Patent · US Expired

Overlapping network allocation vector (ONAV) for avoiding collision in the IEEE 802.11 WLAN operating under HCF

US7164671B2 · kind B2 · utility

40Cited by
1References
28Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 27, 2001
Grant dateJan 16, 2007
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 6, 2025

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04W74/0816
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention is related to a medium access control (MAC) protocol for avoiding collisions among ESTAs when two or more overlapping basic service sets (OBSSs) co-exist and operate in the same channel. To achieve this, each mobile station operating under HCF maintains a first counter known as Network Allocation Vector (NAV) and a second counter known as Overlapping Network Allocation Vector (ONAV), which is updated within a mobile station by frames coming from OBSSs, during the Contention Free Period (CFP) or during a Contention Free Burst (CFB) granted by a polling frame. The mobile station uses the NAV to update only to the medium occupancy in its own BSS to ensure that the mobile station will not interfere with the transmissions in its own QBSS, while the ONAV is used to avoid collisions with the mobile stations from the OBSS.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.