Patent ID: 8730993

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving a field or a frame from one or more stations (STAs) at an access point (AP), wherein the field or the frame includes information on buffered traffic and a timeout value for a given access category (AC); and scheduling the one or more STAs to transmit uplink traffic simultaneously through a polling frame, wherein the scheduling comprises determining an earliest deadline for the one or more STAs, wherein the determining is performed according to j = arg ⁢ min k ∈ Θ ; m ∈ υ ⁢ deadline ⁡ [ k ] ⁡ [ m ] where deadline [k][m] denotes the deadline associated with the kth user's mth AC queue, Θ represents a set of STAs that have non-zero buffered traffic, and ν represents a set of ACs.