Wireless home network supporting concurrent links to legacy devices

摘要

A wireless access point (WAP) including: a station grouping module, a transmit selector, a spatial mapper, an output injector, and an input injector. The station grouping module selects a group of station nodes for concurrent MIMO communications. The transmit selector determines whether all station nodes in the group support a multi-user (MU) protocol. The spatial mapper precodes concurrent transmissions to the group using a precode matrix “Q” which spatially separates the concurrent MIMO transmissions to each station node in the group. The output injector injects preambles for synchronizing timing of the MIMO transmissions at the output of the spatial mapper, responsive to an affirmative determination by the transmit selector. The input injector injects preambles before precoding in the spatial mapper, responsive to a negative determination by the transmit selector; whereby transmission preambles are precoded when at least one station node in the group doesn't support the MU protocol.

主权项

1. A wireless access point (WAP) apparatus having a plurality of antennas and supporting multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications with associated station nodes on a selected one of a plurality of orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) communication channels; and the WAP apparatus comprising:
a station grouping module configured to select a group of at least two of the associated station nodes for concurrent MIMO communication links with the WAP; a transmit selector configured to determine whether all station nodes in the group support a multi-user (MU) protocol; a spatial mapper including an input and an output, configured to precode concurrent transmissions to the selected group at the input using a precode matrix “Q” which spatially separates the concurrent MIMO transmissions to each station node in the group at the output; an output injector coupled to the output of the spatial mapper and configured to inject preambles for synchronizing timing of the MIMO transmissions at the output of the spatial mapper, responsive to an affirmative determination by the transmit selector; and an input injector coupled to the input of the spatial mapper and configured to inject preambles before precoding in the spatial mapper, responsive to a negative determination by the transmit selector, whereby transmission preambles are precoded when at least one station node in the group does not support the MU protocol.