Managing associations in ad hoc networks

摘要

A first wireless devices establishes an association with a second wireless device by sending a connection request packet to a previously-discovered second wireless device. The second wireless device identifies the received packet as a connection request and responds with a connection response packet, thereby establishing an association between the first and second wireless devices. The wireless devices can then, for example, send and receive data.

主权项

1. A method performed by a first wireless device, the method comprising:
attempting to join an ad hoc network, the ad hoc network comprising one or more wireless devices, including at least a second wireless device, the one or more wireless devices each participating in the ad hoc network by operating in an ad hoc mode, the one or more wireless devices each using a same basic service state identifier (BSSID) when exchanging packets to implement the ad hoc network, the attempting to join comprising: using a radio of the first wireless device in response to a connect call of the first wireless device; sending, via the radio, a connection request packet from the first wireless device to the second wireless device after the second wireless device has been recognized by the first wireless device, the connection request packet comprising a standard packet-type indicator indicating a standard unicast probe request packet or indicating a standard unicast authentication packet, wherein the standard packet-type does not indicate a standard association request packet, the connection request packet comprising a standard BSSID-field comprising the BSSID, the connection request packet further comprising a standard receiver-field containing a media access control (MAC) address of the second wireless device, the connection request packet further comprising a special information element that contains an operation-type identifier that identifies an operation type of the connection request packet as being a virtual association operation with respect to the ad hoc network, wherein the second wireless device is configured to transmit a connection response packet by determining that the connection request packet is a request to associate by matching the BSSID of the ad hoc network with the BSSID from the connection request packet, the operation-type indicator in the special information element, and by matching the MAC address of the second wireless device with the MAC address from the connection request packet; and response to receiving, via the radio, the connection response packet from the second wireless device, joining the ad hoc network by associating with the second wireless device.