Some electronic devices are capable of transmitting and receiving data using different wireless communication standards or protocols. For example, many smartphones and tablets and some content streaming devices are capable of transmitting and receiving data using one or more protocols of the Bluetooth wireless communication standard and are also capable of transmitting and receiving data using one or more protocols of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of wireless communication standards (collectively referred to as WiFi).
Bluetooth operates in the 2.4 GHz portion of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum. Certain WiFi protocols such as 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, etc. also operate in the 2.4 GHz band. This co-existence of Bluetooth and certain WiFi protocols in the 2.4 GHz portion of the RF spectrum may result in interference between Bluetooth and WiFi transmissions. Various interference mitigation techniques may be employed to reduce the likelihood of Bluetooth and WiFi interference such as, for example, temporal, spatial, or frequency isolation techniques. An example spatial isolation technique involves placing Bluetooth and WiFi radios as far apart as possible, and when possible, placing insulating material between them in order to mitigate interference between Bluetooth and WiFi transmissions. An example frequency isolation technique is adaptive frequency hopping according to which a Bluetooth radio scans the operating band for interference on operating channels and avoids noisy channels and operates only on those channels identified as clear. An example temporal isolation technique is time division duplexing in which the Bluetooth and WiFi radios of a device transmit or receive data during designated, non-overlapping timeslots.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds