Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In telecommunications, the round-trip time refers to the duration of time elapsed between sending a signal to a destination and receiving an acknowledgment of the signal from the destination. In the context of computer networks, round-trip-time is often referred to as the ping time and may involve sending and receiving data packets. Various techniques for measuring round trip time between Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) enabled devices (known as stations, or STAs) have been proposed. However, obtaining accurate round-trip time between stations is non-trivial and may necessitate a combination of a highly accurate clock on each station and significant signal processing. Further, some techniques necessitate each station to be awake and listening on the same channel, which is not always the case. At the same time, accurate round-trip times may have a variety of applications, such as enabling indoor location determinations.
Neighbor Aware Networking is a Wi-Fi standard that enables NAN devices (a station configured to operate in a particular manner) to connect directly. Many conventional Wi-Fi networks operate using a controller device known as a wireless access point that provides for, among other functions, communication between stations. Unlike these conventional networks, NAN devices form a NAN network without the use of a wireless access point. NAN provides a mechanism on which NAN devices may converge to facilitate the discovery of services and devices within the NAN network.
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USPTO Backgrounds