Communication method for wireless LANS

Abstract

A physical frame is generated and transmitted to a destination terminal. In this physical frame, one of a data frame, an acknowledgement frame, and an acknowledgement request frame, and a transmission permission frame which is used in place of a normal Ack frame associated with a delayed Block Ack, and permits the destination terminal to perform piggyback transmission, are aggregated.

1 . A communication method comprising: 
 generating a physical frame in which:    one of a data frame, an acknowledgement frame, and an acknowledgement request frame, and a transmission permission frame which is used in place of a normal Ack frame associated with a delayed Block Ack, and permits a destination terminal to perform piggyback transmission, are aggregated; and    transmitting the physical frame to the destination terminal.    
   
   
       2 . A communication method comprising: 
 receiving a physical frame in which:    one of a data frame, an acknowledgement frame, an acknowledgement request frame, and a transmission permission frame which is used in place of a normal Ack frame associated with a delayed Block Ack, and permits a destination terminal to perform piggyback transmission, are aggregated; and    detecting notification of the normal Ack associated with the delayed Block Ack on the basis of the transmission permission frame.    
   
   
       3 . A communication method comprising: 
 generating a physical frame in which a transmission permission frame for permitting piggyback transmission and data frames for a plurality of destination terminals are aggregated; and    transmitting the physical frame to said plurality of destination terminals,    wherein after data in an opposite direction is received from the destination terminal, a confirmation notification indicating that transmission of a partial response is performed by a delayed type is replaced with a transmission permission frame to the destination terminal.    
   
   
       4 . A communication method comprising: 
 receiving a physical frame in which a transmission permission frame for permitting piggyback transmission and data frames for a plurality of destination terminals are aggregated;    transmitting a data frame to a transmission source terminal of the physical frame upon piggybacking the data frame on a partial response frame; and    transmitting a plurality of MAC frames to a plurality of destination terminals again to a plurality of destination terminals upon aggregating the MAC frames within a continuous transmission permission period currently held by a terminal which has transmitted a physical frame to said plurality of destination terminals,    wherein destination information contained in plural destination control information contained in the physical frame is checked, and if an address of a receiving terminal of the physical frame is not contained, it is determined that application of a delayed policy to a partial response to a piggybacked and transmitted data frame has failed.    
   
   
       5 . A communication method comprising: 
 receiving a physical frame in which MAC frames which are addressed to a plurality of destination terminals and have a plurality of priorities are aggregated;    storing MAC frames of a received physical frame in a reception buffer prepared for each priority; and    managing, on a premise that a control information frame is aggregated in a head portion of a MAC frame for each destination and each priority, the reception buffer by using sequence number information of a data frame following the control frame if an error calculation result on the control frame is correct, and the data frame has been successfully received.    
   
   
       6 . A method according to  claim 1 , wherein the piggyback transmission comprises transmitting, from the destination terminal to a transmission source, a physical frame in which an acknowledgement frame and at least one MAC frame are aggregated.  
   
   
       7 . A method according to  claim 1 , further comprising determining, in accordance with a remaining period of a channel use permission period, whether or not to aggregate the transmission permission frame in the physical frame.  
   
   
       8 . A method according to  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 determining, after a lapse of a minimum frame time since transmission of the physical frame, whether or not an acknowledgement frame is contained in a physical frame returned from the destination terminal; and    requesting a retransmission of the acknowledgement frame when the acknowledgement frame is not contained.    
   
   
       9 . A method according to  claim 1 , wherein the presence/absence of the acknowledgement frame is determined on the basis of error detection at a specific frame position in a physical frame returned from the destination terminal.