and/or the working bandwidth of the STA under larger bandwidth (such as 160MHz,240MHz and 320 MHz).

In some possible embodiments, for convenience of description, the AP is taken as the second communication device and the STA is taken as the first communication device.

Referring to fig. 9, fig. 9 is a third schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 9, a method for indicating a channel in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s301, STA generates frame carrying channel switching element field, and the channel switching element field carries channel indication information.

S302, the STA sends a frame carrying a channel switching element domain to the AP. Accordingly, the AP receives a frame carrying a channel switch element field.

Optionally, after receiving the frame carrying the channel switching element field sent by the STA, the AP may reply that the STA approves or rejects the request by acknowledging ACK or NACK, or, alternatively, replying with a TWT response frame.

Specifically, the STA sends any frame carrying a channel switch element field (channel switch element) to the AP, where the channel switch element field carries channel indication information. The channel switching element field may be used to indicate the location and operating bandwidth information of the camping channel desired by the STA. The frame carrying the channel switch element field includes: a channel switch request frame, an extended channel switch request frame, a channel switch announcement behavior frame, an extended channel switch announcement behavior frame, and the like. After receiving any frame carrying a channel switching element field sent by the STA, the AP may return a response frame to the STA, where the response frame is used to approve or reject the location and working bandwidth of the resident channel desired by the STA. The response frame may be an acknowledgement frame (e.g., ACK or NAK), or a TWT response frame, etc.

Optionally, referring to fig. 10, fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of an interaction between a STA and an AP based on a channel switching element according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 10, the STA transmits any one of a channel switching request frame, an extended channel switching request frame, a channel switching announcement behavior frame, and an extended channel switching announcement behavior frame, and the AP returns a response frame after receiving the frame transmitted by the STA, so as to grant or reject the camping channel and the working bandwidth indicated by the STA in the channel switching element field. It is understood that the bandwidth of the dwell channel may be 80 MHz.

Optionally, referring to fig. 11, fig. 11 is a schematic diagram of a channel switching element field according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 11, the channel switch element field includes an element identification, a length, a channel switch mode (channel switch mode), a new channel position (new channel number), and a channel switch count (channel switch count). Wherein the new channel position is the position of the camping channel desired by the STA.

Optionally, if the channel switching element field does not indicate the working bandwidth information desired by the STA, the STA may indicate the working bandwidth information via an OMI control field or an operation element field.

It can be understood that the embodiments of the present application are not only applicable to channel indication with a bandwidth greater than 160MHz, but also applicable to channel indication with a bandwidth less than 160MHz (e.g., 80MHz), or 160 MHz.

The embodiment of the application indicates the position of the resident channel in the channel with the bandwidth larger than 160MHz by multiplexing the new channel position of the channel switching element domain in IEEE802.11ax, so that both the transmitter and the receiver in data transmission know where the resident channel is, and thus, the signaling of the transmitter and the receiver can be accurately acquired on the resident 80MHz channel, the data of the transmitter and the receiver can be further analyzed according to the signaling information, the transmission of the PPDU shown in fig. 2 is supported, the transmission efficiency is improved, and the signaling overhead is reduced.

Example four

In the embodiment of the application, the indication of the camping channel, the temporary primary channel and/or the working bandwidth of the STA under a larger bandwidth (for example, 240MHz and 320MHz) is realized by carrying the channel indication information through an a-Control domain (a-Control).

Referring to fig. 12, fig. 12 is a fourth schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 12, a method for indicating a channel in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s401, a first communication device generates a frame carrying an enhanced A control domain, and the enhanced A control domain carries channel indication information.

S402, the first communication device sends the frame carrying the enhanced A control domain to the second communication device. Accordingly, the second communication device receives a frame carrying the enhanced a control field.

In some possible embodiments, the first communication device may be an AP or an STA; accordingly, the second communication device may be a STA or an AP. If the first communication device is an AP and the second communication device is an STA, the frame carrying the enhanced a control field is used to directly indicate or suggest a location of a camping channel, a location of a temporary primary channel, and/or operating bandwidth information of the STA. Optionally, the STA may return a response frame to the AP to approve or reject the AP's indication or recommendation. If the first communication device is an STA and the second communication device is an AP, the frame carrying the enhanced a control field may be used to indicate a location of a camping channel requested by the STA, a location of a temporary primary channel, and/or operating bandwidth information. Optionally, the AP may also return a response frame to the STA to grant or deny the STA's request.

For convenience of understanding, the first communication device is an STA, and the second communication device is an AP. Specifically, the STA sends any frame carrying an enhanced a control field to the AP, where the enhanced a control field may be used to indicate a location of a persistent channel, a location of a temporary primary channel, and/or working bandwidth information that the STA desires; after receiving any frame carrying the enhanced a control field sent by the STA, the AP may return a response frame to the STA, where the response frame is used to approve or reject the camping channel position and the working bandwidth desired by the STA. The enhanced a control field carries channel indication information, where the channel indication information is an enhanced TWT channel field, and the enhanced a control field may include a control identification field and an enhanced TWT channel field. The structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain may be described with reference to any one of the first possible implementation to the fourth possible implementation of example two, and will not be described herein again. The enhanced a control domain may be referred to as a resident a control domain, and the specific name of the enhanced a control domain is not limited in the embodiments of the present application. The embodiment of the application expands the enhanced TWT channel into the A control domain, can expand the bearing mode of the channel indication information and enriches the implementation modes of the channel indication method in the wireless local area network.

Referring to fig. 13, fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of an enhanced a-control domain provided by the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 13, an ID that is not used temporarily in the 802.11ax standard, for example, one of 7 to 14, is selected from the control IDs of the a control field (a-control) of ieee802.11ax to identify the enhanced a-control field, and 8 bits in the control information field are used as the enhanced TWT channel field.

It can be understood that the embodiments of the present application are not only applicable to channel indication with a bandwidth greater than 160MHz, but also applicable to channel indication with a bandwidth less than 160MHz (e.g., 80MHz), or 160 MHz.

In the embodiment of the application, channel indication information is carried on a Control information domain by multiplexing a frame structure of an A Control domain (A-Control) in IEEE802.11ax, and a transceiver in data transmission knows where a resident channel is by indicating the position of the resident channel of 80MHz, so that own signaling can be accurately acquired on the resident channel of 80MHz, and data is further analyzed according to the signaling information, thereby supporting the transmission of a PPDU shown in fig. 2, improving the transmission efficiency and reducing the signaling overhead. On the other hand, preamble puncturing transmission under a multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism is supported by indicating a temporary main channel in an 80MHz dwell channel, that is, when an available channel is discontinuous due to unavailability (for example, occupied or interfered) of a part of 20MHz channels in the 80MHz dwell channel, both communication parties can still use other available channels for data transmission, thereby improving the utilization rate and flexibility of the channel.

EXAMPLE five

In the embodiment of the application, channel indication information is carried by broadcasting a TWT (broadcast TWT) element field, and a camping channel, a temporary primary channel or a working bandwidth is negotiated with one or more STAs through one TWT element field, so that indications of the camping channel, the temporary primary channel and the working bandwidth of one or more STAs under an SST mechanism and/or a multi-segment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism are realized. Different from the second to fourth embodiments, the fifth embodiment may implement indication of the camping channel and the temporary primary channel of multiple STAs in one interaction, and the transmission efficiency is higher.

In some possible embodiments, for convenience of description, the following description takes an AP as a first communication device and an STA as a second communication device as an example.

Referring to fig. 14, fig. 14 is a fifth schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 14, the channel indication method in the wireless local area network of the embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s501, the AP generates a TWT setup frame including an enhanced TWT channel field and an association identifier of one or more STAs, where the enhanced TWT channel field carries channel indication information.

S502, the AP sends a TWT setup frame. Accordingly, the AP receives the TWT setup frame.

In some possible embodiments, the enhanced TWT channel domain may be used to indicate one or more of a location of the camping channel, a location of the temporary primary channel, and an operating bandwidth. In one example, the enhanced TWT channel domain carries channel indication information. The association identifier of the one or more STAs may be used to indicate to which STA the information indicated by the enhanced TWT channel field belongs, that is, to indicate the locations of the camping channel and the temporary primary channel of the one or more STAs.

In some possible embodiments, the TWT setup frame may be a broadcast frame, and the AP broadcasts and transmits the TWT setup frame. Accordingly, after each STA receives the TWT setup frame, the TWT setup frame may be parsed. If the TWT establishment frame is analyzed to contain the resident channel, the temporary primary channel and/or the working bandwidth information of the STA, the STA determines whether to approve the information indicated by the TWT establishment frame, and may wait for the AP to send a response scheduling frame, where the response scheduling frame is used to schedule the STA allocated with the resident channel to return to the response frame. The AP transmits a response schedule frame. Accordingly, after receiving the response loudness frame, the STA waits for a short interframe space (SIFS) and returns a response frame to the AP.

Specifically, if the response scheduling frame is a multicast (GCR) multi-user block acknowledgement request (MU-BAR) frame that allows retransmission, the response frame is a GCR Block Acknowledgement (BA) frame. Referring to fig. 15a, fig. 15a is a schematic diagram of an interaction between a GCR MU-BAR frame and a GCR BA frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 15a, after the AP transmits the TWT setup frame, it waits for a period of time to transmit a GCR MU-BAR frame to schedule STAs (e.g., STA1, STA2, and STA3) that are allocated with camping channel; the STA waits for a SIFS and then replies with a GCR BA frame for acknowledgement. According to the embodiment of the application, the confirmation process between the AP and the STA under the broadcast scene is realized through GCR MU-BAR/GCR BA.

And if the response scheduling frame is the trigger frame, the response frame is the TWT response frame. Referring to fig. 15b, fig. 15b is a schematic diagram of an interaction between a trigger frame and a TWT response frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 15b, after the AP transmits the TWT setup frame, it waits for a period of time to transmit a trigger frame to schedule STAs (e.g., STA1, STA2, and STA3) that are allocated with camping channel; the STA waits for a SIFS and then replies a TWT response frame for acknowledgement. The embodiment of the application also realizes the confirmation process between the AP and the STA in the broadcasting scene through the trigger frame/TWT response frame.

In some possible embodiments, the TWT element field of the TWT setup frame may include a TWT parameter information field. The TWT parameter information field may include one or more camping indication information fields (camping indication information fields), each of which includes an enhanced TWT channel field (e-TWT channel field), a STA number field (number), and N association identifier fields (AIDs). The structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain may refer to any one of the first possible implementation manner to the sixth possible implementation manner in the second embodiment of the present application, and are not described herein again. The STA number field may be used to indicate the number of stations camping on the channel indicated by the enhanced TWT channel field. The association identifier field may be used to indicate an association identifier of a station residing on a channel indicated by the enhanced TWT channel field, and a value of N is equal to a value of the STA number field. It is understood that in the embodiment of the present application, there are 1 temporary primary channel in one 80MHz for one or more STAs.

Optionally, the TWT element field may further include a residence indication presence field, where the residence indication presence field is used to indicate whether a residence indication information field exists in the TWT parameter information field. Optionally, the camping indication presence field may be carried in reserved bits of the TWT parameter information field.

Optionally, the TWT element field may indicate whether the camping indication information field exists by indicating that the camping indication exists, or may indicate by indicating that the large bandwidth indication field exists. In particular, the TWT element field may include a large bandwidth indication field for indicating whether a camping indication information field exists in the TWT parameter information field. Alternatively, the large bandwidth indication field may be carried in reserved bits of the TWT element field.

Optionally, if the first camping indication information field included in the TWT parameter information field corresponds to a first 80MHz channel, the second camping indication information field corresponds to a second 80MHz channel, and the third camping indication information field corresponds to a third 80MHz channel, and so on, each camping indication information field may include one STA number field and N associated identification fields, but not include the enhanced TWT channel field. It is understood that in this case, one camping indication information field can only indicate 80MHz camping channels of one or more STAs, and the temporary primary channel may be a 20MHz channel preset on each 80MHz channel, for example, the temporary primary channel is the 20MHz channel with the lowest frequency in each 80MHz channel. It can be further understood that if the number of STAs included in a certain camping indication information field is 0, it may indicate that no STA is camping on the 80MHz channel corresponding to the camping indication information field.

According to the embodiment of the application, the temporary main channels of the N STAs can be indicated for one 80MHz channel at the same time through one resident indication information domain. Further, in the embodiments of the present application, the indication of the temporary primary channel in multiple 80MHz channels may be completed through multiple resident indication information fields.

Alternatively, the TWT element field may include the following 2 frame structures.

(a) First frame structure of TWT element field

Specifically, the TWT element field includes an element identification field (element ID), a length field (length), a control field (control), and a TWT parameter information field. The TWT parameter information field includes a request type field (request type), one or more stay indication information fields. Each camping indication information field includes an enhanced TWT channel field, a number of STAs field, and one or more association identification fields. The request type field includes a park indication presence field (park indication presence field), which may be represented by a reserved bit (reserved) in the request type field, for example, the last 1-bit reserved bit in the request type field is used to represent the park indication presence field. For example, if the value of the resident indication existence field is 1, it indicates that a resident indication information field exists in the TWT parameter information field; if the value of the resident indication existence field is 0, it indicates that the resident indication information field does not exist in the TWT parameter information field, or indicates that the frame structure of the TWT parameter information field is the same as the frame structure of the broadcast TWT parameter information field in IEEE802.11 ax.

In general terms, the embodiments of the present application make the following changes based on the TWT element domain of IEEE802.11 ax: the TWT parameter information field is generally consistent with the broadcast TWT parameter set field (broadcast TWT parameter set field) of IEEE802.11ax, with the difference that: the last bit in the request type field (request type) of the original broadcast TWT parameter set field in IEEE802.11ax is a reserved bit (reserved), in the embodiment of the present application, the last bit is a residence indication existence field, and if the residence indication existence field takes a value of 0, it may indicate that other frame structures after the request type field are completely consistent with the broadcast TWT parameter set field of IEEE802.11 ax; if the value of the residence indication existence field is 1, it may indicate that a residence indication information field exists in the frame structure after the request type field, and the residence indication information field may be one or more.

Referring to fig. 16a, fig. 16a is a schematic diagram of a broadcast TWT element field according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 16a, the broadcast TWT element field includes an element identification field, a length field, a control field, and a TWT parameter information field, the TWT parameter information field includes a request type field including a dwell indication presence field and one or more dwell indication information fields including an enhanced TWT channel field, a number of STAs field, and one or more association identification fields. According to the embodiment of the application, the resident indication information domain is added in the TWT parameter information domain of IEEE802.11ax to realize that the AP negotiates a resident channel, a temporary main channel or a working bandwidth with one or more STAs at the same time, and the AP does not need to send channel indication information to each STA separately to negotiate the resident channel, the temporary main channel or the working bandwidth, so that the signaling overhead of the AP side is reduced.

(b) Second frame structure of TWT element field

Specifically, the TWT element field includes an element identification field, a length field, a control field, and a TWT parameter information field. The TWT parameter information field includes one or more dwell indication information fields. Each camping indication information field includes an enhanced TWT channel field, a number of STAs field, and one or more association identification fields. The control domain includes a large bandwidth indication domain for indicating whether a camping indication information domain exists in the TWT parameter information domain. The large bandwidth indication field may be represented by a reserved bit (reserved) in the control field, for example, a 1-bit reserved bit in the control field. For example, when the value of the large bandwidth indication field is 1, it indicates that a resident indication information field exists in the TWT parameter information field; and when the value of the large bandwidth indication domain is 0, the TWT parameter information domain does not exist in the resident indication information domain.

In general terms, the embodiments of the present application make the following changes based on the TWT element domain of IEEE802.11 ax: first, the original 1-bit reserved bit of IEEE802.11ax is used in the control domain as the large bandwidth indication domain. If the value of the large bandwidth indication field is 1, it may indicate that one or more camping indication information fields are included in the TWT parameter information field in the embodiment of the present application. If the large bandwidth indication field takes a value of 0, it may indicate that the TWT parameter information field of the embodiment of the present application is consistent with the TWT parameter information field of IEEE802.11 ax.

The large bandwidth indication field may be referred to as a "> 160MHz indication field (>160MHz indication)". The embodiment of the present application does not limit the specific name of the large bandwidth indication domain.

Referring to fig. 16b, fig. 16b is a schematic diagram of a TWT element field provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 16b, the control field in fig. 16b includes a "> 160MHz indication field," and the TWT parameter information field includes one or more camping indication information fields including an enhanced TWT channel field, a number of STAs field, and an association identification field of one or more stations camping on a channel indicated by the enhanced TWT channel field. The TWT element field in the embodiment of the present application is not limited to the TWT setup frame, and may be in other broadcast frames.

In some possible embodiments, if the TWT setup frame only indicates a camping channel, a temporary primary channel, and/or an operating bandwidth of an STA, which means that the AP negotiates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and/or the operating bandwidth with a single STA, in this case, the TWT parameter information field includes a camping indication information field, and the camping indication information field includes a TWT channel field, a STA number field, and an association identification field (optional field), and the value of the STA number field is 1, and the association identification field is an ID of a station camping on the camping channel. Optionally, in a case where the AP negotiates a dwell channel, a temporary primary channel, and/or a working bandwidth with a single STA, if the AP sends a TWT setup frame to the STA in a unicast manner, the dwell indication information field may not include the association identification field; if the AP transmits the TWT setup frame in a broadcast manner, the camping indication information field may include an association identification field.

The embodiment of the application carries the enhanced TWT channel domain and the association identifier of one or more STAs in the TWT establishment frame to realize the indication of the resident channel, the temporary primary channel and/or the working bandwidth of one or more STAs at the same time, and the efficiency is higher. Certainly, the scheme of the embodiment of the present application may support transmission of the fragment EHT-SIG, thereby improving transmission efficiency and reducing signaling overhead, and on the other hand, support preamble puncturing transmission in a data transmission process, that is, under the condition that a part of 20MHz channels in a resident 80MHz channel is unavailable (for example, occupied or interfered), resulting in discontinuous available frequency domain resource channels, both communication parties may still use other available channels for data transmission, thereby improving utilization rate and flexibility of the channels.

EXAMPLE six

In the embodiment of the application, channel indication information is carried by a multi-user request to send (MU-RTS) frame, and a persistent channel, a temporary primary channel, or a working bandwidth is negotiated with one or more STAs through one or more association identifiers in the MU-RTS frame, so that the indication of the persistent channel, the temporary primary channel, and the working bandwidth of one or more STAs under a multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism is realized.

Referring to fig. 17, fig. 17 is a sixth schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application. In the embodiment of the present application, a first communication device is taken as an AP, and a second communication device is taken as an STA. As shown in fig. 17, the method for indicating a channel in a wireless local area network according to the embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s601, the AP generates an MU-RTS frame including an enhanced TWT channel field carrying channel indication information and an association identification of one or more STAs.

S602, the AP sends an MU-RTS frame. Accordingly, the STA receives the MU-RTS frame.

Specifically, the AP sends a MU-RTS frame; accordingly, after receiving the MU-RTS frame, the STA returns a Clear To Send (CTS) frame to the AP. Since the MU-RTS frame is a special Trigger Frame (TF), the STA needs to reply with a CTS frame on the corresponding resource unit for acknowledgement. Referring to fig. 18, fig. 18 is a schematic diagram of an interaction between an MU-RTS frame and a CTS frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 18, the AP sends an MU-RTS frame, and the STA replies to a CTS frame after a short inter-frame space (SIFS) interval for confirmation. In one example, the transmitting AP of the MU-RTS frame confirms whether the channel indication is completed by confirming whether the STA replies to the CTS.

In some possible embodiments, the MU-RTS frame includes a common information (common information) field and one or more user information (user information) fields. The common information field of the MU-RTS frame includes a multi-segment indication field (multi-segment indication) that may be used to indicate whether an enhanced TWT channel field is included in the user information field. Each user information field of the MU-RTS frame comprises an enhanced TWT channel field and the association identification of one STA. The enhanced TWT channel field may be used to indicate one or more of a location of a camping channel, a location of a temporary primary channel, and an operating bandwidth associated with the identified STA in the user information field. The structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain may refer to any one of the first possible implementation manner to the sixth possible implementation manner of the second embodiment of the present application, and are not described herein again. In one example, the enhanced TWT channel domain carries channel indication information.

Colloquially, for the MU-RTS frame, if the multi-slice indication field is set to 0, it may indicate that the subsequent frame structure of the MU-RTS frame of the embodiment of the present application is completely consistent with IEEE802.11 ax; if the multi-slice indicates that the domain is set to 1, it may indicate that the corresponding modification of the user information field (i.e., the enhanced TWT channel domain) is in effect.

Optionally, the multi-segment indication field may be represented by an unused part of a common information field of the MU-RTS frame, and the enhanced TWT channel field may be represented by an unused part of a user information field of the MU-RTS frame.

Optionally, in the embodiment of the present application, 1 reserved bit may be selected from the common information field of the MU-RTS frame to be multiplexed into the multi-segment indication domain, and in the embodiment of the present application, 8 reserved bits may be selected from the user information field of the MU-RTS frame to be multiplexed into the enhanced TWT channel domain.

Referring to fig. 19a, fig. 19a is a schematic diagram of a common information field of an MU-RTS frame according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 19a, without changing the trigger type (trigger type) in the common information field, a certain 1-bit reserved bit in the common information field is multiplexed into a multi-slice indication field. Wherein, if the multi-slice indication field is set to 0, it indicates that the enhanced TWT channel field is not included in the user information field of the MU-RTS frame. If the multi-slice indication field is set to 1, it indicates that the enhanced TWT channel field is included in the user information field of the MU-RTS frame. It can be understood that, the corresponding relationship between the value and the meaning of the multi-segment indication domain is not limited in the embodiments of the present application.

Optionally, a new value is introduced into a trigger type field of the common information field of the MU-RTS frame, which indicates that the MU-RTS frame is a new trigger type (trigger type), for example, a trigger frame that carries information indicating a persistent channel.

Referring to fig. 19b, fig. 19b is a first schematic diagram of a user information field of an MU-RTS frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 19b, the reserved 8 bits in the user information field are multiplexed into the enhanced TWT channel domain. Understandably, the reserved 8 bits in the user information field can be consecutive 8 bits, thereby reducing the complexity of the STA to parse the MU-RTS frame.

In other possible embodiments, the user information field of the MU-RTS frame includes a multi-segment indication field and an enhanced TWT channel field. The multi-segment indication field and the enhanced TWT channel field may both be represented by a portion of the unused field in the user information field of the MU-RTS frame. Wherein, the length of the multi-slice indication field may be 1 bit, and the length of the enhanced TWT channel field may be 8 bits. The structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain may refer to any one of the first possible implementation manner to the fourth possible implementation manner of the second embodiment of the present application, and are not described herein again.

Referring to fig. 19c, fig. 19c is a second schematic diagram of a user information field of an MU-RTS frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 19c, the user information field includes a 1-bit multi-segment indication field and an 8-bit enhanced TWT channel field, as well as other fields (see fig. 19c in particular). The multi-slice indication field and the enhanced TWT channel field may be contiguous or non-contiguous.

According to the embodiment of the application, the confirmation flows of the MU-RTS frame structure and the MU-RTS/CTS in IEEE802.11ax are multiplexed, but the common information field and/or the user information field of the MU-RTS frame are/is changed, so that the temporary main channel, the resident channel and/or the working bandwidth indication of one or more STAs under larger bandwidth (such as 160MHz,240MHz and 320MHz) is realized, and the efficiency is improved.

EXAMPLE seven

The embodiment of the application carries channel indication information through a new trigger frame/action frame/MAC frame, and negotiates a camping channel, a temporary main channel or a working bandwidth with one or more STAs through one or more association identifiers in the new trigger frame/action frame/MAC frame, so that indication of the camping channel, the temporary main channel and/or the working bandwidth of one or more STAs under the mechanism of a multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism is realized.

Referring to fig. 20, fig. 20 is a seventh schematic flowchart of a channel indication method in a wireless local area network according to an embodiment of the present application. In the embodiment of the present application, an AP is taken as a first communication device, and an STA is taken as a second communication device. As shown in fig. 20, the channel indication method in the wireless local area network of the embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s701, the AP generates a first trigger frame including an enhanced TWT channel domain and association identifiers of one or more STAs, where the enhanced TWT channel domain carries channel indication information.

S702, the AP sends a first trigger frame. Accordingly, the STA receives the first trigger frame.

Specifically, the AP transmits a first trigger frame; correspondingly, after receiving the first trigger frame, the STA returns an ACK frame or a TWT response frame to the AP. The first trigger frame may be a trigger frame of a new trigger type, and the first trigger frame includes a common information field and one or more user information fields. Referring to fig. 21, fig. 21 is an interaction diagram of a first trigger frame and a response frame provided in the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 21, the AP sends the first trigger frame (i.e. new trigger frame), and the STA waits for an SIFS and then replies an ACK frame or a TWT response frame for acknowledgement. Optionally, after receiving the first trigger frame, the STA may send an ACK frame or a TWT response frame for acknowledgement on the 20MHz channel indicated in the user information field of the first trigger frame.

Optionally, the first trigger frame may be used to indicate a camping channel, a temporary primary channel, and/or an operating bandwidth of the STA. The trigger type (trigger type) of the first trigger frame is different from the trigger type of the trigger frame in IEEE802.11 ax. The first trigger frame may be referred to as a parking indication trigger frame, and the embodiment of the present application does not limit a specific name of the first trigger frame.

Referring to fig. 22, fig. 22 is a schematic diagram of a common information field of a first trigger frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 22, a new value meaning is introduced into a trigger type field included in a common information field of a trigger frame (here, a trigger frame in IEEE802.11 ax), for example, a value of the field is 10, which means that the trigger frame is a dwell indication trigger frame.

Optionally, each user information field of the first trigger frame may include an association identifier of the enhanced TWT channel domain and one STA. The enhanced TWT channel field may be used to indicate one or more of a location of a camping channel, a location of a temporary primary channel, and an operating bandwidth associated with the identified STA in the user information field. Wherein, if the length of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 1 byte, i.e., 8 bytes, the structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain can be described with reference to any one of the first possible implementation to the fourth possible implementation of example two. If the length of the enhanced TWT channel domain is 2 bytes, i.e., 16 bytes, the structure and meaning of the enhanced TWT channel domain can be described with reference to any one of the fifth possible implementation and the sixth possible implementation of example two.

Referring to fig. 23a, fig. 23a is a first schematic diagram of a user information field of a first trigger frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 23a, the user information field includes an association identifier of 12 bits, a resource unit allocation of 9 bits, an enhanced TWT channel indication field of 8 bits, and a reserved bit of 11 bits. Referring to fig. 23b, fig. 23b is a second schematic diagram of a user information field of a first trigger frame according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 23b, the user information field includes an association identifier of 12 bits, a resource unit allocation of 9 bits, a dwell channel bitmap field of 16 bits, and a reserved bit of 3 bits. Wherein, the resident channel bitmap field is an enhanced TWT channel field.

The embodiment of the application carries the channel indication information through the new trigger frame, has independent and clear meaning, and can realize the indication of the resident channel, the temporary main channel and/or the working bandwidth of one or more STAs.

As an optional embodiment, the embodiment of the present application carries channel indication information through a new behavior frame and an element field, and negotiates a camping channel, a temporary main channel, or an operating bandwidth with one or more STAs through one or more association identifiers in the new behavior frame, so as to implement indication of the camping channel, the temporary main channel, and/or the operating bandwidth of one or more STAs under the multi-slice EHT-SIG transmission mechanism. In this embodiment, an AP is taken as a first communication device, and an STA is taken as a second communication device.

Specifically, the AP sends a first frame comprising an enhanced TWT channel domain and association identifications of one or more STAs, wherein the enhanced TWT channel domain carries channel indication information; after receiving the first frame, the STA returns a response frame corresponding to the first frame to the AP.

In some possible embodiments, the first frame is a new behavior frame (action frame), and for convenience of description, the new behavior frame is referred to as the first behavior frame. The first action frame may be used to indicate a camping channel, a temporary primary channel, and/or an operating bandwidth of one or more STAs. The first action frame includes elements as shown in table 8 below. The first element of table 8 is a category field (category), which is an element that each behavior frame needs to have. The second element of table 8 is a type field (optional) indicating that the behavior of the first behavior frame is one of setup, teardown, and update information. The third element of table 8 is a token field (optional) for indicating which sub-sliced EHT-SIG configuration information is matched between the AP and the STA for setup, teardown, and update. The fourth element of table 8 is a multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field. The multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field is used to indicate a camping channel, a temporary primary channel, and/or an operating bandwidth of one or more STAs.

Table 8: element description of first action frame

Optionally, the multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field may include a multi-slice EHT-SIG set field. The multi-slice EHT-SIG set field may include one or more residence indication information fields, and the structure and meaning of the residence indication information field may refer to corresponding descriptions of the residence indication information field in the fifth embodiment of the present application, which are not described herein again. The multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field may also be referred to as an enhanced SST element field, and the specific name of the multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field is not limited in the embodiments of the present application.

Optionally, the multi-slice EHT-SIG set field may further include a start dwell time field and a dwell duration field, which respectively indicate a time when the AP expects the STA to start to dwell and a duration of dwell.

Referring to fig. 24, fig. 24 is a schematic diagram of a multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 24, the multi-slice EHT-SIG information element field includes an element identifier, a length, and a multi-slice EHT-SIG set field, which includes a start parking time field (start parking time), a parking duration field (parking duration), and one or more parking indication information fields.

Optionally, if the first behavior frame only indicates a camping channel, a temporary primary channel, and/or an operating bandwidth of one STA, that is, the AP negotiates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and/or the operating bandwidth with a single STA, the STA may acknowledge through the TWT response frame or the CTS frame, that is, the STA returns the TWT response frame or the CTS frame to the AP. If the first behavior frame indicates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel and/or the working bandwidth of a plurality of STAs, that is, the AP negotiates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel and/or the working bandwidth with a plurality of STAs at the same time, the AP may schedule the STAs to return a GCR BA frame for confirmation through the GCR MU-BAR frame, or the AP triggers the STAs to return a TWT response frame for confirmation through a trigger frame. After receiving the GCR MU-BAR frame, the STA returns a GCR BA frame to the AP; or after receiving the trigger frame, the STA returns a TWT response frame to the AP.

In other possible embodiments, the first frame may be a new Medium Access Control (MAC) frame, and for convenience of description, the new MAC frame is referred to as the first MAC frame. The first MAC frame is used to indicate a camping channel, a temporary primary channel, and/or an operating bandwidth of one or more STAs. The first MAC frame may include a multi-slice EHT-SIG aggregation field. The multi-slice EHT-SIG set domain may include one or more residence indication information domains, and the structure and meaning of the residence indication information domains may refer to corresponding descriptions of the residence indication information domains in the third embodiment of the present application, which are not described herein again.

Optionally, the acknowledgement method of the first MAC frame is the same as the acknowledgement method of the first behavior frame, and if the first MAC frame only indicates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and/or the operating bandwidth of one STA, that is, the AP negotiates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and/or the operating bandwidth with a single STA, the STA may acknowledge through the TWT response frame or the CTS frame. If the first MAC frame indicates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and/or the working bandwidth of multiple STAs, that is, the AP negotiates the camping channel, the temporary primary channel, and/or the working bandwidth with multiple STAs at the same time, the AP may schedule the STAs to return a GCR BA frame for acknowledgement through the GCR MU-BAR frame, or the AP triggers the STAs to return a TWT response frame for acknowledgement through a trigger frame.

The embodiment of the application carries the channel indication information through a new behavior frame or a MAC frame, has independent and clear meaning, and can realize the indication of the resident channel, the temporary main channel and/or the working bandwidth of one or more STAs under a multi-segment EHT-SIG transmission mechanism.

Practice eight

The embodiment of the present application further provides a puncturing information indicating method, which may indicate preamble puncturing (preamble puncturing) information with a larger bandwidth (for example, 240MHz and 320MHz) in an EHT-SIG of an 80MHz frequency domain segment, so as to support preamble puncturing transmission of IEEE802.11 be. It can be understood that the puncturing information indication method provided in the embodiment of the present application can be applied to be used in combination with any implementation of the first to seventh embodiments, for example, after the camping channel and the temporary primary channel are indicated by using any implementation, the method of the embodiment of the present application may be used to send a channel puncturing indication. It can also be understood that the punching indication method provided by the embodiment of the present application can also be used alone. The embodiment of the present application does not limit this.

Referring to fig. 25, fig. 25 is a schematic flowchart of a method for indicating puncturing information according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 25, taking an AP as a first communication device and an STA as a second communication device as an example, the puncturing information indication method provided in the embodiment of the present application includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s801, the AP sends a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) carrying puncturing information, wherein the puncturing information is used for indicating the preamble puncturing condition of a channel with the bandwidth being more than 160 MHz. Accordingly, the STA receives the PPDU.

S802, the STA analyzes the PPDU to obtain the preamble puncturing condition indicated by the puncturing information.

And S803, the STA receives data on the working channel according to the preamble puncturing condition.

In some possible embodiments, the AP transmits a ppdu (physical layer protocol data unit) carrying puncturing information; accordingly, after receiving the PPDU, the STA may analyze the PPDU to obtain a preamble puncturing condition indicated by the puncturing information, and may receive data on an operating channel according to the preamble puncturing condition.

In particular, the puncturing information may be used to indicate a preamble puncturing (puncturing) condition (including a puncturing pattern) for channels with bandwidths greater than 160 MHz. The puncturing information may be included in a universal signaling field (U-SIG), may be included in an EHT signaling field (EHT-SIG), may be included in part in the U-SIG, and may be included in another part in the EHT-SIG.

Referring to fig. 26a, fig. 26a is a first schematic diagram of the punching information provided in the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 26a, the puncturing information includes one bandwidth field and one or more puncturing information fields. The bandwidth field is used for indicating the bandwidth size of the data packet, and each puncturing information field is used for indicating the puncturing mode of one 80MHz channel. Each puncturing information field may be represented by 3 bits and the bandwidth field by 4 bits. It can be understood that the length of each field in the punching information is not limited in the embodiments of the present application. It is further understood that the bandwidth field and the puncturing information field in fig. 26a may be discontinuous or located in different locations, such as where the bandwidth field is located in the U-SIG and the puncturing information field is located in the EHT-SIG.

Referring to fig. 26b, fig. 26b is a second schematic diagram of the punching information provided in the embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 26b, the puncturing information includes one bandwidth field, one puncturing indication bitmap field, and one or more puncturing information fields. The bandwidth field is used for indicating the bandwidth size of the data packet, the puncturing indication bitmap field is used for indicating the positions of the 80MHz channels with the puncturing of the preamble, and each puncturing information field is used for indicating the puncturing mode in one 80MHz channel. The bandwidth domain may be represented by 4 bits and each puncturing information domain may be represented by 3 bits. The puncturing indication bitmap field may be represented by a fixed 4 bits, or the number of bits is equal to the number of 80MHz included in the entire bandwidth, for example, the entire bandwidth is 240MHz, and the length of the puncturing indication bitmap field is 240/80-3 bits. It can be understood that the length of each field in the punching information is not limited in the embodiments of the present application. It is further understood that the bandwidth field and the puncturing information field in fig. 26b may be discontinuous or located in different positions, such as the bandwidth field and the puncturing indication bitmap field being located in the U-SIG and the puncturing information field being located in the EHT-SIG.

Optionally, a bit of a set 1 in the puncturing indication bitmap field indicates that preamble puncturing is contained in an 80MHz channel corresponding to the set 1 bit; the bit set to 0 indicates that there is no preamble puncture in the 80MHz channel corresponding to the bit set to 0, i.e., all 20MHz channels in the 80MHz channel corresponding to the bit set to 0 can perform data transmission. Optionally, the number of the puncturing information fields is equal to the number of the puncturing indication bitmap field with a value of 1. For example, the lowest frequency 80MHz in the whole bandwidth is the first 80MHz, then the respective 80MHz with gradually increasing frequency are the 2 nd 80MHz, the 3 rd 80MHz, and so on. Assuming that the length of the puncturing indication bitmap field is 4 bits, and the value of the puncturing indication bitmap field is 0100, it indicates that the 3 rd 80MHz channel contains preamble puncturing, and no preamble puncturing exists in the 1 st, 2 nd and 4 th 80MHz channels. For another example, if the value of the puncturing indication bitmap field is 1010, it indicates that the 2 nd and 4 th 80MHz channels contain preamble puncturing, and the 1 st and 3 rd 80MHz channels do not contain preamble puncturing.

It is to be understood that if the puncturing indication bitmap field all takes a value of 0 (e.g., 0000), which indicates that no channel is punctured by the preamble in this case, the puncturing information may not include the puncturing information field in this case, or the puncturing information includes 0 puncturing information fields in this case, or the puncturing information includes one bandwidth field and one puncturing indication bitmap field in this case.

The values and meanings of the puncturing information fields shown in fig. 26a and 26b can be seen in table 9 below. It is understood that table 9 is only an exemplary illustration, and the values and meanings of the puncturing information field in practical application may be some or all of the entries listed in table 9.

Table 9: description of the value meaning of 80MHz punching information field

Value taking	The meaning is as follows: perforation mode (X stands for perforated, 1 stands for unperforated)
		0	X111
1	1X11
		2	11X1
3	111X
		4	XX11
5	11XX
		6	XXXX
7	Reservation

In other possible embodiments, the puncturing information may also be used to indicate a puncturing pattern in a 160MHz channel, and the value and meaning of the puncturing information field may refer to a partial bandwidth pattern of preamble puncturing in IEEE802.11ax, or refer to table 10 below.

Table 10: description of the value meaning of 160MHz punching information field

Value taking	The meaning is as follows: perforation mode (X stands for perforated, 1 stands for unperforated)
		0	X111 1111
1	1X11 1111
		2	11X1 1111
3	111X 1111
		4	1111X111
5	1111 1X11
		6	1111 11X1
7	1111 111X
		8	XX11 1111
9	11XX 1111
		10	1111XX11
11	1111 11XX
		12	1111XXXX
13	XXXX 1111
		14-15	Reservation

According to the embodiment of the application, preamble puncturing (preamble puncturing) information with larger bandwidth (such as 240MHz and 320MHz) is indicated in EHT-SIG and/or U-SIG of an 80MHz frequency domain segment, so that IEEE802.11be preamble puncturing transmission is realized.

The foregoing details the methods provided herein, and in order to better implement the above aspects of the embodiments of the present disclosure, the embodiments of the present disclosure also provide corresponding apparatuses or devices.

Referring to fig. 27, fig. 27 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application. Due to the difference in the degree of integration, the communication apparatus 100 may comprise one or more of the components shown in fig. 27, which may be used to perform the methods or steps related to the first communication device in the above embodiments. The components shown in fig. 27 may include: a processor 102, a computer-readable storage medium/memory 103, a transceiver 104, and a bus 101. Wherein the processor, transceiver, computer readable storage medium, etc. are connected by a bus. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the specific connection medium between the above components.

In an example, the communication apparatus 100 may be a complete device, and implement the method in the foregoing embodiments, for example, the device may include: a processor, a transceiver, etc. In another example, the communication apparatus 100 may be a chip system or a processing system, and is applied to a complete device to control the complete device to implement the method in the foregoing embodiments. The system-on-chip or processing system may further include: the processor, optionally, may also include a computer-readable storage medium/memory.

In one possible implementation, the communication apparatus 100 may be configured to be a first communication device (e.g., an AP or STA in fig. 3) in the aforementioned wireless communication system. The communication apparatus 100 may perform the methods and steps of any of the above embodiments relating to the first communication device.

For example, the transceiver 104 may be used to support communication between a first communication device and a second communication device in the above embodiments, and may perform the transceiving process of fig. 5,6, 9, 12, 14, 17, 20, or 25 involving the first communication device and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

For example, the transceiver 104 may be configured to perform S102 in fig. 5, or S202 in fig. 6, or S402 in fig. 12, or S502 in fig. 14, or S602 in fig. 17, or S702 in fig. 20, or S801 in fig. 25; as another example, transceiver 104 may be configured to perform receiving a frame carrying a channel switch element field in S302 of fig. 9. Of course, the transceiver 104 may also be used to perform other processes and methods of the techniques described herein.

The processor 102 is configured to control and manage the actions of the first communication device, perform the processing performed by the first communication device in the above embodiments, may execute the processing procedures related to the first communication device in fig. 5, fig. 6, fig. 9, fig. 12, fig. 14, fig. 17, fig. 20, or fig. 25 and/or other procedures used in the technology described in this application, may be responsible for managing the bus, and may execute programs or instructions stored in the memory. For example, the processor 102 may be configured to generate the information or frame transmitted in S102, S202, S402, S502, S602, S702, or S801, and may be configured to parse the information or frame received in S302. Of course, the processor 102 may also be used to perform other processes and methods of the techniques described herein.

Optionally, the communication device 100 includes a computer-readable storage medium/memory 103, and a program, an instruction or data for executing the technical solution of the present application is stored in the computer-readable storage medium/memory 103. For example, the computer-readable storage medium/memory 103 may contain instructions sufficient to allow the communication device 100 to perform the methods and functions of any of the embodiments described above.

Optionally, the communication apparatus 100 may include input and output devices, such as a display, a keyboard light.

In another possible implementation, the communication apparatus 100 may be configured to be a chip or a processing system in a first communication device (e.g., an AP or STA in fig. 3) in the aforementioned wireless communication system. The overall device on which the chip or processing system is mounted may perform the methods and steps described above in any of the embodiments relating to the first communication device.

The communication apparatus 100 includes: the processor, optionally, also includes a computer-readable storage medium/memory 103. The computer readable storage medium/memory 103 stores therein programs, instructions or data for executing the technical solutions of the present application. For example, the computer-readable storage medium/memory 103 may contain instructions sufficient to allow the communication device 100 to perform the methods and functions of any of the embodiments described above. For example, the processor reads and executes the instructions to control the apparatus on which the processing system is installed to implement the method and steps related to the first communication device in any of the above embodiments.

Optionally, the processor may include a processing circuit and a communication interface circuit, wherein the processing circuit may be configured to generate the information or frame transmitted in S102, S202, S402, S502, S602, or S702, and may be configured to parse the information or frame received in S302. Of course, the processing circuitry may also be used to perform other processes and methods of the techniques described herein. The communication interface circuit may be configured to output information generated by the processing circuit, and may be configured to input information received by the device or instructions in the memory to the processing circuit for processing.

Alternatively, the computer readable storage medium/memory 103 may be an internal memory located inside the processor, or may be an external memory located outside the processor and coupled to the processor.

It is understood that fig. 27 merely illustrates a simplified design of the communication device 100, and in practical applications, the communication device 100 may include any number of transceivers, processors, memories, etc., and all communication devices 100 that may implement the present application are within the scope of the present application.

Referring to fig. 28, fig. 28 is another schematic structural diagram of the communication device according to the embodiment of the present application. Due to the difference in the degree of integration, the communication apparatus 200 may comprise one or more of the components shown in fig. 28, which may be used to perform the methods or steps related to the second communication device in the above embodiments. The components shown in fig. 28 may include: a processor 202, a computer-readable storage medium/memory 203, a transceiver 204, an input device 205, an output device 206, and a bus 201. Wherein the processor, transceiver, computer readable storage medium, input device, output device, etc. are connected by a bus. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the specific connection medium between the above components.

In an example, the communication apparatus 200 may be a complete device, and implement the method in the foregoing embodiments, for example, the device may include: a processor, a transceiver, an input-output device, etc. In another example, the communication apparatus 200 may be a chip system or a processing system, and is applied in a complete device, and the control complete device implements the method in the foregoing embodiments, and the chip system or the processing system may include: the processor, optionally, may also include a computer-readable storage medium/memory.

In a possible implementation manner, the communication apparatus 200 may be configured as a second communication device (AP or STA in fig. 3) in the foregoing wireless communication system.

The transceiver 204 may be used to support communication between the second communication device and the first communication device described above, may perform the communication or interaction process of fig. 5,6, 9, 12, 14, 17, 20, or 25 involving the second communication device, and/or other processes for the techniques described herein. For example, the transceiver 204 may be used to perform receiving the information in S102 of fig. 5, or S202 of fig. 6, or S302 of fig. 9, or S402 of fig. 12; for another example, the transceiver 204 may also be used to receive information or frames in S502 of fig. 14, or S602 of fig. 17, or S702 of fig. 20, or S801 of fig. 25.

The processor 202 is configured to control and manage the operation of the second communication device, is configured to perform the processing performed by the STA in the above embodiments, may perform the processing procedure related to the second communication device in fig. 5, fig. 6, fig. 9, fig. 12, fig. 14, fig. 17, fig. 20, or fig. 25, may be responsible for managing the bus, and may execute programs or instructions stored in the memory. For example, the processor 202 may be configured to parse the information or frame received in S502, S602, S702, or S801, and may generate the information or frame in S102, S202, S302, or S402; for another example, the processor 202 may be further configured to perform step S802 and step S803. Of course, processor 202 may also be used to perform other processes and methods of the techniques described herein.

Optionally, the computer readable storage medium/memory 203 stores programs, instructions and data for executing the technical solution of the present application. For example, the computer-readable storage medium/memory 203 may contain instructions sufficient to allow the communication device 200 to perform the functions of any of the embodiments described above relating to a station.

Optionally, the communication apparatus 200 may further include an input device 205 and an output device 206, wherein the input device 205 and the output device 206 may be a display, a keyboard, an audio interface, and the like.

In another possible implementation, the communication apparatus 200 may be configured as a chip or a processing system in the second communication device in the aforementioned wireless communication system. The overall device on which the chip or processing system is mounted may perform the methods and steps described above in any of the embodiments relating to the second communication device.

The communication apparatus 200 includes: the processor, optionally, also includes a computer-readable storage medium/memory 203. The computer-readable storage medium/memory 203 stores therein programs, instructions or data for executing the technical solutions of the present application. For example, the computer-readable storage medium/memory 203 may contain instructions sufficient to allow the apparatus 200 to perform the methods and functions in any of the embodiments described above. For example, the processor reads and executes the instructions to control the device in which the processing system is installed to implement the methods and steps related to the STA in any of the above embodiments.

Optionally, the processor may include a processing circuit and a communication interface circuit, wherein the processing circuit may be configured to generate the information or frame transmitted in S102, S202, S302, or S402, may be configured to parse the information or frame received in S502, S602, S702, or S801, and may further perform step S802 and step S803. Of course, the processing circuitry may also be used to perform other processes and methods of the techniques described herein. The communication interface circuit is used for outputting the information generated by the processing circuit, and can also be used for inputting the information received by the equipment or the instruction in the memory into the processing circuit for processing.

Alternatively, the computer readable storage medium/memory 203 may be an internal memory located inside the processor, or may be an external memory located outside the processor and coupled to the processor.

It is understood that fig. 28 merely illustrates a simplified design of the communication device 200, and in practical applications, the communication device 200 may include any number of transceivers, processors, memories, etc., and all communication devices 200 that can implement the present application are within the scope of the present invention.

The Processor involved in the apparatus 100 or 200 may be a general-purpose Processor, such as a general-purpose Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Network Processor (NP), a microprocessor, etc., or may be an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or one or more integrated circuits for controlling the execution of the program according to the present application. The device can also be a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), or other Programmable logic devices, discrete gates or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components. The controller/processor can also be a combination of computing functions, e.g., comprising one or more microprocessors, DSPs, and microprocessors, among others. Processors typically perform logical and arithmetic operations based on program instructions stored within memory.

The computer-readable storage media/memories referred to above may also hold an operating system and other application programs. In particular, the program may include program code including computer operating instructions. More specifically, the memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), other types of static storage devices that store static information and instructions, a Random Access Memory (RAM), other types of dynamic storage devices that store information and instructions, a disk memory, and so forth. The memory may be a combination of the above memory types. And the computer-readable storage medium/memory described above may be in the processor, may be external to the processor, or distributed across multiple entities including the processor or processing circuitry. The computer-readable storage medium/memory described above may be embodied in a computer program product. By way of example, a computer program product may include a computer-readable medium in packaging material.

Referring to fig. 29, fig. 29 is a schematic structural diagram of a channel indicating device according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 29, the channel indicating apparatus 1 may include: a transceiver 11 and a processing unit 12.

In a possible implementation manner, the channel indication apparatus 1 may be configured as the first communication device in the foregoing first embodiment, second embodiment, and fourth embodiment, or a chip system or a chip in the first communication device. The channel indication apparatus 1 may perform the method and steps related to the first communication device in any of the first, second and fourth embodiments.

For example, the transceiving unit 11 may be configured to support communication between a first communication device and a second communication device in the first, second, and fourth embodiments, and may perform transceiving processes related to the first communication device in fig. 5,6, or 12 and/or other processes for the technology described in this application.

In one example, the transceiving unit 11 may be configured to transmit channel indication information, a TWT frame, or a frame carrying an enhanced a control field. The channel indication information, the TWT frame, and the structure of the enhanced a control field may refer to the description in the corresponding embodiments above. For example, the transceiver unit may be configured to perform S102 or S202 or S402. The processing unit is used for generating the signaling or data input or output by the transceiving unit. For example, the information or frame in S101, S201, or S401 is generated.

In another possible implementation manner, the channel indicating apparatus 1 may be configured as the second communication device in the foregoing first embodiment, second embodiment, and fourth embodiment, or a chip system or a chip in the second communication device. The channel indication apparatus 1 may perform the method and steps related to the second communication device in any of the first, second and fourth embodiments.

For example, the transceiving unit 11 may be configured to support communication between the second communication device and the first communication device in the first, second, and fourth embodiments, and may perform transceiving processes related to the second communication device in fig. 5,6, or 12 and/or other processes for the technology described in this application.

In one example, the transceiving unit 11 may be configured to receive channel indication information, a TWT frame, or a frame carrying an enhanced a control field. The channel indication information, the TWT frame, and the structure of the enhanced a control field may refer to the description in the corresponding embodiments above. For example, the transceiving unit may be configured to receive information or frames in S102 or S202 or S402. The processing unit is used for analyzing the signaling or data input or output by the transceiving unit. For example, the information or frame in S102 or S202 or S402 is parsed.

In yet another possible implementation, the channel indicating apparatus 1 may be configured as an AP (for example, the AP in fig. 3) in the aforementioned wireless communication system, or be a chip system or a chip within the AP. The channel indication device 1 may perform the methods and steps related to the AP in any of the above embodiments.

For example, the transceiving unit 11 may be configured to support communication between the AP and one or more STAs in the foregoing embodiments, and may perform the transceiving processes related to the AP in the foregoing embodiments one to eight and/or other processes for the technology described in this application.

In one example, the transceiving unit 11 may be configured to transmit the channel indication information or may be configured to transmit the puncturing information. The structure of various frames of the channel indication information and the puncturing information may refer to the description in the above embodiments. The processing unit 12 may be used to generate or process signaling or data information.

In yet another possible implementation, the channel indicating apparatus 1 may be configured as an STA (e.g., any one of STA1 and STA2 in fig. 3) in the aforementioned wireless communication system, or as a chip system or chip within the STA. The channel indication device 1 may perform the methods and steps related to the STA in any of the above embodiments.

For example, the transceiver unit may be configured to support communication between the STA and the AP in the foregoing embodiments, and may perform the transceiving process related to the STA in the foregoing embodiments one to eight and/or other processes used in the technology described in this application.

In one example, the transceiving unit 11 may be configured to transmit the channel indication information or may be configured to receive the puncturing information. The structure of various frames of the channel indication information and the puncturing information may refer to the description in the above embodiments. The processing unit 12 is used for generating or processing signaling or data information, for example, the processing unit executes step S802 and step S803.

For example, the channel indicating apparatus 1 may be a chip or a chip system, the transceiver 11 in the chip or the chip system may be an input/output interface, and the processing unit 12 may be a processing circuit. In the above embodiments, "sending" may be "outputting" and "receiving" may be "inputting", so that the above signaling or data interaction is performed by the input/output interface, and the generation and processing of the signaling or data information are performed by the processing circuit.

Optionally, the channel indicating apparatus 1 may be further coupled to a memory, where the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processing circuit, cause the channel indicating apparatus 1 to perform the method and steps of any of the foregoing embodiments. For example, the memory may be a storage unit included in the channel indicating apparatus 1, or may be an external storage unit outside the channel indicating apparatus 1.

Embodiments of the present application further provide a chip system, where the chip system includes a processor, configured to support a first communication device or a second communication device to implement the functions involved in any of the foregoing embodiments, for example, to generate or process data and/or information involved in the foregoing methods. In a possible design, the system-on-chip may further include a memory, which is used for program instructions and data necessary for a transmitting end or a receiving end, and when the program instructions are executed by the processor, the device on which the system-on-chip is installed is enabled to implement the method in any of the above embodiments. The chip system may be constituted by a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete devices.

Embodiments of the present application further provide a processor coupled to a memory, where the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform any of the above-described methods and functions related to the first communication device or the second communication device. Embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product containing instructions, which when executed on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method and functions related to the first communication device or the second communication device in any of the above embodiments. Embodiments of the present application also provide a computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform any of the above-described methods and functions relating to the first communication device or the second communication device. The embodiment of the present application further provides an apparatus, configured to perform the method and the function related to the receiving end or the sending end in any of the foregoing embodiments.

An embodiment of the present application further provides a wireless communication system, where the system includes the first communication device and at least one second communication device referred to in any of the above embodiments.

The steps of a method or algorithm described in connection with the disclosure herein may be embodied in hardware or in software instructions executed by a processor. The software instructions may consist of corresponding software modules that may be stored in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, a hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor such the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. Of course, the storage medium may also be integral to the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC. Additionally, the ASIC may reside in user equipment. Of course, the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in user equipment.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that in one or more of the examples described above, the functions described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer.

The above-mentioned embodiments, objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present application are further described in detail, it should be understood that the above-mentioned embodiments are only examples of the present application, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present application, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements and the like made on the basis of the technical solutions of the present application should be included in the scope of the present application.