Neighbor awareness networking datapath

US10098168B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Apple Inc. · US

Inventors

• Yong Liu · Campbell, US
• Christiaan A. Hartman · San Jose, US
• Daniel R. Borges · San Francisco, US
• Peter N. Heerboth · Cupertino, US
• Lawrie Kurian · San Jose, US
• Su Khiong Yong · Palo Alto, US
• Anand Rajagopalan · Saratoga, US
• Saravanan Balasubramaniyan · Los Gatos, US
• Tashbeeb Haque · San Francisco, US
• Andreas Wolf · Munich, DE
• Guoqing Li · Campbell, US
• Lilach Zukerman · Even Yehuda, IL
• Oren Shani · Saratoga, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 7, 2015
• Grant date: Oct 9, 2018
• Expiry date: Jun 5, 2036

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04W72/12
• WIPO field: Digital communication
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

In one set of embodiments, one or more client stations operate to configure Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN)—direct communication with neighboring client stations, i.e., direct communication between the client stations without utilizing an intermediate access point. Embodiments of the disclosure relate to NAN datapath scheduling and NAN pre-datapath operation setup and scheduling. The NAN datapath embodiments described herein provide a mechanism through which devices can communicate and provide services. Aspects of the datapath development include datapath scheduling, including datapath setup and scheduling attributes, as well as pre-datapath operation triggering and scheduling. Scheduling may include determination of a type of datapath, including paging and synchronized datapaths. NAN data cluster base schedules may be scheduled as equal-sets or subsets of datapath schedules. The datapath model may be implemented for unicast and multicast communication between client stations.