A method and implementation disclosed for detecting interference. A state machine controller is provided for establishing an interference detection cycle including a power sample period and a periodic sampling interval. A receiver component, responsive to the state machine controller, performs an energy measurement at a predetermined wireless band during the power sample period. A threshold comparator determines whether the energy measurement exceeds a predetermined threshold. A processing implementation processes the energy measurement to determine whether it corresponds to interference on the predetermined wireless band, if the measurement exceeds the predetermined threshold. A deactivating implementation is used to instruct the state machine controller to await the next power sample period, if the energy measurement does not exceed the predetermined threshold.
Described is a method for detecting activity on a frequency band. A wireless signal of a predetermined radio frequency band is received. The signal is processed into a plurality of subsignals, each subsignal corresponding to a particular radio frequency channel of the band. An energy level of the corresponding subsignal is determined, and, when the energy level is greater than a predetermined level, the corresponding channel is analyzed.
A low power packet detector (LPPD) can significantly reduce the average power consumption of WLAN devices. The LPPD takes advantages of 802.11 protocols to turn on and off selected modules of an 802.11 receiver based on the packets on the medium and the decoding stages. The LPPD can be implemented mostly in firmware with minor hardware modifications to existing chips or be implemented in ASIC technology that takes full advantages of the power saving made possible by it.
A method for identifying interferers in a radio communication band, such as the 2.4 GHz ISM band, uses a priori information of the interferers such as channel structure, channel frequency and channel bandwidth. Measured RSSI can be used to detect and identify interferers. RSSI measurements can be made at multiple frequencies within a channel of the interferer. Randomization of RSSI measurements improves the likelihood of interferer detection and identification if such interferer is present. Metrics other than RSSI can be used.
A method of managing power consumption of a network interface is provided. The method is capable of cutting off the power and the clock signal supply to the MAC and the PHY receiving terminals of the network interface when the user disables the wake-up function, and when the user enables the wake-up function, the power and the clock signal are supplied to the receiver of the medium access control unit and the receiver of the physical layer unit.
A power management method and apparatus for a wireless LAN module in a computer system may include a communication sensitivity checking unit for checking a communication sensitivity of a wireless communications channel. If a communications sensitivity is lower than a desired value, a power mode of the wireless LAN module is changed into a sleep mode for a predetermined period of time. After the delay period expires, the wireless LAN module is switched back into a normal mode, and the communications sensitivity is checked again. If the communications sensitivity is acceptable, a data checking unit checks to determine whether there is data to be transmitted/received by the wireless LAN module. If no data needs to be sent, at least the transmission block of the wireless LAN module can be set to the power down mode. Also, if an attempt to set up a communications channel is unsuccessful, the device can be set to the power down mode for a predetermined delay period. After the delay period expires, the wireless LAN module is returned to the normal mode for another setup attempt.
