CN102740354B

CN102740354B - Method and device for informing and obtaining indication message of data to be received

Info

Publication number: CN102740354B
Application number: CN201110095521.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 方平; 丁志明; 树贵明
Original assignee: Huawei Device Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Device Co Ltd
Priority date: 2011-04-15
Filing date: 2011-04-15
Publication date: 2015-04-15
Anticipated expiration: 2031-04-15
Also published as: CN102740354A

Abstract

The invention discloses a method and device for sending and obtaining a message to be transmitted of a terminal device, and belongs to the field of wireless communication. The method for sending the message to be transmitted of the terminal device comprises: grouping the terminal devices stations (STA); sending grouped traffic indication messages of each devices, the traffic indication messages including the indication message of to-be-received data of the terminal device in the grouped devices, and a grouping message. The realization of the technical scheme enables a length of the traffic indication messages controllable, prevents the length of the traffic indication messages from being too long, and improves reliability of information transmission. In addition, through adding the grouped number of the STA, a large amount of to-be-transmitted information of the STA can be transmitted.

Description

Method and device for notifying and acquiring indication information of data to be received

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of wireless communications, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for notifying and acquiring indication information of data to be received.

Background

WiFi (Wireless Fidelity ) technology is a short-distance Wireless communication technology, and is widely applied to Wireless lan construction and wan access based on its advantages of convenient use, high transmission rate, etc. At present, WiFi APs (Access points) are provided in many public places such as airport lounges and cafes.

After an STA (Station, terminal equipment supporting 802.11 protocol) accesses a WiFi wireless network, the STA firstly associates with an AP (access point), and the AP allocates AID (Association ID, Association identifier) for the STA; then, the AP periodically broadcasts a Beacon frame including a TIM (Traffic Indication Message, received data Indication Message) to the associated STAs, where the TIM carries to-be-received data Indication information of all STAs associated with the AP; the STA acquires own to-be-received data indication information from the received TIM, and determines whether data needs to be received according to the to-be-received data indication information.

The TIM consists of a message header and data indication information to be received by the STA. The message header comprises information such as message type and message length; the indication information of the data to be received by the STA is specifically indicated by a Bit (Bit) in a Bitmap (Bitmap) with the length of 1 to 251 bytes, and when the Bit value is 1, the STA corresponding to the Bit has data to receive; when the Bit value is 0, the STA corresponding to the Bit has no data to receive.

As can be known from the above description, when there are more and more STAs associated with an AP, the TIM needs to carry more and more data indication messages to be received of the STAs, which may cause the length of the TIM to be longer and longer, and thus cause problems such as a significant increase in time required for transmission of the TIM, an increase in probability of transmission failure, and the like, and especially in a low-speed transmission scenario, the problem may be more serious; in addition, as can be known from the above description, when the length of the Bitmap in the TIM reaches 251 bytes, the to-be-received data indication information of the STA that the TIM can carry will reach the maximum, that is, the TIM can carry the to-be-received data indication information of 2007 STAs associated with the AP at most, but in the smart meter and the sensor network, since the communication data amount of the STA is very small, it is desirable that the AP can manage more STAs during system design, and accordingly, the to-be-received data indication information may be longer, which will inevitably cause the above problem to be more serious.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve the above technical problem, an embodiment of the present invention provides a method and an apparatus for notifying and acquiring indication information of data to be received, where the technical scheme is as follows:

a method of notifying data indication information to be received, the method comprising:

grouping the terminal devices;

the method comprises the steps that received data indication messages of all equipment groups are sent in sequence, each received data indication message contains to-be-received data indication information and group information of terminal equipment in the equipment group corresponding to the received data indication message, the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether the terminal equipment in the equipment group corresponding to the received data indication message has data to be received or not, and the received data indication messages of all the equipment groups further comprise interval information and interval counting information;

transmitting one or more auxiliary indication messages, the auxiliary indication messages including the interval information, interval count information, and packet information;

the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between two adjacent device groups or the received data indication messages grouped by the next round of sending devices, the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and the current message is indicated as the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

An apparatus for notifying indication information of data to be received, the apparatus comprising: a grouping module and a sending module;

the grouping module is used for grouping the terminal equipment;

the sending module is configured to send received data indication messages of each device group in sequence, where each received data indication message includes indication information of data to be received and group information of a terminal device in the device group corresponding to the received data indication message, the indication information of the data to be received indicates whether the terminal device in the device group corresponding to the received data indication message has data to be received, and the received data indication message of each device group further includes interval information and interval count information;

the sending module is configured to send one or more auxiliary indication messages, where the auxiliary indication messages include the interval information, the interval count information, and the grouping information;

A method for a terminal device to obtain indication information of data to be received includes:

receiving a received data indication message of a device group, wherein the received data indication message contains to-be-received data indication information and group information of terminal devices in the device group, and the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether the terminal devices in the device group have data to be received or not;

judging whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message grouped by the equipment where the terminal equipment is located according to the grouping information,

if yes, executing a data receiving process according to the indication information of the data to be received;

if not, calculating the waiting time required for receiving the received data indication message of the equipment group of the terminal equipment according to the group information, and receiving the received data indication message of the equipment group again when the waiting time is up.

An apparatus for obtaining indication information of data to be received, the apparatus comprising: the device comprises a receiving module, a judging module, a first executing module and a second executing module;

the receiving module is used for receiving a received data indication message of a device group, wherein the received data indication message contains indication information and group information of data to be received of terminal devices in the device group, and the indication information of the data to be received indicates whether the terminal devices in the device group have data to be received or not;

the judging module is used for judging whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message grouped by the equipment where the terminal equipment is located according to the grouping information;

the first execution module is configured to execute a data receiving process according to the indication information of the data to be received when the determination result of the determination module is yes;

and the second execution module is used for calculating the waiting time required for receiving the data receiving indication message of the group where the terminal equipment is located according to the group information when the judgment result of the judgment module is not yes, and receiving the data receiving indication message of the equipment group again when the waiting time is up.

receiving a message sent by an Access Point (AP), wherein the message comprises grouping information, interval counting information and interval information;

determining whether the received message is a received data indication message or a secondary indication message of a device packet based on the interval count information,

if the auxiliary indication message is received, calculating the waiting time required for receiving the data indication message grouped by the terminal equipment according to the grouping information, the interval information and the interval counting information;

if yes, judging whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message grouped by the equipment where the terminal equipment is located according to the grouping information,

if the terminal equipment is the received data indication message of the equipment group where the terminal equipment is located, executing a data receiving process according to the indication information of the data to be received in the received data indication message;

if the data packet is not the received data indication message of the equipment packet of the terminal equipment, calculating the waiting time required for receiving the received data indication message of the equipment packet of the terminal equipment according to the packet information, the interval information and the interval counting information, and receiving the received data indication message of the equipment packet again when the waiting time is up.

An apparatus for obtaining indication information of data to be received, the apparatus comprising: the device comprises a receiving module, a first judging module, a first executing module, a second judging module, a second executing module and a third executing module;

the receiving module is used for receiving a message, wherein the message comprises grouping information, interval counting information and interval information;

the first judging module is configured to judge whether the message received by the receiving module is a received data indication message of a device group or an auxiliary indication message;

the first execution module is configured to calculate, when the determination result of the first determination module is the auxiliary indication message, a waiting time required for receiving a data indication message of the group of devices according to grouping information, interval information, and interval count information in the auxiliary indication message;

the second judging module is configured to, when the judgment result of the first judging module is the received data indication message, judge whether the received data indication message is a received data indication message grouped by the device where the terminal device is located according to the grouping information;

the second execution module is configured to execute a data receiving process according to the indication information of the data to be received in the received data indication message when a determination result of the second determination module is the received data indication message grouped by the device where the terminal device is located;

and the third execution module is configured to calculate, according to the grouping information, the interval information, and the interval count information, a waiting time required for receiving the received data indication message of the device group in which the terminal device is located when the determination result of the second determination module is that the received data indication message of the device group in which the terminal device is located is not the received data indication message of the device group in which the terminal device is located, and receive the received data indication message of the device group again when the waiting time is reached.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: through the realization of the technical scheme, the length of the received data indication message of each STA group is controllable, the reliability of information transmission is improved, and a large amount of information to be transmitted of the STAs can be transmitted by increasing the number of the STA groups; and the equipment calculates the waiting time after receiving the data indication message grouped by the equipment for the first time, and receives the data indication message grouped by the equipment after the waiting time is up, so that the data indication message grouped by the equipment can be obtained, the trouble of receiving the data indication message of the equipment every time is avoided, and the energy consumption is saved.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a method for notifying indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a flowchart of a method for obtaining indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 2 of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart of a method for notifying indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 3 of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of an AID format according to embodiment 3 of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating the format of a TIM according to embodiment 3 of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a format of a received data indication message according to embodiment 3 of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a format of a received data indication message according to embodiment 3 of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a diagram of an example of a Bitmap application provided in embodiment 3 of the present invention;

fig. 9 is a flowchart of a method for notifying indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 4 of the present invention

Fig. 10 is a schematic format diagram of an extended GTIM provided in embodiment 4 of the present invention;

fig. 11 is a block diagram of an apparatus for notifying indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 5 of the present invention;

fig. 12 is a block diagram of an apparatus for notifying indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 6 of the present invention;

fig. 13 is a flowchart of a method for obtaining indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 7 of the present invention;

fig. 14 is a flowchart of a method for obtaining indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 8 of the present invention;

fig. 15 is a schematic diagram of an apparatus grouping scheme provided in embodiment 8 of the present invention;

fig. 16 is a flowchart of a method for obtaining indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 9 of the present invention;

fig. 17 is a flowchart of a method for obtaining indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 10 of the present invention;

fig. 18a is a block diagram of an apparatus for obtaining indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 11 of the present invention;

fig. 18b is a block diagram of an apparatus for obtaining indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 11 of the present invention;

fig. 19 is a block diagram of an apparatus for acquiring indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 12 of the present invention;

fig. 20 is a system diagram for sending and acquiring indication information of data to be received according to embodiment 13 of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Example 1

Referring to fig. 1, a method for notifying indication information of data to be received, where an execution subject of the method includes an AP (Access Point), specifically includes the following steps:

step 101: grouping the terminal devices;

step 102: and sequentially sending a received data indication message of each equipment group, wherein the received data indication message comprises to-be-received data indication information and group information of terminal equipment in the equipment group, and the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether each equipment in the equipment group has data to be received.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: through the technical scheme that the terminal equipment STA is grouped and the received data indication messages of all equipment groups are sequentially sent, the length of the received data indication messages of all the STA groups is controllable, the reliability of information transmission is improved, and a large amount of information to be transmitted of the STA can be transmitted by increasing the number of the STA groups.

Example 2

Referring to fig. 2, an execution subject of the method includes an STA (Station, a terminal device supporting an 802.11 protocol), and specifically includes the following steps:

step 201: receiving a received data indication message of a device group, wherein the received data indication message comprises indication information and group information of data to be received of terminal devices in the device group, and the indication information of the data to be received indicates whether each device in the device group has data to be received;

step 202: judging whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message grouped by the group of devices according to the grouping information,

if yes, go to step 203;

if not, go to step 204;

step 203: executing a data receiving process according to the indication information of the data to be received;

step 204: and calculating the waiting time required for receiving the received data indication messages of the device group according to the group information, and receiving the received data indication messages of the device group again when the waiting time is up.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: through the implementation of the technical scheme provided by the embodiment, the device calculates the waiting time after receiving the data indication message grouped by the device for the first time, and receives the data indication message grouped by the device after the waiting time is up, so that the data indication message grouped by the device can be obtained, the trouble of receiving the data indication message of the device every time is avoided, and the energy consumption is saved.

Example 3

Referring to fig. 3, in this embodiment, considering a scenario that a plurality of STAs (Station, terminal device supporting 802.11 protocol) associated with an AP (Access Point) are numerous, communication delay is insensitive, and communication data amount is small, the STA may be grouped to obtain an STA group, and receive data indication information of one STA group is sent each time, where the receive data indication information is used to indicate whether the STA in the STA group has data to be received, so that the STA is notified whether the STA has data to be received by continuously sending the receive data indication information of each STA group, where an execution subject of the method in this embodiment is an AP, and the specific steps are as follows:

step 300: the AP allocates AID for the STA associated with the AP;

preferably, the AP allocates consecutive AIDs to STAs associated with the AP according to the time when the STAs associated with the AP access a WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) Wireless network, and when some STAs associated with the AP disconnect from the WiFi, the AP dynamically adjusts the AIDs allocated to the STAs associated with the AP to ensure that the AIDs of the STAs associated with the AP are consecutive;

for example, a STA associated with an AP₁、STA₂、STA₃、……、STA₂₀₁₅The total amount of 2015 STAs is that the 2015 STAs are successively accessed into the WiFi wireless network, and the AP is allocated to the STAs₁、STA₂、STA₃、……、STA₂₀₁₅When the STA is in a state of 1, 2, 3, … … and 2015 respectively₂、STA₃When the connection with the WiFi network is disconnected, the AP will be originally allocated to the STA₂、STA₃AID 2 and AID 3 of the STA are reallocated₂₀₁₄、STA₂₀₁₅Thereby avoiding a large number of unassociated null codes in the sequence of AIDs;

according to the specification of the existing specification, the AID is reserved for 0 and used for indicating whether the AP has a multicast message to be sent, that is, the AID of the STA is not 0, but in the present invention, according to the difference of the grouping manner of the AP to the STA, the AID of 0 may be allocated to the STA in a partial manner, the present invention will not emphasize whether the AID with a value of 0 can be allocated to the STA, which is only a specific specification and does not affect the general applicability of the inventive idea;

this step ensures the continuity of the AID of the STA associated with the AP, so as to avoid the problem that the STA groups in the middle are empty when the STAs are grouped according to the AID in the subsequent process.

It should be noted that this step is an optional step;

step 301: the AP groups the STAs associated with the AP;

specifically, the AP groups STAs associated with the AP, including the following three ways:

the first method is as follows: using a predetermined bit group in an Association identifier AID (Association ID) of the STA as a group identification bit group of the STA, wherein the group identification bit group is used for identifying a group number of an STA group to which the STA belongs and the group number of the STA group; grouping the STAs according to a grouping identification bit group in AIDs of the STAs;

now, for example, how to group STAs according to their group of group identification bits in the AID is as follows:

as shown in FIG. 4, the AID is a 16-bit long content, the AID ranges from 1 to 2007 and is placed in the lower 14 bits, namely B0 to 13, wherein B0 is the lowest bit, and B13 is the highest bit; assuming that the low-order 2 bits B1 and B0 in the AID of the STA are used as the grouping identification bits of the STA, when the value of B1B0 is "00", this indicates that the STA is grouped into an STA group with a group number of 0, and when the value of B1B0 is "01", this indicates that the STA is grouped into an STA group with a group number of 1, and so on; since the values of the two bits can be 4 values such as "00", "01", "10", "11", that is, the AP divides the STAs associated therewith into 4 STA groups. Then, assuming that the lower 3 bits B2, B1, and B0 in the AID of the STA are used as the group identification bits of the STA, when the value of B2B1B0 is "000", the STA is grouped into an STA group with a group number of 0, and when the value of B2B1B0 is "001", the AP groups the STA into an STA group with a group number of 1 as required, and so on, since the values of B2B1B0 may be 8 values such as "000", "001", "010", …, and "111", the STA may be grouped into 8 STA groups; and so on. Then, the AP may correspondingly set the preset bit group in the AID according to the requirement of the number of packets, so as to satisfy STA packet conditions required by different numbers of packets.

In this grouping mode, the AP may indicate AID bit group information for grouping in an association response message in a process that the STA associates with the AP, or may include this bit group information in a received data indication message of the grouping, and when the STA receives the AID bit group information for grouping, the STA may determine its own grouping and the total number of packets in the system according to its AID, and the STA may further obtain its position in the received data indication information received subsequently according to its AID and the AID bit group information for grouping.

The second method comprises the following steps: determining the grouping number of the equipment grouping and the value range of the associated identification of the terminal equipment in each equipment grouping; grouping the terminal equipment according to the associated identification of the terminal equipment and the value range of the associated identification of the terminal equipment in the equipment group;

the method specifically comprises the following steps:

step 301-1: setting the number of packets according to actual requirements, for example, setting the number of packets by comprehensively considering one or more of the requirements of Beacon frame length, transmission time, network load and the like;

for example, after comprehensively considering the requirements of Beacon frame length, transmission time and network load, the number of packets is set to 63, that is: dividing the STA into 63 STA groups;

in an embodiment, the number of packets of the STA packet is correspondingly set according to the time when the STA receives the data receiving indication message of the packet in which the STA is located, because the embodiment considers the situation that each STA packet continuously and sequentially sends the data receiving indication message corresponding to each STA packet according to a certain fixed period, if the STA is divided into 63 packets, the STA needs to receive the data receiving indication message of the packet in which the STA is located every 63 periods, and certainly, in order to shorten or lengthen the time when the STA receives the data receiving indication message of the packet in which the STA is located, only the number of STA packets with corresponding sizes needs to be set;

step 301-2: counting the number of STAs associated with the AP, and determining the value range of AID of the STAs in each STA group according to the counted number of the STAs and the group number of the equipment;

for example, there are 2015 STAs associated with the AP, the number of groups of STAs is set to 63, that is, there may be 32 STAs in each group of STAs at most, then the AID range of the STAs in the first group of STAs is 1 to 32, the AID range of the STAs in the second group of STAs is 33 to 64, the AID range of the STAs in the ith group of STAs is (32 × (i-1) +1) to 32 ×, and so on, where i has a value range of 1 to 63;

step 301-3: according to the AID of the STA, the STAs associated with the AP are divided into STA groups to which the STAs belong;

for example, STA₁The corresponding AID is 1, and the STA is divided into a first STA group and a second STA group within the value range of the AID of the STA in the first STA group₁Into the first STA group, STA₇₈The corresponding AID is 78, and if the AID of the STA in the third STA group is within the value range, the STA is classified as the STA₇₈Dividing into a third STA group, and repeating the steps in the same order to complete the grouping of the STAs;

then, after the processing of step 302-1 to step 302-3, 2015 STAs associated with the AP are divided into 63 groups of 32 STAs, and the STA groups are as follows:

the STAs corresponding to AID 1, AID 2, … …, and AID 32 belong to an STA group with a group number of 1;

the STAs corresponding to AID 33, AID 34, … …, and AID 64 belong to the STA group with the group number 2;

……

the STAs corresponding to AID 1985, AID 1986, AID … …, and AID 2015 belong to the STA group with the group number 63;

in this grouping mode, the AP may indicate, in the association response message, information such as the total number of STAs in the system, the maximum AID value allowed, the total number of groups of the system, or the number of STAs in each group, in the process that the STA associates with the AP, and the STA may calculate the group number of the STA according to the information and obtain the total number of groups, and may also calculate the position of the STA in the group according to the AID and the total number or the number of STAs in each group to determine which bit in the subsequently received indication information of the received data corresponds to the indication information of the STA itself, and of course, the AP may also directly tell the STA the group number, the total number of groups, and the position of the STA in the group, and thus the STA is not required to calculate.

Thirdly, allocating a grouping identifier for the terminal equipment in advance, wherein the grouping identifier is a grouping number; grouping the terminal equipment according to the grouping identifier;

specifically, when the AP allocates an AID to an STA associated therewith, the AP also allocates a group identifier to the STA, where the AID allocated to the STA and the group identifier are two independent identifiers; for example, when the AP allocates AID to the STA, if the packet identifier allocated to the STA is 3, the STA belongs to the STA packet with the packet number of 3; or

The AP allocates an EAID (Extended Association ID) for the STA associated with the AP, wherein the EAID comprises a group identification of the STA and an AID identification of the STA; for example, when a predetermined number of bits of a high-order part in the EAID is designated to indicate a packet identification of the STA and the remaining number of bits in the EAID is designated to indicate an AID of the STA.

In addition, it should be noted that, in this STA grouping manner, the AP may dynamically adjust the grouping situation of the STAs in the subsequent process, for example, the packet identifier initially allocated by the AP to the STA1 is 3, that is, the STA1 is specified to belong to the STA group with the packet number of 3, but, based on some requirement, the packet identifier of the STA1 is set to 1, that is, the STA1 is grouped into the STA group with the packet number of 1, and accordingly, the AID of the STA may also need to be modified, which is allowed.

In this grouping mode, the AP may indicate, in the association response message, a packet number of the STA and a total number of packets of the system in the process of associating the STA to the AP, and may further include the number of STAs in each group or a maximum AID value in the group, and the STA may determine, according to the AID value in the group, which bit in the subsequently received indication information of the received data corresponds to its own indication information.

Step 302: the AP detects whether each STA in a group has data to be received, if so, the indication bit of the data to be received of the STA is set to be 1, and if not, the indication bit of the data to be received of the STA is set to be 0, so that the indication information of the data to be received of each STA is obtained;

specifically, the AP detects whether there is data to be transmitted to each STA within the packet in real time or before transmitting a to-be-received data indication message of the packet. For each STA, its received data indication bit may be set to 1 if there is data to send to it, and its to-be-received data indication bit may be set to 0 if not.

Step 303: generating a packet received data Indication Message (GTIM) corresponding to the STA packet, where the GTIM (packet received data Indication Message) includes Indication information of data to be received and packet information of each STA in the STA packet;

specifically, the detection result in step 302 may be set in GTIM to obtain a received data indication message of an STA packet, and current packet information is set in the received data indication message, where according to the packet condition in step 301, the packet information includes a packet number and a packet number of the current device packet, or includes a packet number, and a packet size of the current device packet, or includes a packet number of the current device packet and packet identification bit group information in the association identifier, and the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether each device in the device packet has data to be received;

fig. 5 shows a format of a TIM (received data Indication Message) Message in the conventional specification, and here, only definitions of fields related to the present invention in the figure are described:

element ID: length is one byte, used for marking the message as a TIM message;

length: one byte in length, used to identify the total length of the TIM message;

bitmap Control: the length is one byte, from an indication Bit 0 to Bit 7, wherein, Bit 0 is an indication Bit of whether there is a broadcast message, and other 7 bits represent an offset value, which indicates the AID represented by the first Bit in the partial virtual Bitmap, and all STAs represented by AIDs before the AID represented by the first Bit do not have data to be received, i.e. the indication bits of the STAs represented by all AIDs before the AID represented by the first Bit are omitted, which is a method for compressing the Bitmap;

partial Virtual Bitmap: the length is between 1 and 251 bytes, and each Bit corresponding indication in a Bitmap (Bitmap) identifies whether each STA has data to be received; when the Bit value in the Bitmap is 1, indicating that the corresponding STA needs to receive data to be transmitted; specifically, each Bit in the Bitmap represents which STA needs to be calculated according to the value of Bitmap Control, that is, the compression condition of the Bitmap, which is not described in detail herein;

the invention adopts the same method to set the indication bit of the data to be received of each STA in each STA group into the Partial Virtual Bitmap field, and the compression method can still be adopted; for the Bitmap before being uncompressed, the first bit of the Bitmap is a to-be-received data indication bit of the first STA in the packet, the second bit of the Bitmap is a to-be-received data indication bit of the second STA in the packet, and so on;

the difference is that the STA grouping received data indication message (GTIM) also carries the grouping information of the STA grouping, and the grouping information may include the grouping number and grouping bit group information of the STA grouping according to the grouping mode, or the grouping information includes the grouping number of the STA grouping, the total grouping number of the system and the grouping size, or the grouping information includes the grouping number of the STA grouping and the total grouping number of the system;

if grouping is performed in the manner described in step 301, and the grouping information includes the group Number, and the group Size of the STA group, then, a field GTIM Number, GTIM Period, and GTIM Size may be newly added to the TIM, and the field GTIM Number, GTIM Period, and GTIM Size may be used to identify the grouping information, such as the group Number, and the group Size, corresponding to the STA to-be-received data indication information carried in the GTIM message, respectively;

specifically, after the above processing, the format of the received data indication message of the STA packet is specifically shown in fig. 6, where the definition of each field in the figure is as follows:

element ID: different from the value of the Element ID in the TIM, here, this field is used to identify that the message is a packet received data indication message, i.e. GTIM message;

length: the same meaning as Length in TIM, i.e. this field is used to identify the total Length of the received data indication message;

GTIM Number: the STA packet number corresponding to the to-be-received indication information of the STA carried in the received data indication message is used for identifying the STA packet number corresponding to the to-be-received indication information of the STA carried in the received data indication message, namely the received data indication message carries the to-be-received data indication information of each STA in the several groups;

GTIM Period: the field is used for identifying the packet number, and if the received data indication messages of each STA packet are sequentially transmitted in turn, the field can also represent the transmission period of the received data indication messages;

GTIM Size: for identifying the packet size, i.e., how many STAs each STA packet contains;

bitmap Control: the significance of the method is the same as that of Bitmap Control in TIM, namely if a plurality of initial STAs in the same group have no data to be received, the initial indication bits which are all 0 can be omitted in the same compression mode as the TIM; however, when calculating the STA represented by the first Bit in the Bitmap according to the value of the Bitmap Control, a calculation formula different from that in the existing specification may be adopted, for example, the values of B1 to B7 in the Bitmap Control may be directly regarded as the number of 0 s omitted in the Bitmap.

Partial Virtual Bitmap: the significance of the Bitmap is the same as that of a Partial Virtual Bitmap in TIM, the Bitmap is used for identifying data receiving indication information of each STA in an STA group, the maximum bit number of the Bitmap is matched with the size of the group, and each bit is used for correspondingly identifying the data receiving indication information of the corresponding STA in the STA group;

if the mode described in step 301 is used for the third grouping, the grouping information includes the group Number and the group Number of the STA grouping, and a field GTIM Number and a field GTIM Period may be newly added to the TIM to identify the group Number and the total group Number corresponding to the STA to-be-received data indication information carried in the GTIM message, respectively; the format of the received data indication message of the STA packet is specifically shown in fig. 7, and the definitions of the fields in the figure are the same as the meanings of the corresponding fields in fig. 6, and thus, the details are not repeated here.

If the first packet described in step 301 is used, the packet information includes the packet number of the STA packet and the bit group information indicating the packet in the AID. The bit group information indicating the group in the AID indicates which bits in the AID are taken as the group identifier, for example, the lower three bits of the AID are taken as the group identifier, the field may take a value of 3, which indicates that the lower three bits in the AID are the group identifier, or a mask mode, for example, 0x0003, which is a 16-ary expression mode and is a value having the same length as the AID, where a part of 1 indicates that the value of the part of the AID is the group identifier of the group where the STA is located. The advantage of using the masking method is that any bit in the AID can be used as the group identifier, and is not necessarily consecutive bits of lower bits or consecutive bits of higher bits.

As shown in FIG. 8, an example of the use of bitmaps is as follows: in fig. 8, the values of Bit 2, Bit 7, Bit 22, and Bit 24 in the Partial Virtual Bitmap are 1, which indicates that STAs corresponding to AID 2, AID 7, AID 22, and AID 24 need to receive data to be transmitted.

For example, the received data indication messages of the 63 STA groups are respectively generated and are respectively marked as GTIM1, GTIM 2, … …, and GTIM 63; the received data indication message corresponding to the STA with the packet Number of 1 is GTIM1, in the GTIM1 message, the GTIM Number is 1, the GTIM Period is 63, and the GTIM Size is 32, and carries the indication information of the data to be received of the STA with the packet Number of 1, that is, each bit in the Partial virtual bitmap correspondingly identifies whether the data to be received of each STA with the packet Number of 1 is to be received; the received data indication message corresponding to the STA with the group Number 2 is GTIM 2, in the GTIM 2 message, the GTIM Number is 2, the GTIM Period is 63, and the GTIM Size is 32, and carries the information to be transmitted of the STA with the group Number 2, that is, each bit in the Partial Virtual Bitmap corresponds to the information to be transmitted that identifies each STA with the group Number 2;

it should be noted that, the message header part in the received data indication message, such as Element ID, Length, GTIM Number, GTIM Period, GTIM Size, and the like, may share bytes, and the byte Length of the GTIM message may be further reduced.

Step 304: the AP broadcasts a received data indication message of the generated STA group;

specifically, the AP transmits a received data indication message of the generated STA packet according to the packet number order of the STA packet or the reverse order;

for example, the AP sends the received data indication messages GTIM1, GTIM 2, … …, GTIM 63 with packet numbers 1, 2, … …, 63 in sequence according to the packet number;

in an embodiment, the AP does not independently send the received data indication message of the STA packet, but sends each received data indication message through a Beacon (Beacon) frame that is periodically broadcast, that is, the received data indication message of the STA packet is sent out as a component of the Beacon frame, then, to send out the received data indication message corresponding to each STA group, the AP needs to complete through Beacon frames with the same number as the number of packets, and each time the Beacon is sent, the Beacon frames sequentially carry the received data indication message corresponding to one STA packet according to the sequence of the packet number or the reverse sequence;

if the AP sends a Beacon frame every 10ms, it can send a received data indication message of an STA packet every 10ms, and then the AP needs to complete the transmission after the time of Beacon period packet number;

the technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: the invention groups the STAs and sequentially generates and sends the received data indication messages of the STA groups, so that the length of the received data indication messages of the STA groups is controllable, the overlong length of the received data indication messages is avoided, and the reliability of information transmission is improved; furthermore, in this embodiment, the AP sends the GTIM of each STA group according to the group number sequence of the STA group or the reverse sequence, so that the STA can regularly follow when receiving the GTIM of each STA group, that is, the STA receives the GTIM of each STA group in sequence according to the group number of the STA group, according to the rule, the STA does not need to receive the GTIM of each STA group sent by the AP in each Beacon period, and only needs to receive the GTIM of the group where the STA sent by the AP is located at a certain time point, the indication information of whether the STA itself has data to be received can be obtained, which is beneficial to saving power of the STA in a communication system with low requirement on communication real-time and small communication data amount.

Example 4

Referring to fig. 9, in this embodiment, considering a scenario that a plurality of STAs (Station, terminal device supporting 802.11 protocol) associated with an AP (Access Point) are numerous, communication delay is insensitive, communication data amount is small, and low speed is taken into consideration, a plurality of STAs may be grouped to obtain STA groups, and receive data indication information of one STA group is sent each time, where the receive data indication information is used to indicate whether STAs in the STA group are ready to receive data, so that, by sending the receive data indication information of each STA group for a plurality of times respectively to notify each STA whether data is ready to be received, because of the low speed scenario, a plurality of auxiliary indication messages may be sent each time the receive data indication information of one group of STAs is sent to increase a time interval for sending the receive data indication information of the current group and the next group of STAs, where, the auxiliary indication message comprises grouping information, interval information and counting information of GTIM intervals; the method of the embodiment has an execution subject of AP, and includes the following specific steps:

step 400: an STA (Station, terminal equipment supporting 802.11 protocol) with which the AP is associated is assigned an AID (Association ID);

see the description of step 300 in example 3 for details, which are not repeated here.

Step 401: the AP groups the STAs associated with the AP;

the grouping method in this step is the same as the grouping method in step 301 in embodiment 3, and is not described here again.

Step 402: the AP detects whether each STA in a group has data to be received, if so, the indication bit of the data to be received of the STA is set to be 1, and if not, the indication bit of the data to be received of the STA is set to be 0, so that the indication message of the data to be received of each STA is obtained;

see the details of step 302 in embodiment 3, which are not repeated herein.

Step 403: generating an extended received data indication message of an STA packet;

the difference between the extended received data indication message and the received data indication message generated in step 303 in embodiment 3 is that the extended received data indication message includes interval information and interval count information in addition to the to-be-received data indication information of each STA in the STA packet and the packet information of the STA packet; the interval information refers to the number of auxiliary indication messages sent between two adjacent Beacon frames containing STA grouped received data indication messages, and the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value and indicates whether the current message is the received data indication message;

specifically, in embodiment 3, the extended received data indication message may be obtained by adding new fields GTIM Interval and GTIM Number to the header of the STA packet received data indication message generated in step 303, where the new fields are respectively used to identify Interval information and Interval count information, a format of the extended received data indication message is shown in fig. 10, and the fields in the diagram are defined as follows:

element ID: for identifying that the message is an extended received data indication message;

length: for identifying a total length of the extended received data indication message;

GTIM Count: the method comprises the steps of identifying how many auxiliary indication messages are required to be sent after the extended received data indication message of the current STA group before the extended received data indication message of the next STA group is sent, wherein the value is changed between 0 and an interval information value, and 0 represents that the message is the extended received data indication message;

GTIM Interval: the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the extended received data indication messages used for identifying two adjacent STA groups;

GTIM Number: when GTIM Count is 0, it indicates that it is an extended received data indication message of the STA packet that is currently transmitted, and this field identifies the packet number of the STA packet that is being transmitted; this field may identify the packet number of the next upcoming transmitting STA packet or the packet number reserved as the most recently transmitted STA packet if GTIM Count is not equal to 0.

GTIM Period: the field is used for identifying the number of the packets, and the field also represents the sending period of the extended received data indication message as the packets are sent in turn;

GTIM Size: for identifying the packet size, i.e., how many STAs each packet contains;

according to the grouping method, both GTIM Period and GTIM Size may not be needed, or only gtimeriod; if the grouping is performed according to the first method described in step 301 of embodiment 3, neither GTIM Period nor GTIM Size is needed, but a grouping situation is represented by one grouping bit group information, which is described in detail in step 301 of embodiment 3, so that the length of the extended received data indication message of the STA group can be further reduced;

bitmap Control: see the corresponding description in example 3;

partial Virtual Bitmap: see the corresponding description in example 3;

it should be noted that, the message header parts in the GTIM message, such as Element ID, Length, GTIM Number, GTIM Period, GTIM Size, and the like, may share bytes, and further reduce the byte Length of the extended received data indication message.

Step 404: the AP broadcasts an extended received data indication message corresponding to the generated STA group;

it should be noted that, after broadcasting the extended received data indication message of one STA packet, the AP sends interval count information to take value of auxiliary indication information, and then sends the extended received data indication message of the next STA packet, so that the extended received data indication message of each STA packet is sent completely; whether the extended received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message is sent in the Beacon frame, that is, several Beacon periods are inserted between the extended received data indication messages of every two adjacent STA packets to send the auxiliary indication message, so that it takes longer to completely send the received data indication messages of all the packets at one time.

The auxiliary indication message comprises grouping information, interval information and interval counting information, and the meaning is consistent with the grouping information, the interval information and the interval counting information in the extended received data indication message.

The technical solution adopted in this embodiment has the same beneficial effects as those achieved in embodiment 3, and in addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, after each time an extended received data indication message of an STA packet is sent, a plurality of auxiliary indication messages are sent, so as to increase the interval time for the STA to receive the extended received data indication message, which is more suitable for an application scenario in which communication delay is very insensitive and data amount is low, and is more beneficial to power saving of the STA.

Example 5

Referring to fig. 11, in this embodiment, considering a scenario that a plurality of STAs (Station, terminal device supporting 802.11 protocol) associated with an AP (Access Point) are numerous, communication delay is insensitive, communication data amount is small, and low speed is considered, the STA may be grouped to obtain STA groups, and receive data indication information of one STA group is sent each time, where the receive data indication information is used to indicate whether each STA in the STA group has data to receive, so that, by sending the receive data indication information of each STA group for multiple times, each STA is notified whether data is to be received, and in a scenario that communication delay is insensitive and communication data amount is small, after continuously sending the receive data indication information of each STA group, one or more auxiliary indication messages may be sent, and then, the receive data indication information of each STA group is continuously sent again, so that the STA can increase the size of the receive data indication cancellation of the group in which the STA receives the receive data indication cancellation For the time interval, the execution subject of the method described in this embodiment is AP, and the specific steps are as follows:

step 500: an STA (Station, terminal equipment supporting 802.11 protocol) with which the AP is associated is assigned an AID (Association ID);

see the content of step 300 in embodiment 2 for details, which are not described herein again.

Step 501: the AP groups the STAs associated with the AP;

Step 502: setting a Beacon period number greater than the total packet number by the AP, wherein the Beacon period number is called the carousel period length of the received data indication message, and the unit is the Beacon period, which is called the carousel period length for short;

specifically, the carousel period includes an indication information broadcasting period for transmitting indication information containing received data and a non-indication information broadcasting period for transmitting auxiliary indication information, the received data indication information of each STA group is continuously transmitted in the indication information broadcasting period, and then the auxiliary indication information is transmitted in the non-indication information broadcasting period, so that the transmission of the received data indication information of each STA group in one round is completed;

for example, the AP divides the STA into 8 packets, and sets the carousel period to 20, the AP transmits a Beacon frame containing a received data indication message of the STA packet in 8 Beacon periods consecutively, i.e., in an indication message transmission period, and transmits a Beacon frame containing an auxiliary indication message in the next 12 Beacon periods, i.e., in a no indication message transmission period.

Step 503: in the indication message broadcasting period, the AP detects whether each STA in an STA group corresponding to the current Beacon period has data to be received, and in the indication information-free broadcasting period, the AP does not detect whether the STA has the data to be received;

see details described in step 302 of embodiment 2, and are not described herein again.

Step 504: generating an extended received data indication message;

the method for generating the extended received data indication message is the same as the method described in step 403 in embodiment 4, except that the added interval information and interval count information in the extended received data indication message have different meanings from the interval information and interval count information added in step 403 in embodiment 4;

specifically, in this embodiment, the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages grouped by the next round of sending devices, and the interval count information changes from 0 to the interval information value, indicating that the current message is the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

Specifically, the format of the extended received data indication message is as shown in fig. 10 (basically the same as the structure of the extended received data indication message of embodiment 4), and the definition of each field in the figure is as follows:

GTIM Count: for identifying how many more secondary indication messages will be sent with an extended received data indication message after the currently sent secondary indication message;

specifically, there are two counting methods for GTIM Count:

first, GTIM Count starts counting down from GTIM Interval until it is 0; when the GTIMCount is not 0, the currently transmitted message is an auxiliary indication message, and the value of the auxiliary indication message indicates how many more Beacon periods are needed to start the next round of packet receiving indication message; when the GTIM Count is 0, the currently sent is a received data indication message of the device packet;

secondly, counting up the GTIM Count from 0 until the GTIM Count is equal to the GTIM Interval, when the GTIM Count is not equal to the GTIM Interval, currently sending an auxiliary indication message, wherein the value of the auxiliary indication message indicates the Beacon period which passes by the received data indication message of the next round of sending packets, and then subtracting the GTIM Count from the GTIM Interval; when the GTIM Count is equal to the GTIMInterval, the currently sent is a received data indication message of the device packet; the GTIM Count in embodiment 4 may have the same implementation method;

GTIM Interval: the Beacon number is used for identifying the number of received data indication messages of the STA group which are continuously sent after the interval of the auxiliary indication messages, namely the Beacon number of the broadcast period of the non-indication information;

the sum of the GTIM Interval and the STA packet number is equal to the carousel period length, wherein the STA packet number is the Beacon number of the indication information broadcasting period;

GTIM Number: the number of the packet being transmitted is indicated in the received data indication message of the packet indicating the information broadcasting period, and is absent or meaningless in the auxiliary indication message not indicating the information broadcasting period.

GTIM Period: identifying the number of packets;

GTIM Size: packet size, i.e., how many STAs each packet contains;

according to the grouping method, both GTIM Period and GTIM Size may not be needed, or only gtimeriod; if the grouping is performed according to the first method described in the step 301 of the embodiment 3, neither GTIM Period nor GTIM Size is needed, but a grouping bit group information is used to indicate the grouping situation, which is described in detail in the step 301 of the embodiment 3;

bitmap Control: see the description related to example 3;

partial Virtual Bitmap: see the description related to example 3;

step 505: the AP broadcasts the generated extended received data indication message of the STA group;

it should be noted that the AP sends one or more auxiliary indication messages after broadcasting the extended received data indication message of each STA packet, where the extended received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message is sent in the Beacon frame; that is, several Beacon periods are inserted between extended received data indication messages of each STA packet, so that it takes longer to completely transmit the received data indication messages of all packets at once.

The technical scheme adopted by the embodiment has the same beneficial effects as those of the embodiment 4, and in addition, after the received data indication messages of all the STA groups are continuously sent, a plurality of Beacon frames which do not contain the received data indication information are sent to prolong the time for receiving the data indication information by the carousel STA, so that the period for receiving the data indication information once by all the STAs is increased, and the STA power saving is facilitated for the application scenes which are not sensitive to communication delay and have low data volume.

Example 6 real time

Referring to fig. 12, an apparatus for notifying indication information of data to be received, the apparatus including the AP in the above method embodiment, includes: the grouping module 601 and the sending module 602, the specific functions of each module are described in detail below:

a grouping module 601, configured to group terminal devices;

a sending module 602, configured to send a received data indication message of each device group in sequence, where the received data indication message includes indication information of data to be received and group information of terminal devices in the device group, and the indication information of data to be received indicates whether each device in the device group has data to be received.

The grouping information comprises a grouping number and a grouping number of the current equipment grouping; or, the grouping information includes the grouping number, the grouping number and the grouping size of the current equipment grouping; or, the grouping information comprises grouping identification bits in the association identification.

Specifically, the grouping module 601 includes:

a determining unit 6011, configured to determine a group number of the device groups and a value range of an association identifier of the terminal device in each device group;

a grouping unit 6012, configured to group the terminal devices according to the associated identifiers of the terminal devices and a value range of the associated identifiers of the terminal devices in the device group; or

A grouping module 601, comprising:

a setting unit 6013, configured to use bits of a predetermined number of bits in the association identifier of the terminal device as a group identifier;

a grouping unit 6014, configured to group the terminal devices according to the grouping identifier bits in the association identifier of the terminal device; or

The grouping module 601 includes:

an allocating unit 6015, configured to allocate a group identifier to the terminal device in advance;

and a grouping module 6016, configured to group the terminal devices according to the group identifier.

Specifically, when the received data indication message of the device packet generated by the generation module 602 further includes interval information and interval count information

Accordingly, the sending module 603 is configured to send one or more auxiliary indication messages after each sending of a received data indication message of one device group;

the auxiliary indication message contains the interval information, interval count information and grouping information;

the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages grouped by two adjacent devices, and the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and indicates that the current message is the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

Correspondingly, the sending module 603 is configured to send one or more auxiliary indication messages after the received data indication messages of each device group are sent in sequence;

the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages grouped in the next round of sending equipment, the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and the current message is indicated to be the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

The device also includes:

a detecting module 603, configured to detect indication information of data to be received of a terminal device;

a generating module 604, configured to generate a received data indication message of the device group according to the detected to-be-received data indication information.

A dynamic allocation module 605, configured to dynamically allocate consecutive association identifiers for the terminal device.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: through the realization of the technical scheme of grouping the terminal equipment STA and sequentially sending the received data indication messages of each equipment group, the message length of the received data indication messages of each STA group is controllable, the reliability of information transmission is improved, and a large amount of information to be transmitted of the STA can be transmitted by increasing the number of the STA groups; in addition, when the received data indication message contains interval information and interval counting information, the interval information and the interval counting information lengthen the waiting time of the STA, so that the STA can wait for the information to be transmitted for a longer time, and the method is more suitable for low-speed application scenarios.

Example 7

Referring to fig. 13, a method for acquiring indication information of data to be received, where an execution subject of the method includes a terminal device STA, and the method specifically includes the following steps:

step 701: the method comprises the steps that an STA receives a received data indication message of each STA group sent by an AP, wherein the received data indication message contains data indication information to be received of each STA in the STA group and group information of the STA group;

step 702: the STA acquires the grouping information of the STA grouping from the received data indication message of the current received STA grouping;

for example, the packet information gtimeriod ═ 63, GTIM Size ═ 32, and GTIM Number ═ 5 in the received data indication message of the STA packet currently received indicate that there are 63 STA packets in total, there are 32 STAs in the STA packets, and GTIM received this time is GTIM of the STA packet with the packet Number 5;

step 703: the STA judges whether the currently received data indication message is the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is positioned according to the acquired group information,

if so, go to step 704;

if not, returning to the step 701;

specifically, the determining, by the STA, whether the currently received data indication message is a received data indication message of an STA group in which the STA is located according to the acquired group information includes:

step 703-1: the STA acquires the grouping number of the STA group in which the STA is positioned;

specifically, the STA can obtain the packet number of the STA packet in which it is located in three ways:

in the first mode, the STA divides the AID of the STA by the packet size in the acquired packet information to obtain the packet number of the STA packet where the STA is located; for example, if the AID of the STA is 24, and 0 is obtained by dividing the AID by the obtained packet size 63 and rounding, then the packet number of the STA packet where the STA is located is 0;

obtaining the grouping number of the equipment group in which the equipment is located according to the grouping identification bit of the self association identification;

specifically, the STA acquires a group identification bit from its AID, where the group identification bit identifies the group number of the STA group in which the STA is located and the STA group number; for example, if the upper two bits of the AID are the group identification bits of the STA and the obtained group identification bit information is "00", the group number of the STA group in which the STA belongs is 0, and if the obtained group identification bit information is "10", the group number of the STA group in which the STA belongs is 2, and so on.

Acquiring a grouping number of the equipment group in which the equipment is located according to the self-distributed grouping identifier, wherein the grouping identifier identifies the grouping number of the STA group in which the equipment is located;

specifically, when the AP allocates the AID to the STA, the AP allocates a corresponding group identifier to the STA, where the group identifier is used to identify a group number of an STA group where the STA is located, and if the group identifier of the STA is 5, the STA belongs to the STA group with the group number of 5;

step 703-2: the STA judges whether the packet number of the STA packet where the STA is located is consistent with the packet number in the acquired packet information,

if the received data indication message is consistent with the received data indication message, the currently received data indication message is the received data indication message grouped by the STA where the currently received data indication message is located;

if not, the currently received data indication message is not the received data indication message of the STA group where the currently received data indication message is located, and the currently received data indication message is discarded;

step 704: the STA acquires own indication information of data to be received from the current indication information of the received data;

step 705: the STA judges whether data needs to be received according to the indication information of the data to be received,

if yes, requesting the AP to send data, or waiting for the AP to actively send data;

if not, the AP is waited to send the received data indication message again.

For example, a Bitmap of the data indication information to be received by the STA carried in the received data indication message is as shown in fig. 2, and a value of the Bitmap corresponding to the AID 24 is 1, which indicates that the STA has data to receive.

Steps 701 to 705 are a process of cycle execution, the STA continuously receives the received data indication message sent by the AP, and determines whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is located, until the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is located is obtained, and obtains the data indication information to be received of the STA from the received data indication message;

the embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: through the technical scheme that the STA continuously receives the received data indication message sent by the AP and judges whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is positioned until the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is positioned is obtained and the received data indication message to be received of the STA is obtained, the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is positioned can be obtained from the received data indication message through simple judgment, and the received data indication message to be received of the STA is obtained.

Example 8

Referring to fig. 14: a method for obtaining indication information of data to be received, an execution subject of the method comprises a terminal device (STA), and the method specifically comprises the following steps:

step 801: the method comprises the steps that an STA receives a received data indication message of an STA group sent by an AP, wherein the received data indication message comprises to-be-received data indication information of all STAs in the STA group and grouping information of the STA group, and the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether the STA has data to be received or not;

step 802: the STA acquires the grouping information of the STA grouping from the received data indication message of the current received STA grouping;

the grouping information comprises a grouping number and a grouping number of the current equipment grouping; or

The grouping information comprises a grouping number, a grouping number and a grouping size of the current equipment grouping; or

The grouping information comprises the grouping number of the current equipment grouping and grouping identification bit group information in the association identification.

step 803: the STA judges whether the currently received data indication message is the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is positioned according to the acquired group information,

if so, go to step 806;

if not, go to step 804;

in one embodiment, the determining, by the STA, whether the currently received data indication message is a received data indication message of an STA group in which the STA is located according to the acquired group information includes:

step 803-1: the STA acquires the grouping number of the STA group in which the STA is positioned;

see in particular the description in step 703-1 of example 7.

Step 803-2: the STA judges whether the packet number of the STA packet where the STA is located is consistent with the packet number in the acquired packet information,

if not, the currently received data indication message is not the received data indication message of the STA group where the currently received data indication message is located;

step 804: the STA calculates the time of receiving the data receiving indication message of the STA group where the STA is located according to the group information, and records the time as a first waiting time, and may enter a power saving mode within the first waiting time without receiving any data receiving indication message sent by the AP, so as to save energy consumption, and performs step 805;

the first waiting time is the interval time between the time when the STA receives the data receiving indication message of the STA group sent by the AP for the first time and the time when the STA receives the data receiving indication message of the STA group where the STA is located;

in one embodiment, the STA calculates the waiting time according to the acquired packet number, the packet number and the packet number of the packet in which the STA is located, and the method includes:

the STA compares the size of the acquired packet number with the packet number of the packet in which it is located,

if the acquired packet number is smaller than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, a first preset formula is adopted: calculating to obtain first waiting time by a Beacon period (the packet number of the packet where the Beacon belongs-the acquired packet number);

the first predetermined formula is briefly introduced below:

the AP sends the received data indication message corresponding to each group to the STA according to the sequence of the group number, and the currently received data indication message is the received data indication message corresponding to the group of the acquired group number, so that the AP only needs to receive the received data indication message corresponding to the group where the AP is located, and then the AP sends the next (the group number where the AP is located-the acquired group number) received data indication message; because the AP carries the received data indication message corresponding to each group through the Beacon frame, the STA only needs to wait for (the packet number where the STA is located-the acquired packet number) × the Beacon period) and then receive the received data indication message sent by the AP;

for example, the packet number of the packet where the STA is located is 5, the currently received data indication message is the received data indication message corresponding to the packet with the packet number of 1, and the STA receives the received data indication message sent by the AP after sleeping for 4 Beacon periods, so that the received data indication message corresponding to the packet where the STA is located can be obtained;

if the acquired packet number is equal to the packet number of the packet where the current received data indication message is, the currently received data indication message is the received data indication message corresponding to the packet where the current received data indication message is, at this moment, the first waiting time is 0;

if the acquired packet number is larger than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, calculating by adopting a second preset formula ((packet number-the packet number acquired + the packet number of the packet where the packet is located) × Beacon period) to obtain a first waiting time;

the origin of the second predetermined formula is briefly described as follows:

the factors such as unstable network, overlong STA waiting time, and dynamically adjusting packet size by the AP cause the STA to miss receiving the GTIM message corresponding to the packet in which the STA is located, that is, the packet number in the currently received data indication message is greater than the packet number of the packet in which the STA is located;

then, under the above situation, the STA can only receive the received data indication message corresponding to the packet where the STA is located when waiting for the received data indication message corresponding to each group that is sent by the AP again according to the sequence of the packet numbers, so that the STA can receive the (number of packets-the packet number of the packet where the STA is located) received data indication message sent by the AP after currently receiving the received data indication message corresponding to the packet between the packets where the STA is located;

for example, the number of packets is 63, the packet number of the packet in which the STA is located is 5, the currently received data indication message is a GTIM message corresponding to the packet with the packet number of 6, and the STA receives the GTIM message sent by the AP after sleeping for 62 Beacon periods, so that the received data indication message corresponding to the packet in which the STA is located can be obtained;

step 805: when the first waiting time is up, receiving a received data indication message sent by the AP, wherein the received data indication message is a received data indication message grouped by the STA where the AP is located;

step 806: the STA obtains self data indication information to be received from the received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is positioned, judges whether the STA has data to be received according to the data indication information to be received,

if yes, go to step 807;

if not, go to step 808;

Step 807: requesting the AP to send data, or waiting for the AP to send data actively, and performing step 808;

step 808: the STA calculates a second waiting time according to the packet information, and returns to step 801 after the second waiting time is reached;

specifically, the second waiting time may be obtained by a third preset formula (number of packets × Beacon period);

the second waiting time is a time interval between the time when the STA receives the data receiving indication message of the self-located group for the first time and the time when the STA receives the data receiving indication message of the self-located group for the second time;

the following briefly introduces the origin of the third preset formula:

after the STA acquires the received data indication message of the packet in which it is located for the first time, if the received data indication message of the packet in which it is located is received again, the STA must wait for the AP to finish sending the received data indication messages of all the packets after the packet in which it is located, and when the received data indication messages corresponding to the respective packets are sent again according to the packet numbers, receive the received data indication message of the packet in which it is located from the received data indication messages sent again according to the packet numbers, so that the STA needs to wait for (the number of packets) × Beacon period) to receive the received data indication message of the packet in which it is located again;

now, how steps 801-:

taking fig. 15 as an example, the packet size is 32, that is, each group has 32 STAs, the number of packets is 63, GTIM 0 is the received data indication message corresponding to packet number 0, and GTIM1 is the received data indication message corresponding to packet number 1. Here, assuming that the AID of the STA is 50, dividing 50 by 32 and rounding down according to the received packet information to obtain 1, that is, the STA should receive the received data indication message corresponding to the packet number 1, that is, receive GTIM1, and currently receive the received data indication message corresponding to the packet number 0, that is, GTIM 0, then according to the rule that the AP sends the received data indication message corresponding to each packet in the sequence of the packet numbers, the STA can obtain the received data indication message of the packet where it is located, that is, GTIM1, as long as it waits for one Beacon period time, that is, it receives the next received data indication message; the information to be transmitted of each STA in the group 1 carried by the GTIM1 can be known, the Bit corresponding to the AID 50 is 0, that is, the STA corresponding to the AID 50 has no data to receive, and then waits for 63 Beacon messages, and receives the data receiving indication message corresponding to the STA at the next time, and during this period, the STA can enter a power saving state, thereby saving energy consumption.

In addition, when the load (the number of STAs associated with the AP) in the network changes greatly, the packet size of the STA may be dynamically adjusted. For example, when more STAs are associated with the AP and the number of packets of the STA is required to be constant to ensure that the STA can receive the data message to be received in time, the size of the packet of the STA may be adjusted to increase the number of STAs in each packet. Then, directly when the GTIM message is sent next time, the new packet size is set to the received data indication message, and meanwhile, the to-be-received data indication information of the STA carried in the received data indication message is correspondingly increased, that is, the to-be-received data indication information of the STA newly added in the STA packet is increased. When receiving the received data indication message, the STA calculates, according to the packet information therein, that the data to be received corresponding thereto will be sent in the fourth received data indication message, and receives the received data indication message sent by the AP when the corresponding waiting time is over, that is, obtains the data message to be received of itself.

However, since the packet of the STA is adjusted, in the first round after the packet adjustment, a part of STAs may not receive the indication information of the data to be received of the STA accurately in time, for example, STA33 is originally divided into packets with a packet number of 1, and the packet size after the dynamic adjustment is 33, the STA33 is divided into packets with a packet number of 0, and then STA33 cannot obtain the data message to be transmitted of the STA in GTIM1, and the STA can adjust the indication message of the received data that the STA should receive in time according to the new packet information, so as to ensure that the corresponding indication message of the received data can be received accurately at the next time.

Generally, the adjustment frequency of the packet information is low, and interference on the STA receiving the data information to be transmitted will not occur.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: in the embodiment, the STA calculates the waiting time, so that the STA does not need to receive the received data indication message sent by the AP every time, and can obtain the grouped received data indication message of the STA where the STA is located by receiving the received data indication message sent by the current AP only after the waiting time is reached, thereby improving the efficiency of the STA for receiving the received data indication message.

Example 9

Referring to fig. 16, a method for acquiring indication information of data to be received, where an execution subject of the method includes a terminal device STA, and the method specifically includes the following steps:

step 901: the method comprises the steps that an STA receives an extended received data indication message and an auxiliary indication message sent by an AP, wherein the extended received data indication message comprises to-be-received data indication information, grouping information, interval information and interval counting information of the STA in an STA group, and the auxiliary indication message comprises the grouping information, the interval information and the interval counting information of the current STA group;

wherein the grouping information includes: the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages of two adjacent equipment groups, the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and the current message is indicated to be the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message;

in actual operation, a Beacon (Beacon) frame containing an extended data indication message or an auxiliary indication message is received by the STA;

step 902: the STA acquires interval counting information from the Beacon frame;

step 903: the STA judges whether the currently received Beacon frame carries an extended received data indication message or not according to the acquired interval counting information, if so, the step 904 is executed, otherwise, the step 907 is executed;

specifically, the STA judges whether the interval count information is 0, if so, the currently received Beacon frame includes an extended received data indication message of the STA packet, and if not, the currently received Beacon frame does not include the extended received data indication message of the STA packet; or the interval counting information and the interval information are equal to each other, the Beacon frame contains the extended received data indication message of the STA group, otherwise, the Beacon frame does not contain the extended received data indication message of the STA group;

step 904: the STA acquires STA grouping information from the currently received Beacon frame;

step 905: the STA judges whether the extended received data indication message contained in the current Beacon frame is the extended received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is positioned according to the acquired grouping information,

if so, go to step 908;

if not, go to step 906;

specifically, the step of determining, by the STA, whether the currently received extended received data indication message is an extended received data indication message of an STA group in which the STA is located according to the acquired group information includes:

step 905-1: the STA acquires the grouping number of the STA group in which the STA is positioned;

see in particular the description in step 703-1 of example 7.

Step 905-2: the STA judges whether the packet number of the STA packet where the STA is located is consistent with the packet number in the acquired packet information,

if the received data is consistent with the received data, the currently received extended received data indication message is the received data indication message of the STA group where the extended received data indication message is located;

if the received extended received data indication message is not consistent with the received extended received data indication message, the currently received extended received data indication message is not the received data indication message of the STA group where the extended received data indication message is located;

step 906: the STA calculates the time for receiving the extended received data indication message of the packet of the STA according to the interval information, interval counting information, grouping information and the grouping number of the packet of the STA according to a first principle in the currently received Beacon frame, records the time as first waiting time, enters a power-saving mode in the first waiting time, does not receive the Beacon frame sent by the AP so as to save energy consumption, and executes step 908;

specifically, the STA compares the size of the packet number in the acquired packet information with the packet number of the packet in which the STA is located,

if the packet number in the acquired packet information is smaller than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, calculating by using a fourth preset formula (((GTIM interval plus 1) × (packet number of the packet where the packet is located-acquired packet number)) × Beacon period) to obtain a first waiting time;

the origin of the fourth predetermined formula is described below:

when the interval count is 0, it can be known that the STA currently receives the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message and carries the extended received data indication message of the packet corresponding to the acquired packet number. In this embodiment, after sending a Beacon frame carrying an extended received data indication message, the AP sends Beacon frames carrying auxiliary indication messages of the number identified by the interval information, and then sends a next Beacon frame carrying an extended received data indication message, so that when the STA calculates the first waiting time, the STA calculates the time occupied by the Beacon frames of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the two Beacon frames carrying the extended received data indication message based on the first preset formula in embodiment 8, and thus, after sleeping (GTIM interval plus 1) (packet number of packet where the STA is located-acquired packet number)) -Beacon period), the STA can receive the extended GTIM message of the packet where the STA is located;

if the packet in the acquired packet information is equal to the packet number of the packet where the Beacon frame is currently received, the extended received data indication message of the packet where the Beacon frame is currently received is carried, and the first waiting time is 0;

if the packet in the acquired packet information is larger than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, calculating to obtain a first waiting time by adopting a fifth preset formula (((GTIM interval plus 1) × (packet number-acquired packet number plus packet number of the packet where the packet is located)) × Beacon period);

the origin of the fifth predetermined formula is described below:

when the interval count is 0, it can be known that the STA currently receives the received data indication message carried in the Beacon frame, and the received data indication message carried in the packet corresponding to the acquired packet number. In this sending embodiment, after sending a Beacon frame carrying an extended received data indication message, the AP sends Beacon frames carrying auxiliary indication messages of the number identified by the interval information, and then sends a next Beacon frame carrying an extended received data indication message, so that when the STA calculates the first waiting time, the STA calculates the time occupied by the Beacon frames of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the two Beacon frames carrying the extended received data indication message on the basis of the second preset formula in embodiment 8, so that the STA can receive the extended GTIM message of the packet in which it is located after sleeping (the (GTIM interval plus 1) × (packet number-obtained packet number plus packet number of the packet in which it is located)) × the Beacon period);

step 907: the STA calculates the time for receiving the extended received data indication message of the packet according to a second principle according to the interval information, the interval counting information, the packet information and the packet number of the packet in which the STA is located in the currently received Beacon frame, records the time as first waiting time, enters a power saving mode in the first waiting time, does not receive the extended Beacon frame sent by the AP so as to save energy consumption, and executes step 908;

if the packet number in the acquired packet information is not greater than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, calculating by using a sixth preset formula (the packet number of the packet where the packet is located-the acquired packet number) (interval information plus 1) plus interval counting information (Beacon period) to obtain a first waiting time;

the origin of the sixth preset formula is briefly described as follows:

when the interval count is not 0, it can be known that the STA currently receives the Beacon frame of the auxiliary indication message, and the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message corresponding to the acquired packet number will be sent next time. When a sixth preset formula is calculated, the interval time between the Beacon frame of the currently received auxiliary indication message and the Beacon frame of the received extended received data indication message corresponding to the packet number carrying the packet where the STA is located is calculated on the basis of the fourth preset formula, so that the STA can receive the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message of the packet where the STA is located after dormancy (the period ((packet number of the packet where the STA is located-the acquired packet number) ((interval information plus 1)) plus interval counting information);

if the packet number in the acquired packet information is larger than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, calculating by using a seventh preset formula (((packet number- (the acquired packet number-the packet number of the packet where the packet is located) plus 1 (interval information plus 1)) plus interval counting information) plus Beacon period) to obtain a first waiting time;

the origin of the seventh preset formula is briefly described as follows:

when the interval count is not 0, it can be known that the STA currently receives the Beacon frame of the auxiliary indication message, and the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message corresponding to the acquired packet number will be sent next time. When a seventh preset formula is calculated, calculating the time interval between the Beacon frame of the currently received auxiliary indication message and the Beacon frame of the received extended received data indication message corresponding to the packet number carrying the packet where the STA is located on the basis of the fifth preset formula, so that the STA can receive the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message of the packet where the STA is located after sleeping (the period of time ((the number of packets- (the number of the acquired packets-the packet number of the packet where the STA is located)) (the period of time information plus 1)) plus the period count information))) for the Beacon period;

it should be noted that step 907 is not performed after step 906, and steps 906 and 907 are performed in different cases.

Step 908: when the first waiting time is up, receiving a Beacon frame sent by the AP, wherein the received Beacon frame carries an extended received data indication message corresponding to the packet where the Beacon frame is located;

step 909: the STA acquires the received data indication information from the extended received data indication message corresponding to the packet in which the STA is positioned, judges whether the STA has data to receive according to the extended received data indication information,

if yes, go to step 910;

if not, go to step 911;

for example, a Bitmap of the data indication information to be received by the STA carried in the extended received data indication message is as shown in fig. 2, and a value of the Bitmap corresponding to the AID 24 is 1, which indicates that the STA has data to receive.

Step 910: requesting the AP to transmit data, or waiting for the AP to actively transmit data, and performing step 911;

step 911: the STA calculates a second waiting time, and returns to step 901 after the second waiting time is reached;

specifically, the second waiting time may be obtained by an eighth preset formula (number of packets (GTIM interval value plus 1) × Beacon period);

in this embodiment, a plurality of Beacon frames of the auxiliary indication message are spaced between two consecutive Beacon frames carrying the extended received data indication message, so that when the second waiting time is calculated, the time occupied by the Beacon frames of the plurality of auxiliary indication messages in the middle is calculated on the basis of the third preset formula in embodiment 8;

now, how the steps 901-911 are implemented is illustrated as follows:

acquiring interval information, interval counting information and grouping information GTIMInterval which are 5, GTIM Count which is 4, GTIM Period which is 126, GTIM Size which is 16 and GTIM Number which is 9 from the currently received Beacon frame, wherein the Beacon frame which carries the extended received data indication message is respectively sent every 5 auxiliary indication messages, the Beacon frame which carries the extended received data indication message is further separated by 4 auxiliary indication messages from the Beacon which carries the extended received data indication message which is sent next time, 126 groups are totally contained, 16 STAs in each group are about to be sent next time, and the Beacon frame which carries the extended received data indication message of the group with the group Number of 9 is about to be sent next time;

here, assuming that the AID of the STA is 1, dividing 1 by 16 and rounding to obtain 0 according to the received packet information, that is, the STA should receive the extended received data indication message corresponding to the packet number of 0, that is, receive the extended received data indication message GTIM 0, and knowing from the packet information, interval information, and interval count information in the currently received Beacon frame that it is the Beacon frame of one auxiliary indication message that is currently received, and it is still 4 auxiliary indication messages apart from the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message that is sent next, and it is the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message of the packet number of 9 that is sent next, then, the STA can calculate from the sixth preset formula, after 706 Beacon periods, it can receive the extended received data indication message of its own packet, and in this 706 Beacon period, the STA can enter a power saving mode, so that the energy consumption is saved; as shown in the upper diagram in fig. 8, the STA receives the extended received data indication message GTIM 0 after 706 Beacon periods, and according to the extended received data indication message GTIM 0, the STA can know that the Bit value corresponding to AID 1 is 0, and then there is no data to be transmitted between the AP and the STA, so the STA enters the fourth waiting time, and receives the extended received data indication message of the packet where the STA is located again until the fourth waiting time comes.

The technical solution adopted in this embodiment has the same beneficial effects as those achieved in embodiment 8, and in addition, after receiving an extended received data indication message of one STA packet, the embodiment of the present invention receives the auxiliary indication information which is derived from the interval count information, and then receives an extended received data indication message of the next STA packet, thereby increasing the interval time for the STA to receive the extended received data indication message, which is more suitable for an application scenario in which the STA is not sensitive to communication delay and has low data amount, and is more favorable for power saving of the STA.

Example 10

Referring to fig. 17, a method for acquiring indication information of data to be received, where an execution subject of the method includes a terminal device STA, and the method specifically includes the following steps:

step A01: STA receiving an indication message carrying received extended data and an auxiliary indication message sent by AP;

wherein the grouping information includes: one or more of grouping number, grouping size and grouping identification bit group information in the associated identification;

the auxiliary indication message includes packet information, interval information, and interval count information; specifically, the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages grouped to the next round of sending equipment; the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and indicates that the current message is the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message;

step A02: the STA acquires interval counting information from the Beacon frame;

step A03: the STA judges whether the currently received Beacon frame carries an extended received data indication message or not according to the acquired interval counting information, if so, the step A04 is executed, otherwise, the step A07 is executed;

when the Interval Count information GTIM Count starts to Count up from 0 in this embodiment, until the Interval Count GTIM Count equals to the value of GTIM Interval, the determining method in this step is:

the STA judges whether the value of Interval counting information GTIM Count is equal to the value of GTIM Interval, if so, the currently received Beacon frame contains the extended received data indication message of the STA group, and if not, the currently received Beacon frame does not contain the extended received data indication message of the STA group;

when the Interval Count GTIM Count starts counting down from the Interval information GTIM Interval in this embodiment, until the Interval Count GTIM Count bit is 0, the method for determining in this step is:

the STA judges whether interval counting information GTIM Count is 0, if so, the currently received Beacon frame contains the extended received data indication message of the STA group, and if not, the currently received Beacon frame does not contain the extended received data indication message of the STA group;

step A04: the STA acquires an extended received data indication message of an STA group from a currently received Beacon frame;

step A05: the STA judges whether the currently acquired extended received data indication message is an extended received data indication message of the STA group in which the STA is located,

if so, perform step A08;

if not, perform step A06;

the determination and transmission in this step are the same as the method described in step 905 of embodiment 9, and are not described herein again.

Step A06: the STA calculates the time for receiving the extended received data indication message of the packet of the STA according to the interval information, the interval counting information, the grouping information and the grouping number of the packet of the STA according to a first principle in the currently received Beacon frame, records the time as first waiting time, enters a power saving mode in the first waiting time, does not receive the Beacon frame sent by the AP so as to save energy consumption, and executes the step A08;

if the packet number in the acquired packet information is smaller than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, calculating by using a ninth preset formula ((the packet number of the packet where the packet is located-the acquired packet number) × Beacon period) to obtain a first waiting time;

the origin of the ninth predetermined formula is described below:

when the Interval Count GTIM Count starts to Count up from 0 and the Interval Count GTIM Count is equal to GTIM Interval in this embodiment, or when the Interval Count GTIM Count starts to Count down from the Count information GTIM Interval and the GTIM Count is 0 in this embodiment, the STA is currently in the indication information broadcast period of the AP, in this broadcast period, the AP will continuously send a Beacon frame carrying an extended received data indication message, and the STA currently receives the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message and carries an extended received data indication message of a packet whose packet number corresponds to the acquired packet number, because the packet number of the STA packet where the STA is located is smaller than the currently acquired packet number, that is, the extended received data indication message of the STA packet where the STA is located will be sent after the currently received extended received data indication message; therefore, the SAT can obtain the extended received data indication message of the STA packet from the Beacon frame of the later (packet number of the packet where the STA is located — acquired packet number) as long as the STA receives the Beacon frame of the later (packet number of the packet where the STA is located — acquired packet number) — Beacon period), and then the STA can receive the extended received data indication message of the packet where the STA is located after the STA sleeps for (packet number of the packet where the STA is located — acquired packet number) — Beacon period);

if the packet number in the acquired packet information is equal to the packet number of the packet where the Beacon frame is currently received, the extended received data indication message of the packet where the Beacon frame is currently received is carried, and the first waiting time is 0;

if the packet number in the acquired packet information is larger than the packet number of the packet where the packet is located, calculating by using a tenth preset formula ((packet number-acquired packet number plus interval information) plus (acquired packet number plus 1)). Beacon period) to obtain a first waiting time;

the origin of the tenth predetermined formula is described below:

when the Interval Count GTIM Count starts to Count up from 0 and the Interval Count GTIM Count is equal to GTIM Interval in this embodiment, or when the Interval Count GTIM Count starts to Count down from the Count information GTIM Interval and the GTIM Count is 0 in this embodiment, the STA is currently in the indication information broadcast period of the AP, in this broadcast period, the AP will continuously send a Beacon frame carrying an extended received data indication message, and the STA currently receives the Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message and carries an extended received data indication message of a packet whose packet number corresponds to the acquired packet number, because the packet number of the STA packet where the STA is located is greater than the currently acquired packet number, that is, the extended received data indication message of the STA packet where the STA is located has already been sent before the currently received extended received data indication message, the STA misses due to an excessively long network instability or sleep time, etc., therefore, the STA needs to receive the extended received data indication message of the STA group where the STA is located in the next carousel period of the AP; therefore, the SAT enters the next carousel period only after the (packet number-acquired packet number plus interval information) × Beacon period, so that the STA can receive the extended GTIM message of the packet where the STA is located after waiting for the (packet number-acquired packet number plus interval information) ((acquired packet number plus interval information) × Beacon period));

step A07: the STA calculates the time for receiving the extended received data indication message of the packet of the STA according to the interval information, the interval counting information, the grouping information and the grouping number of the packet of the STA according to a second principle, records the time as first waiting time, enters a power saving mode in the first waiting time, does not receive an extended Beacon frame sent by the AP so as to save energy consumption, and executes the step A08;

when the Interval Count GTIM Count starts to Count up from 0 and the Interval Count GTIM Count is not equal to GTIM Interval in this embodiment, the first waiting time is calculated by an eleventh preset formula (((Interval information-Interval Count information) plus the packet number of the packet where the Interval Count is located) × Beacon period).

Specifically, when the Interval Count GTIM Count starts to Count up from 0 and the Interval Count GTIM Count is not equal to GTIM Interval in this embodiment, the STA is in the broadcast period of the AP without indication information, and in the broadcast period, the AP will continuously send GTIM Interval Beacon frames that do not carry extended received data indication messages; it can be known from the Interval Count information GTIM Count and Interval information GTIM Interval in the currently received Beacon frame not carrying the extended received data indication message that the no-indication-information broadcasting period will end after passing through (Interval information-Interval Count information) Beacon period, and enter the indication-information broadcasting period, in the indication-information broadcasting period, the AP continuously transmits Beacon frames carrying extended received data indication messages of STA packets, and the STA can receive its own extended received data indication message in the indication-information broadcasting period, and because, in the indication-information broadcasting period, the AP transmits the extended received data indication messages of STA packets according to the packet number sequence or reverse sequence of the STA packets, in the indication-information broadcasting period, the STA does not need to receive each Beacon frame carrying the extended received data indication message, only needs to be in the indication-information broadcasting period, waiting (after the packet number of the STA packet where the self is located is the Beacon period, the extended received data indication message of the packet where the self is located can be received;

as described above, after receiving the Beacon frame without the extended received data indication message, the STA waits for (interval information-interval count information) plus the packet number of the packet where the STA is located) × the Beacon period, and then can receive the extended received data indication message of the packet where the STA is located.

When the Interval Count GTIM Count starts to Count down from the Count information GTIM Interval in this embodiment and the GTIM Count is not 0, a first waiting time is calculated by a twelfth preset formula (Interval Count plus the packet number of the packet where the Interval Count is located) × Beacon period;

the twelfth preset formula is the same as the first preset formula in principle, except that when the GTIM Count starts counting down from the GTIM Interval, after the oxabeacon frame carrying no extended received data indication message is received in the no indication message broadcasting period, the no indication message broadcasting period is ended through the GTIM Count × Beacon period, and the indication message broadcasting period is entered, so that when the first waiting time is calculated, the calculation formula is slightly different due to the difference of the counting mode, but the principle is the same, and the description is omitted here.

Step A08: when the first waiting time is up, receiving a Beacon frame sent by the AP, wherein the received Beacon frame carries an extended received data indication message corresponding to the packet where the Beacon frame is located;

step A09: the STA acquires the received data indication information from the extended received data indication message corresponding to the packet in which the STA is positioned, judges whether the STA has data to receive according to the extended received data indication information,

if so, perform step A10;

if not, go to step A11;

Step A10: requesting the AP to send data, or waiting for the AP to send data actively, and performing step a 11;

step A11: the STA calculates a second waiting time, and returns to step 901 after the second waiting time is reached;

specifically, the second waiting time may be obtained by a thirteenth preset formula ((number of packets plus GTIM interval value) × Beacon period);

specifically, the AP carousels the extended received data indication message of each STA packet in a period of ((packet number plus interval count information) × Beacon period)) length. Therefore, the STA receives the extended received data indication message of the packet of itself again every ((number of packets plus interval count information) × Beacon period)) after receiving the extended received data indication message of the packet of itself for the first time.

The technical solution adopted in this embodiment has the same beneficial effects as those achieved in embodiment 8, and in addition, after the extended received data indication messages of all STA packets are received, the embodiment receives the interval counting information to obtain the auxiliary indication information, and then receives the extended received data indication messages of the STA packets of the next round, thereby increasing the interval time for the STA to receive the extended received data indication messages, being more suitable for an application scenario which is very insensitive to communication delay and has low data amount, and being more beneficial to power saving of the STA.

Example 11

Referring to fig. 18a, an apparatus for acquiring indication information of data to be received, the apparatus specifically corresponding to a terminal device supporting 802.11 protocol, includes: a receiving module S01, a determining module S02, a first executing module S03, and a second executing module S04;

a receiving module S01, configured to receive a received data indication message of a device group, where the received data indication message includes indication information of data to be received and group information of terminal devices in the device group, and the indication information of the data to be received indicates whether each device in the device group has data to be received;

the grouping information comprises a grouping number and a grouping number of the current equipment grouping; or,

the grouping information comprises a grouping number, a grouping number and a grouping size of the current equipment grouping; or,

A judging module S02, configured to judge whether the received data indication message is a received data indication message grouped by the group of devices according to the grouping information;

a first executing module S03, configured to execute a data receiving process according to the indication information of the data to be received when the determination result of the determining module S02 is yes;

a second performing module S04, configured to, when the determination result of the determining module S02 is no, calculate a waiting time required for receiving the received data indication message of the device packet of the present group according to the grouping information, and when the waiting time arrives, receive the received data indication message of the device packet again.

Referring to fig. 18b, an apparatus for acquiring indication information of data to be received, the apparatus specifically corresponding to a terminal device supporting 802.11 protocol, includes: a receiving module D01, a first determining module D02, a first executing module D03, a second determining module D04, a second executing module D05 and a third executing module D06;

a receiving module D01, configured to receive a message, where the message includes packet information, interval count information, and interval information;

a first judging module D02, configured to judge whether the message received by the receiving module D01 is a received data indication message of a device group or an auxiliary indication message;

a first executing module D03, configured to calculate, when the determination result of the first determining module D02 is the auxiliary indication message, a waiting time required for receiving the received data indication message of the current group of devices according to the grouping information, the interval information and the interval count information in the auxiliary indication message;

a second judging module D04, configured to, when the judgment result of the first judging module D02 is the received data indication message, judge whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message grouped by the device where the terminal device is located according to the grouping information;

a second executing module D05, configured to execute a data receiving process according to the indication information of the data to be received in the received data indication message when the determination result of the second determining module D04 is the received data indication message of the device group in which the terminal device is located;

a third executing module D06, configured to, when the determination result of the second determining module D04 is that the received data indication message of the device group of the terminal device is not the received data indication message of the device group of the terminal device, calculate a waiting time required for receiving the received data indication message of the device group of the terminal device according to the group information, the interval information, and the interval count information, and receive the received data indication message of the device group again when the waiting time arrives.

The interval information indicates the number of auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages of two adjacent equipment groups, the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and the current message is indicated to be the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message; or

The interval information indicates the number of auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages grouped by the next round of sending equipment, the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and the current message is indicated to be the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

The embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: in the embodiment, the STA calculates the waiting time, so that the STA does not need to receive the received data indication message sent by the AP every time, and can obtain the grouped received data indication message of the STA where the STA is located only by receiving the received data indication message sent by the current AP after the waiting time is reached, thereby improving the efficiency of the STA in receiving the received data indication message.

Example 12

Referring to fig. 19, an apparatus for acquiring indication information of data to be received, the apparatus specifically corresponding to a user equipment, includes:

a receiving module B01, an obtaining module B02, a judging module B03, a first executing module B04, a second executing module B04 and a calculating module B06, and the specific functions of the modules are described in detail below:

a receiving module B01, configured to receive a received data indication message of the device group, where the received data indication message includes indication information of data to be received and group information of terminal devices in the device group, and the indication information of the data to be received indicates whether each device in the device group has data to be received;

An obtaining module B02, configured to obtain packet information from the received data indication message;

a judging module B03, for judging whether the received data indication message is the received data indication message grouped by the device where the receiving data indication message is located according to the grouping information,

the first execution module B04, which is used to calculate the first waiting time according to the grouping information and return to the receiving module after the first waiting time arrives;

a second executing module B05, configured to obtain received data indication information of itself according to the received data indication message;

and the calculating module B06 is used for calculating the second waiting time according to the grouping information and returning to the receiving module after the second waiting time is reached.

Specifically, the judgment module B02 includes:

an acquiring unit B021, configured to acquire a packet number of a device packet in which the acquiring unit is located;

a judging unit B022, configured to judge whether a packet number of the device packet where the receiving unit is located is consistent with a packet number in the packet information, and if so, the received data indication message is a received data indication message of the device packet where the receiving unit is located; if not, the received data indication message is not the received data indication message of the device group in which the received data indication message is located.

The first execution module B04 includes:

the first obtaining unit B041 is configured to obtain a group number of a device group where the first obtaining unit B041 is located;

the first judging unit B042 is used for judging the size relationship between the group number of the equipment group where the first judging unit is located and the group number in the group information;

the first calculating unit B043 is configured to calculate, according to the packet number in the packet information and the packet number of the device group where the first calculating unit is located, a first waiting time according to a first preset formula when the packet number in the packet information is smaller than the packet number of the device group where the first calculating unit is located, where the first preset formula is: (packet number-packet number of own device packet) beacon frame period;

a second calculating unit B044, configured to calculate the first waiting time according to a second preset formula according to the packet number in the packet information, the packet number, and the packet number of the device group where the packet is located when the packet number in the packet information is greater than the packet number of the device group where the packet is located, where the second preset formula is: (packet number-packet number plus packet number of its own device packet) × beacon frame period.

The calculating module B06 is specifically configured to calculate the second waiting time according to the number of packets in the packet information and a third preset formula, where the third preset formula is: number of packets beacon frame period.

When the received data indication message is an extended packet data to be transmitted message, the receiving module B01 is further configured to receive an auxiliary indication message between the received data indication messages of the received neighboring device packets;

the auxiliary indication message comprises interval information, interval counting information and grouping information;

the interval information indicates the number of auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages of two adjacent equipment groups, the interval counting information changes from 0 to the interval information value, and the current message is indicated to be the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message;

accordingly, the first execution module B04 includes:

a second obtaining unit B04a1, configured to obtain interval information and interval count information from a currently received message;

a third obtaining unit B04a2, configured to obtain a group number of a device group in which the third obtaining unit is located;

a second judging unit B04a3 configured to judge whether the interval count in the interval count information is zero;

the third judging unit B04A4, when the judgment result of the second judging unit B04A3 is zero, judging whether the packet number in the packet information is smaller than or larger than the packet number of the device group in which the third judging unit is arranged;

the first executing unit B04a5, when the packet number in the packet information is smaller than the packet number of the device packet where the first executing unit is located, calculates the first waiting time according to a fourth preset formula according to the packet number in the packet information, the packet number of the device packet where the first executing unit is located, the interval information, and the interval counting information, where the fourth preset formula is: (interval information plus 1) (packetnumber-packet number of its own packet)) -beacon frame period;

the second execution unit B04a6, configured to, when the packet number in the packet information is greater than the packet number of the device packet where the second execution unit is located, calculate the first waiting time according to a fifth preset formula according to the packet number, the packet number of the device packet where the second execution unit is located, and the interval message in the extension message, where the fifth preset formula is: (interval information plus 1) × (packet number-packet number plus packet number of its own device packet)) × beacon frame period;

the fourth judging unit B04a7, configured to, when the judgment result of the second judging unit B04A3 is not zero, judge a size relationship between the packet number in the packet information and the packet number of the device group in which the fourth judging unit B04a7 is located;

a third executing unit B04A8, configured to, when the packet number in the packet information is not greater than the packet number of the device packet where the third executing unit is located, calculate the first waiting time according to a sixth preset formula according to the packet number in the packet information, the packet number of the device packet where the third executing unit is located, the interval information in the interval information and the interval information in the interval counting information, where the sixth preset formula is: (packet number-packet number of the device packet where the device is located) (interval information plus 1) plus extended count information) beacon frame period;

a fourth executing unit B04a9, configured to, when the packet number in the packet information is greater than the packet number of the device packet where the fourth executing unit is located, calculate the first waiting time according to a seventh preset formula according to the packet number, the packet number of the device packet where the fourth executing unit is located, the interval information, and the interval count information in the packet information, where the seventh preset formula is: (packet number-packet number of the device packet where the device is located)) × (interval information plus 1) plus interval count information)) × beacon frame period.

The calculating unit B06 is further specifically configured to calculate, according to an eighth preset formula, the second waiting time according to the packet number in the packet information, the interval information in the interval counting information, where the eighth preset formula is: packet number (interval information plus 1) beacon frame period.

When the received data indication message is an extended packet data message to be transmitted, the receiving module B01 is further configured to receive the auxiliary indication message after receiving the received data indication messages of all the device packets;

Accordingly, the first execution module B04 includes:

a second judging unit B04a3 for judging whether the interval count information is zero;

a fifth executing unit B04B1, configured to, when the packet number in the packet information is smaller than the packet number of the device packet where the device belongs to, calculate the first waiting time according to a ninth preset formula according to the packet number in the packet information, the packet number of the device packet where the device belongs to, the interval information, and the interval counting information, where the ninth preset formula is: (packet number-packet number of packet in which it is located) beacon frame period;

a sixth executing unit B04B2, configured to, when the packet number in the packet information is greater than the packet number of the device packet where the device belongs to, calculate the first waiting time according to the packet number, the packet number of the device packet where the device belongs to, and the interval message in the extension message in the packet information according to a tenth preset formula, where the tenth preset formula is: (number of packets-acquired packet number plus interval information) plus (acquired packet number plus 1)) + beacon frame period;

a seventh executing unit B04B3, configured to, when the determination result of the second determining unit is not zero, calculate, according to the interval information, the interval count information, and the packet number of the packet where the executing unit is located, a twelfth preset formula according to which: (interval count plus packet number of the packet in which it is located) beacon frame period.

Accordingly, the first execution module B04 includes:

a second obtaining unit B04a1, configured to obtain interval information and interval count information from the extended received data indication message;

a fifth judgment unit B04C1, configured to judge whether the interval count information is equal to the interval information;

a third judging unit B04C2, configured to judge whether the packet number in the packet information is smaller than or larger than the packet number of the device group where the third judging unit B04C2 is located, when the judgment results of the fifth judging units B04C2 are equal;

an eighth performing unit B04C3, configured to, when the determination results of the fifth determining unit B04C2 are different, calculate a first waiting time according to the interval information, the interval count information, and a packet number of the packet where the eighth performing unit is located according to an eleventh preset formula, where the eleventh preset formula is: (interval information-interval count information) plus the packet number of the packet in which it is located) × beacon frame period.

correspondingly, the calculating unit B06 is specifically configured to calculate the second waiting time according to a thirteenth preset formula according to the packet number in the packet information, the interval information in the interval counting information, where the thirteenth preset formula is: (packet number plus interval information) beacon frame period.

The obtaining unit B021, the first obtaining unit B041 and the third obtaining unit B04a2 specifically divide the association identifier of the obtaining unit B021 by the grouping size in the grouping information to obtain the grouping number of the equipment group in which the obtaining unit B021 belongs; or

The acquisition unit B021, the first acquisition unit B041 and the third acquisition unit B04A2 obtain the grouping number of the equipment group where the acquisition unit B021, the first acquisition unit B041 and the third acquisition unit B04A2 are located according to the grouping identification bit of the self association identification; or

The obtaining unit B021, the first obtaining unit B041 and the third obtaining unit B04a2 obtain the grouping number of the device group where the obtaining unit is located according to the self-allocated grouping identifier.

The embodiment of the invention has the following beneficial effects: in the embodiment, the STA calculates the waiting time, so that the STA does not need to receive the received data indication message sent by the AP every time, and can obtain the grouped received data indication message of the STA where the STA is located by receiving the received data indication message sent by the current AP only after the waiting time is reached, thereby improving the efficiency of the STA for receiving the received data indication message.

Example 13

Referring to fig. 20, a system for sending and acquiring indication information of data to be received includes a device C0 for sending indication information of data to be received and a device C1 for acquiring indication information of data to be received, in a specific application, the device C0 for sending indication information of data to be received may be specifically an AP, and the device C1 for acquiring indication information of data to be received may be an STA, which is not specifically limited by the present invention, and specific functions of the above two devices are described in detail below:

the device C0 for sending and receiving data indication information includes all the modules described in embodiment 5, which are not described herein again, and in addition, the device further includes a communication module for performing data communication with the device C1 for obtaining the indication information of the data to be received;

the apparatus C1 for acquiring indication information of data to be received includes all the modules described in embodiment 11, which are not described herein again, and further includes a communication module for performing data communication with the apparatus C0 for sending indication information of data to be received.

Through the realization of the technical scheme of grouping the terminal equipment STA and sequentially sending the received data indication messages of each equipment group, the length of the received data indication messages of each STA group is controllable, the reliability of information transmission is improved, and a large amount of information to be transmitted of the STA can be transmitted by increasing the number of the STA groups; in addition, receiving a data receiving indication message of an STA (station) group, acquiring group information of the STA group from the data receiving indication message, judging whether the data receiving indication message is the data receiving indication message of the STA group where the data receiving indication message is located according to the acquired group information, if so, acquiring data indication information to be received of the STA group from the data receiving indication message, if not, calculating first waiting time, and receiving the data receiving indication message after the first waiting time is up; and then, calculating second waiting time, and after the second waiting time is up, realizing the technical scheme of receiving the data indication message, quickly acquiring the data indication message of the group in which the STA belongs from the data indication messages of the groups in which the STA belongs by simple judgment and waiting for a certain time, and acquiring the data indication information to be received of the group in which the STA belongs from the data indication messages of the group in which the STA belongs.

If the formula related to the calculation time in the above embodiment assumes that the AP transmits the received data indication messages of the packets in the order of the packet numbers from small to large and the interval count information changes from large to small, in fact, the received data indication messages of the packets may also be transmitted in the order of the packet numbers from large to small and the interval count information may also change from small to large.

In the above embodiment, the packet received data indication message of the STA packet and the extended received data indication message of the STA packet are lower-level terms of the received data indication message of the STA packet, which have substantially the same meaning and both refer to the received data indication message corresponding to the STA packet, where the received data indication message is used to indicate to-be-received data indication information of an STA in the STA packet corresponding to the received data indication message, and the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether there is data to be received by a terminal device in the device packet corresponding to the received data indication message.

All or part of the technical solutions provided by the above embodiments may be implemented by software programming, and the software program is stored in a readable storage medium, for example: hard disk, optical disk or floppy disk in a computer.

The above description is only for the purpose of illustrating the preferred embodiments of the present invention and is not to be construed as limiting the invention, and any modifications, equivalents, improvements and the like that fall within the spirit and principle of the present invention are intended to be included therein.

Claims

1. A method for notifying indication information of data to be received, the method comprising:

grouping the terminal devices;

sending received data indication messages of each equipment group, wherein each received data indication message contains to-be-received data indication information and group information of equipment group internal terminal equipment corresponding to the received data indication message, the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether the equipment group internal terminal equipment corresponding to the received data indication message has data to be received, and the received data indication messages of each equipment group also comprise interval information and interval counting information;

2. The method of claim 1, wherein grouping terminal devices comprises:

determining the grouping number of the equipment grouping and the value range of the associated identification of the terminal equipment in each equipment grouping;

and grouping the terminal equipment according to the associated identification of the terminal equipment and the value range of the associated identification of the terminal equipment in the equipment group.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein grouping terminal devices comprises:

using a preset bit group in the association identifier of the terminal equipment as a grouping identifier bit;

and grouping the terminal equipment according to the grouping identification bits in the associated identification of the terminal equipment.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein grouping terminal devices comprises:

allocating a grouping identifier for the terminal equipment;

and grouping the terminal equipment according to the grouping identification.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the grouping information includes a group number and a group number of a current device group; or

6. An apparatus for notifying indication information of data to be received, the apparatus comprising: a grouping module and a sending module;

the grouping module is used for grouping the terminal equipment;

the sending module is configured to send received data indication messages of each device group, where each received data indication message includes to-be-received data indication information and group information of a device group internal terminal device corresponding to the received data indication message, where the to-be-received data indication information indicates whether the device group internal terminal device corresponding to the received data indication message has data to be received, and the received data indication message of each device group further includes interval information and interval count information;

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the grouping module comprises:

the determining unit is used for determining the grouping number of the equipment grouping and the value range of the associated identifier of the terminal equipment in each equipment grouping;

and the grouping unit is used for grouping the terminal equipment according to the associated identification of the terminal equipment and the value range of the associated identification of the terminal equipment in the equipment group.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the grouping module comprises:

a setting unit, which is used for using a predetermined bit group in the association identifier of the terminal equipment as a grouping identifier;

and the grouping unit is used for grouping the terminal equipment according to the grouping identification bits in the association identification of the terminal equipment.

9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the grouping module comprises:

the distribution unit is used for distributing the grouping identification for the terminal equipment;

and the grouping unit is used for grouping the terminal equipment according to the grouping identifier.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the grouping information comprises a grouping number and a grouping number of a current device grouping; or

11. The apparatus according to any one of claims 6 to 10, wherein the apparatus for notifying the information of the indication of the data to be received is an access point AP.

12. A method for a terminal device to obtain indication information of data to be received is characterized by comprising the following steps:

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the grouping information includes a group number and a group number of a current device group; or,

14. An apparatus for obtaining indication information of data to be received, the apparatus comprising: the device comprises a receiving module, a judging module, a first executing module and a second executing module;

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the grouping information comprises a grouping number and a grouping number of a current device grouping; or,

16. The apparatus according to any one of claims 14 to 15, wherein the apparatus for acquiring the indication information of the data to be received is a terminal device supporting 802.11 protocol.

17. A method for a terminal device to obtain indication information of data to be received is characterized by comprising the following steps:

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the grouping information includes a group number and a group number of a current device group; or,

19. The method according to claim 17, wherein the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between the received data indication messages of two adjacent device groups, and the interval count information varies from 0 to the value of the interval information, indicating that the current message is the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the interval information indicates the number of auxiliary indication messages sent between received data indication messages of a next round of sending device grouping, and wherein the interval count information varies from 0 to the value of the interval information, indicating that a current message is the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

21. An apparatus for obtaining indication information of data to be received, the apparatus comprising: the device comprises a receiving module, a first judging module, a first executing module, a second judging module, a second executing module and a third executing module;

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between received data indication messages of two adjacent device groups, and wherein the interval count information varies from 0 to the value of the interval information, indicating that a current message is the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the interval information indicates the number of the auxiliary indication messages sent between received data indication messages grouped in a next round of sending devices, and wherein the interval count information varies from 0 to a value of the interval information, indicating that a current message is the received data indication message or the auxiliary indication message.

24. The apparatus according to any one of claims 21 to 23, wherein the apparatus for acquiring the indication information of the data to be received is a terminal device supporting 802.11 protocol.