Patent Grant
12261705
The present invention relates to a computing device and a computing method used in a communication system, and more particularly, to a computing device and a computing method for computing a packet transmission time.
In a wireless communication system, a transmitter transmits a packet to a receiver according to multiple data rates defined in a communication standard (e.g., IEEE 802.11). In the prior art, the transmitter predicts a throughput according to the data rates and an estimated packet error rate, in order to select a better data rate. However, the transmitter does not consider a packet retransmission. Thus, how to compute a packet transmission time to select a best data rate to obtain a high throughput or a low latency is an important problem to be solved.
The present invention provides a computing device and method to solve the abovementioned problem.
A computing device comprises: a storage circuit, for storing an arbitration interframe space (AIFS) time, at least one expected value of at least one backoff time, a preamble time, a short interframe space (SIFS) time and an acknowledgement (ACK) time; a first computing circuit, for computing a payload time according to a packet length and a packet rate; a second computing circuit, coupled to the storage circuit and the first computing circuit, for computing at least one packet transmission time according to the AIFS time, the at least one expected value of the at least one backoff time, the preamble time, the SIFS time, the ACK time and the payload time; and a third computing circuit, coupled to the second computing circuit, for computing a total packet transmission time according to the at least one packet transmission time and an estimated packet error rate.
A computing method comprises: storing an arbitration interframe space (AIFS) time, at least one expected value of at least one backoff time, a preamble time, a short interframe space (SIFS) time and an acknowledgement (ACK) time; computing a payload time according to a packet length and a packet rate; computing at least one packet transmission time according to the AIFS time, the at least one expected value of the at least one backoff time, the preamble time, the SIFS time, the ACK time and the payload time; and computing a total packet transmission time according to the at least one packet transmission time and an estimated packet error rate.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
The transmitter 12 may predict a throughput according to a data rate and an estimated packet error rate (e.g. an average of packet error rates) The throughput may be expressed as follows:
throughput=r×(1−PERestimated) (Eq. 1)
wherein throughput is the throughput, r is the data rate and PERestimated is the estimated packet error rate. In a case where the data rate r is 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 or 54 megabits per second (Mbps) the throughput, the data rate and the estimated packet error rate can be summarized as shown in Table 1.
The transmitter 12 may select the data rate 36 Mbps to transmit the packet according to Table 1, in order to obtain the highest throughput.
In one example, the AIFS time TimeAIFS is a waiting time interval before transmitting the packet. In one example, the AIFS time TimeAIFS is a predefined value, and is defined in a communication standard (e.g., IEEE 802.11) In one example, the AIFS time TimeAIFS is related to a frequency band for transmitting the packet. Different frequency bands may have different AIFS times TimeAIFS.
In one example, the at least one backoff time Timebackoff[n] is at least one waiting time interval before transmitting a packet (and after the AIFS time TimeAIFS). In one example, the at least one backoff time Timebackoff[n] is at least one random variable with a probability distribution (e.g., a uniform distribution) In one example, the at least one expected value EXPbackoff[n] of the at least one backoff time Timebackoff[n] is at least one median of the at least one backoff time Timebackoff[n].
Table 2 illustrates an example of the backoff time Timebackoff[n] and the expected value EXPbackoff[n] for the n-th transmission of the packet. As n increases, a range of the backoff time Timebackoff[n] and the expected value EXPbackoff[n] increase. That is, compared with the case of transmitting the packet for the first time (n=1) the transmitter 12 which retransmits the packet (n>1) may wait for a longer time. The more the number of retransmissions, the longer the transmitter 12 may wait.
In one example, the preamble time Timepreamble is a predefined value, and is defined in a communication standard (e.g., IEEE 802.11). In one example, the SIFS time TimeSIFS is a time interval for the transmitter 12 to wait for an ACK from the receiver 14 after transmitting the packet. In one example, the SIFS time TimeSIFS is a predefined value, and is defined in a communication standard (e.g., IEEE 802.11). In one example, the ACK time TimeACK is a time interval for receiving an ACK (e.g., by the transmitter 12). In one example, the ACK time TimeACK is a predefined value, and is defined in a communication standard (e.g., IEEE 802.11).
In one example, the estimated packet error rate PERestimated is a function of a plurality of packet error rates. For example, the function may be an average of the plurality of packet error rates or a maximum of the plurality of packet error rates.
The following example is used for illustrating how the computing device 20 computes the total packet transmission time. First, the storage circuit 200 stores the AIFS time TimeAIFS as 43 μs, the preamble time Timepreamble as 20 μs, the SIFS time TimeSIFS as 16 μs, the ACK time TimeACK as 44 μs and the expected values EXPbackoff[n] of the backoff times Timebackoff[n] as shown in Table 2. The first computing circuit computes the payload time Timepayload[l, r] according to the packet length l and the packet rate r as follows:
For example, the packet length l is 1538 bytes and the packet rate r is 6 Mbps. The payload time Timepayload[l, r] is computed as follows:
Then, the second computing circuit 220 computes the at least one packet transmission time Timepacket[n, l, r] as follows:
Timepacket[n,l,r]=TimeAIFS+EXPbackoff[n]+Timepreamble+Timepayload[l,r]+TimeSIFS+TimeACK (Eq. 4)
It is assumed that the packet length l is 1538 bytes. In the case where the packet rate r is 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 or 54 Mbps and n is 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, the packet transmission time Timepacket[n, l, r] can be summarized as shown in Table 3.
Then, the third computing circuit 230 computes the total packet transmission time Timepacket_total[j, l, r] according to the packet transmission times Timepacket[n, l, r] and the estimated packet error rate PERestimated as follows:
Timepacket_total[j,l,r]=Σi=1jTimepacket[i,l,r]×PERestimatei-1 (Eq. 5)
wherein j is a maximum number of transmissions of the packet, l is the packet length and r is the data rate.
It is assumed that the estimated packet error rate PERestimated is the average of the packet error rates and the packet length l is 1538 bytes. In the case where the packet rate r is 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 or 54 Mbps and j is 8 or 16, the estimated packet error rate PERestimated and the total packet transmission time Timepacket_total[j, l, r] can be summarized as shown in Table 4.
According to Table 4, the same packet can be transmitted 8 times or 16 times at most, and the time required for the transmitter 12 to transmit the packet at the data rate 24 Mbps is the shortest. That is, compared with the case where the packet retransmission is not considered (i.e., Table 1), in the case of the packet retransmission, the transmitter 12 obtains a greater throughput by selecting the data rate 24 Mbps rather than 36 Mbps.
Assuming that the estimated packet error rate PERestimated is the maximum of the packet error rate and other parameters are the same as in Table 4, the estimated packet error rate PERestimated and the total packet transmission time Timepacket_total[j, l, r] can be summarized as shown in Table 5.
According to Table 5 (i.e., considering the worst case of transmitting a packet), the same packet can be transmitted 8 times or 16 times at most, and the time required for the transmitter 12 to transmit the packet at the data rate 18 Mbps is the shortest. That is, compared with the case where the packet retransmission is not considered (i.e., Table 1), in the case of the packet retransmission, the transmitter 12 may obtain a lower latency by selecting the data rate 18 Mbps rather than 36 Mbps.
Operations of the computing device 20 in the above examples can be summarized into a process 30 shown in
Step 300: Start.
Step 302: Store an AIFS time, at least one expected value of at least one backoff time, a preamble time, an SIFS time and an ACK time.
Step 304: Compute a payload time according to a packet length and a packet rate.
Step 306: Compute at least one packet transmission time according to the AIFS time, the at least one expected value of the at least one backoff time, the preamble time, the SIFS time, the ACK time and the payload time.
Step 308: Compute a total packet transmission time according to the at least one packet transmission time and an estimated packet error rate.
Step 310: End.
Detailed description and variations of the process 30 can be known by referring to the previous description, and are not narrated herein.
It should be noted that realizations of the computing device 20 (including the storage circuit 200, the first computing circuit 210, the second computing circuit 220 and the third computing circuit 230) are various. For example, the devices/circuits mentioned above may be integrated into one or more devices/circuits. In addition, the computing device 20 and the circuits in the computing device 20 may be realized by hardware (e.g. circuits), software, firmware (known as a combination of a hardware device, computer instructions and data that reside as read-only software on the hardware device), an electronic system or a combination of the devices mentioned above, but are not limited herein.
To sum up, the present invention provides a computing device and a computing method. In the case where a transmitter retransmits a packet, the computing device computes a total packet transmission time according to different estimated packet error rates. Compared with the prior art, the transmitter of the present invention selects a better data rate to obtain a high throughput or a low latency.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 111139462 | Oct 2022 | TW | national |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10602367 | Abeysekera | Mar 2020 | B2 |
| 11792616 | Mueck | Oct 2023 | B2 |
| 11800572 | Xue | Oct 2023 | B2 |
| 20210385865 | Mueck | Dec 2021 | A1 |
| 20220201535 | Chay | Jun 2022 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20240137165 A1 | Apr 2024 | US |
