US 11,963,224 B2
Non-zero random backoff procedure
Liangxiao Xin, San Jose, CA (US); Mohamed Abouelseoud, San Francisco, CA (US); Li-Hsiang Sun, San Jose, CA (US); and Qing Xia, San Jose, CA (US)
Assigned to SONY GROUP CORPORATION, Tokyo (JP); and SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA, New York, NY (US)
Filed by SONY GROUP CORPORATION, Tokyo (JP)
Filed on Oct. 24, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/509,015.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/168,449, filed on Mar. 31, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2022/0322438 A1, Oct. 6, 2022
Int. Cl. H04W 84/12 (2009.01); H04W 74/0816 (2024.01)
CPC H04W 74/0816 (2013.01) [H04W 84/12 (2013.01)] 46 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus for wireless communication in a network, the apparatus comprising:
(a) a wireless communication circuit, as a wireless station (STA) as either an Access Point (AP) or a non-AP STA, is configured for wirelessly communicating over a channel with other wireless stations (STAs), which are either APs or non-AP STAs, on a wireless local area network (WLAN) in which packets carry frames;
(b) a processor coupled to said wireless communication circuit for operating on the WLAN as a STA;
(c) a non-transitory memory storing instructions executable by the processor for communicating with other STAs; and
(d) wherein said instructions, when executed by the processor, perform one or more steps comprising:
(i) initiating a non-zero backoff procedure by setting a backoff counter to a random value greater than or equal to at least one backoff slot in starting to contend for a channel;
(ii) counting down said backoff counter depending on channel conditions;
(iii) accessing the channel when the backoff counter reaches zero; and
(iv) wherein a STA using said non-zero backoff procedure for an Access Class (AC) sets an Arbitration Inter-Frame Spacing (AIFS) time to an amount less than that utilized for a legacy backoff procedure which is not using the non-zero backoff procedure.