SDMA communications with non-immediate block acknowledgment

Abstract

In Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA) communications, mobile devices that are transmitting to a base station substantially simultaneously during a predetermined communications phase may wait until after an end of the predetermined communications phase to receive acknowledgments to their transmissions, so that a mobile device making a relatively short transmission does not experience an acknowledgment timeout while another mobile device is still completing a relatively long transmission. In some embodiments, the mobile devices may transmit a non-immediate block acknowledgment request during the communications phase.

1 . An apparatus, comprising 
 a first electronic device adapted to: 
 transmit a data burst during a data phase in response to a poll from a second electronic device;  
 begin a timeout period after an end of the data phase; and  
 receive a block acknowledgment from the second electronic device during the timeout period.  
   
   
   
       2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the data burst comprises a block acknowledgment request.  
   
   
       3 . The apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein the block acknowledgment request comprises a non-immediate block acknowledgment request.  
   
   
       4 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the first electronic device is further adapted to begin the timeout period after a length of time indicated in the poll.  
   
   
       5 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the first electronic device is further adapted to: 
 transmit multiple sub-bursts within the data burst; and    receive individual acknowledgments to individual ones of the sub-bursts within the block acknowledgment.    
   
   
       6 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the apparatus comprises: 
 a computing platform; and    a modulator/demodulator coupled to the computing platform.    
   
   
       7 . The apparatus of  claim 6 , wherein the apparatus further comprises an antenna coupled to the modulator/demodulator.  
   
   
       8 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the first electronic device comprises a mobile device.  
   
   
       9 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second electronic device comprises a base station.  
   
   
       10 . An apparatus, comprising 
 a first electronic device adapted to: 
 transmit polls to multiple second electronic devices substantially simultaneously on a same frequency using spatial division multiple access techniques;  
 receive a data burst from a particular one of the multiple second electronic devices during a data phase subsequent to said transmitting the polls, substantially simultaneously with receiving other data bursts from others of the multiple second electronic devices; and  
 transmit a block acknowledgment to the particular second electronic device after the data phase using spatial division multiple access techniques.  
   
   
   
       11 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the first electronic device is further adapted to receive a block acknowledgment request within the data burst.  
   
   
       12 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the first electronic device is further adapted to transmit an indicator of a length of the data phase within at least one of the polls.  
   
   
       13 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the first electronic device is further adapted to: 
 receive multiple sub-bursts within the data burst from the particular one of the multiple second electronic devices; and    transmit individual acknowledgments within the block acknowledgment for individual ones of the sub-bursts.    
   
   
       14 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the first electronic device comprises: 
 a computing platform; and    at least four modulator/demodulators coupled to the computing platform.    
   
   
       15 . The apparatus of  claim 14 , wherein the first electronic device further comprises at least four antennas, each antenna coupled to at least one of the modulator/demodulators.  
   
   
       16 . A method, comprising: 
 transmitting a first poll to a first electronic device and a second poll to a second electronic device substantially simultaneously on a same frequency using spatial division multiple access techniques;    receiving a first data burst from the first electronic device and a second data burst from the second electronic device substantially simultaneously on the same frequency subsequent to said transmitting;    detecting a non-immediate block acknowledgment request in at least one of the first and second data bursts; and    transmitting a first block acknowledgment to the first electronic device and a second block acknowledgment to the second electronic device substantially simultaneously on the same frequency using spatial division multiple access techniques, subsequent to said receiving.    
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein said receiving the first data burst comprises receiving multiple sub-bursts within the first data burst.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein said transmitting comprises transmitting individual acknowledgments for individual ones of the multiple sub-bursts.  
   
   
       19 . A method, comprising: 
 transmitting a data burst in response to a poll from a base station, the data burst comprising a block acknowledgment request; and    receiving a block acknowledgment subsequent to the data phase.    
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein: 
 said transmitting comprises transmitting multiple sub-bursts within the data burst; and    said receiving comprises receiving individual acknowledgment indicators for individual ones of the multiple sub-bursts.    
   
   
       21 . A machine-readable medium that provides instructions, which when executed by a computing platform, cause said processing platform to perform operations comprising: 
 placing into a transmit queue a response to a poll, the response comprising a data burst including multiple sub-bursts;    detecting an end to a data phase; and    reading from a receive queue a block acknowledgment in response to said transmitting, subsequent to said detecting.    
   
   
       22 . The medium of  claim 21 , wherein the operation of placing comprises placing into the transmit queue a medium access control protocol data unit containing the block request.  
   
   
       23 . The medium of  claim 21 , wherein the operation of placing comprises: 
 placing into a final one of the multiple sub-bursts a block acknowledgment request; and    placing into others of the multiple sub-bursts a no-acknowledgment request.    
   
   
       24 . A machine-readable medium that provides instructions, which when executed by a computing platform, cause said processing platform to perform operations comprising: 
 placing into at least one transmit queue polls to multiple electronic devices;    receiving data from the multiple electronic devices in at least one receive queue;    detecting a block acknowledgment request in the received data from at least one of the multiple electronic devices;    waiting until a predefined time period is ended; and    placing into the at least one transmit queue a block acknowledgment to the at least one of the multiple electronic devices.    
   
   
       25 . The medium of  claim 24 , wherein the operation of receiving data includes receiving data from multiple medium access control protocol data units.  
   
   
       26 . The medium of  claim 24 , wherein the operation of placing a block acknowledgment comprises placing multiple indicators in the block acknowledgment to acknowledge multiple correctly received portions of the received data.  
   
   
       27 . The medium of  claim 24 , wherein the operations further comprise using spatial division multiple access techniques to transmit the block acknowledgment.