METHOD AND APPARATUS TO IMPROVE RECEIVED SIGNAL STRENGTH INDICATOR MEASUREMENT AT A RECEIVER

20250007630

18/344116

June 29, 2023

In one embodiment, a receiver includes: an analog front end (AFE) circuit to receive and process an incoming radio frequency (RF) analog signal comprising a packet; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) coupled to the AFE circuit to receive and digitize an analog signal based on the RF analog signal into a digital signal; a packet detector coupled to the ADC to detect the packet based on the digital signal; and a computation circuit coupled to the packet detector. The computation circuit may be configured to determine a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) value based at least in part on a portion of a preamble of the packet.

1. A receiver comprising: an analog front end (AFE) circuit to receive and process an incoming radio frequency (RF) analog signal comprising a packet; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) coupled to the AFE circuit to receive and digitize an analog signal based on the RF analog signal into a digital signal; a packet detector coupled to the ADC to detect the packet based on the digital signal; and a computation circuit coupled to the packet detector, the computation circuit to determine a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) value based at least in part on a portion of a preamble of the packet.

2. The receiver of claim 1, further comprising a timing circuit to determine a boundary between symbols of the packet.

3. The receiver of claim 2, wherein the computation circuit is coupled to the timing circuit, the computation circuit to determine the RSSI value based at least in part on at least one training field of the preamble of the packet.

4. The receiver of claim 3, wherein the computation circuit is to determine the RSSI value further based on a predetermined training field.

5. The receiver of claim 2, wherein the computation circuit is to determine the RSSI value further based on at least a portion of a data field of the packet.

6. The receiver of claim 1, further comprising a processing circuit coupled to the computation circuit, the processing circuit to determine an RSSI metric based at least in part on the RSSI value in response to a determination that the packet is from a desired source, and to discard the RSSI value in response to a determination that the packet is not from the desired source.

7. The receiver of claim 6, further comprising a controller coupled to the processing circuit, wherein the controller is to configure at least one component of the receiver based at least in part on the RSSI metric.

8. The receiver of claim 1, further comprising a processing circuit coupled to the computation circuit to determine an intra-frame average RSSI value based on a plurality of symbols of the packet.

9. The receiver of claim 1, further comprising a processing circuit coupled to the computation circuit, wherein the processing circuit is to determine an inter-frame average RSSI value based on a plurality of packets.

10. A method comprising: detecting, in a receiver, a packet having a plurality of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols; calculating, in a first computation circuit of the receiver, a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) value for at least one of the plurality of OFDM symbols; and filtering the RSSI value if the packet is not intended for the receiver and processing the RSSI value if the packet is intended for the receiver.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein processing the RSSI value comprises determining an average RSSI value using the RSSI value and one or more other RSSI values.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the average RSSI value comprises: determining an intra-frame RSSI value comprising an average of a plurality of RSSI values for at least some of the plurality of OFDM symbols of the packet.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising weighting more recent RSSI values with a higher weighting than one or more earlier RSSI values when determining the intra-frame RSSI value.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the average RSSI value comprises: determining an inter-frame RSSI value comprising an average of a plurality of RSSI values for a plurality of packets.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising: providing the processed RSSI value to a controller of the receiver; and controlling, via the controller, at least one configuration setting of at least one gain control circuit of the receiver based at least in part on the processed RSSI value.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein calculating the RSSI value comprises using at least one preamble field of the packet, at least one signal field of the packet, and at least part of a data portion of the packet.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein calculating the RSSI value comprises: iteratively, for a plurality of subcarriers of frequency domain samples of the at least one of the plurality of OFDM symbols: multiplying a sum of a first preamble field of the packet and a second preamble field of the packet with a complex conjugate value to obtain a product; squaring the product; and summing the product with a running sum, the running sum comprising at least a portion of the RSSI value.

18. A system comprising: an analog front end (AFE) circuit to receive and downconvert an incoming radio frequency (RF) signal comprising a packet into a second frequency signal; a digitizer coupled to the AFE circuit to receive and digitize the second frequency signal into a digital signal; a computation circuit coupled to the digitizer, the computation circuit to calculate a plurality of received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values based on one or more of a preamble field, a signal field, or a data field of the packet; a processing circuit coupled to the computation circuit, the processing circuit to determine an RSSI metric based on the plurality of RSSI values; and a controller coupled to the processing circuit, wherein the controller is to adapt a communication rate between the system and a station based at least in part on the RSSI metric.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the processing circuit is to determine the RSSI metric comprising an intra-frame average RSSI value based on the plurality of RSSI values, and averaged in a coherent manner.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the processing circuit is to determine the RSSI metric comprising an inter-frame average RSSI value based on the plurality of RSSI values of the packet and a plurality of additional RSSI values of a plurality of additional packets, and averaged in a non-coherent manner.

04; 04

edspap.20250007630