This application is related to and is a continuation of U.S. Non Provisional application Ser. No. 12/215,157 filed Jun. 25, 2008, which claims priority to U.S. provisional Application No. 61/035,480, filed Mar. 11, 2008, and claims priority to that filing date for all applicable subject matter
Piconets are frequently used as small wireless networks, with a number of devices associating with each other, and with one of those devices becoming the piconet network controller (PNC) that schedules much of the communication within the network. In high density network environments, where numerous piconets may be formed in a relatively small area, the physical coverage areas of adjacent piconets may overlap, resulting in interference between devices in the different piconets. A typical PNC establishes a time slot for each device in its network to communicate during each superframe, and the device may continue to communicate in that same time slot for multiple (sometimes many) superframes. So when inter-network interference occurs, the interference may be repeated in every superframe for an extended period. However, although the interference may be predictable once it occurs, coordinating the schedules of different piconets to mitigate this interference may be difficult. In conventional systems it is limited mostly to either: 1) if the PNC's can communicate directly and therefore know of each other's schedule, at least one can schedule a network idle period for itself when the other network is active, so that inter-network interference does not occur, or 2) if the PNC's cannot communicate directly, the PNC responsibilities are reassigned to devices that are close enough to communicate directly with each other, and method 1) is then used. These techniques are not always effective or feasible. Scheduling a network idle period significantly reduces overall network bandwidth. Reassigning PNC responsibilities is a fairly complex and time-consuming process. In addition, reassigning the PNC duties to a device on one side of the piconet may move it out of range of another PNC in another adjacent piconet, thereby just moving the problem to a different piconet rather than solving the problem.
Some embodiments of the invention may be understood by referring to the following description and accompanying, drawings that are used to illustrate embodiments of the invention. In the drawings:
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth. However, it is understood that embodiments of the invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known circuits, structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure an understanding of this description.
References to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”, “example embodiment”, “various embodiments”, etc., indicate that the embodiment(s) of the invention so described may include particular features, structures, or characteristics, but not every embodiment necessarily includes the particular features, structures, or characteristics. Further, some embodiments may have some, all, or none of the features described for other embodiments.
In the following description and claims, the terms “coupled” and “connected,” along with their derivatives, may be used. It should be understood that these terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. Rather, in particular embodiments, “connected” is used to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. “Coupled” is used to indicate that two or more elements co-operate or interact with each other, but they may or may not be in direct physical or electrical contact.
As used in the claims, unless otherwise specified the use of the ordinal adjectives “first”, “second”, “third”, etc., to describe a common element, merely indicate that different instances of like elements are being referred to, and are not intended to imply that the elements so described must be in a given sequence, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any other manner.
Various embodiments of the invention may be implemented in one or any combination of hardware, firmware, and software. The invention may also be implemented as instructions contained in or on a machine-readable medium, which may be read and executed by one or more processors to enable performance of the operations described herein. A machine-readable medium may include any mechanism for storing, transmitting, and/or receiving information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable medium may include a tangible storage medium, such as but not limited to read only memory (ROM); random access memory (RAM); magnetic disk storage media; optical storage media; a flash memory device, etc. A machine-readable medium may also include a propagated signal which has been modulated to encode the instructions, such as but not limited to electromagnetic, optical, or acoustical carrier wave signals.
The term “wireless” and its derivatives may be used to describe circuits, devices, systems, methods, techniques, communications channels, etc., that communicate data by using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. The term does not imply that the associated devices do not contain any wires, although in some embodiments they might not. The term “mobile” wireless device is used to describe a wireless device that may be in motion while it is communicating.
The descriptions in this document are generally written in terms of wireless communication networks known as piconets. However, the principals and techniques described may be used in other types of networks. Various embodiments of the invention are not intended to be limited to piconets unless specifically indicated in the claims.
Various embodiments of the invention use a non-controller network device to detect interference between two overlapping networks. Scheduling information is then communicated between the networks so that schedule coordination may be employed in at least one of the networks to avoid the interference. In one embodiment, the device detecting interference broadcasts scheduling information about its own scheduled communications. A device in the neighboring network picks up this broadcast and passes on the information to its own controller. That controller can then modify its own network schedule to avoid, the interference. This technique may be used without the need for communication between the two controllers. In another embodiment, the device detecting interference informs its own controller of the interference, and its controller communicates with the neighboring controller to coordinate scheduling in a non-interfering manner. This technique requires that the two controllers can communicate with each other. In either embodiment, it is not necessary to re-assign the controller duties to another device, which can be a burdensome and time-consuming task.
Because some types of networks (such as piconets) are anticipated to frequently overlap, communications between devices in a network may be made directional to reduce potential interference from, and to, other devices. Devices with multiple co-located antennas can effectively make directional transmissions by transmitting slightly different signals from each antenna, which combine in such a way as to result in a relatively strong signal in a particular direction and a relatively weak signal in the other directions. Similarly, reception can be made directional by processing, the signals from each of the antennas in a particular way that isolates signals received from a particular direction, while minimizing signals received from other directions. Both transmissions and receptions can be focused in a particular direction by determining the particular parameters of that processing through communications between the two particular devices. This is commonly called antenna training, and various forms of antenna training are known. Antenna training is not part of the novelty of the described embodiments of the invention and is not further described here.
In the particular example shown, device B-2 is transmitting directionally to device B-1 in network B, as shown by the teardrop-shaped transmission envelope. At the same time, device A-2 is transmitting directionally to device A-1 in network A. Unfortunately, because of the relative locations of devices A-1, A-2, B-1, and B-2, device B-1 may receive simultaneous signals from devices A-2 and B-2. If A-2 and B-2 are transmitting on the same or similar frequencies, the signal received by B-1 from A-2 may interfere with the signal received by B-1 from B-2. If the A-1/A-2 communications and B-1/B-2 communications are repeated at regular intervals, such as in the same time slots in repeating superframes, this interference may continue repeatedly for a long time making communication from B-2 to B-1 difficult. Changing the time slots of one of these communication might solve the problem, but those time slots may be determined by the controllers, which may be unaware of each other's network schedules in a conventional system.
In some embodiments, the contents of this transmission may be in a format designed to report information about the interference. For example, the format may include things such as, but not limited to: 1) a field to indicate this transmission contains information about the interference, 2) the identification of the transmitting device, 3) the identification of the interfering device (if known), 4) the time the interference was experienced, 5) signal parameters such as bit error rate, frame error rate, signal-to-noise ratio, received power of the interfering signal, etc., 6) identification of the piconet, 7) etc.
This interference report may also contain the future reception schedule of the device that experienced the interference (e.g., device B-1), in the hope that the PNC in the other network will rearrange its own network schedules to avoid such interference in the future. In many networks, the schedules of the two network controllers will not be synchronized, so simply indicating the timing of the interference within a network B superframe (and similarly, the timing of the network schedule within a network B superframe) may not be meaningful to PNC-A. Therefore, other information may also be conveyed, directly or indirectly, to allow the timing information about a device in one network to be converted into timing relevant to another network. For example, the transmission from B-1 may contain information about when the next network B superframe begins (e.g., a time offset), as measured from a particular point in the transmission (for example, from the start of the header, from the end of the data, etc., though other points may be used instead). This information may then be added to the recorded reception time of the transmission, to determine when the next superframe of the transmitting device will start, allowing a conversion of the timing between the superframes of the two networks. Since the transmitting and receiving devices are close together, the transit time of the transmitted signal ma be considered essentially instantaneous, and may be ignored in the calculations.
In the example of
Although the broadcast transmission from B-1 may be directional, it might still be received by devices other than A-2. For example, device B-2 may also receive it. But since device B-2 is in the same network as B-1, and the format of the transmission indicates it is an interference report intended for another network, device B-2 may simply ignore the report. Since
Another possibility is that another device in network A might also receive the transmission. For example, device A-1 might be close enough to the transmission envelope of device B-1 that A-1 also receives the message. In this case, device A-1 may also report the information to PNC-A (following operations 330-340-350), and PNC-A may simply ignore the redundant report from device A-1, while processing the report from device A-2.
Because the superframe timings of network A and network B are originally unsynchronized, device B-1 may not know when its transmission is able to be correctly received by a device in network A. For example, the interference report from device B-1 might be transmitted at a time when device A-2 is transmitting to device A-3, and device A-2 is therefore unable to detect/decode the transmission from device B-1. Because of uncertainties such as this, the interference report from device B-1 may have to be retransmitted multiple times, and at differing points with the superframes, until it is properly received. In some embodiments, device A-2 may reply to device B-1 with an acknowledgment when it successfully receives the interference report from device B-1. In other embodiments, in which no effective form of inter-network feedback exists, device B-1 ma never know completely whether the interference report was successfully received, but could infer that when the interference stops.
The transmission may have a format designed specifically to report such interference to PNC-B, but this format may be different than the format described earlier for
Once PNC-B receives this report at 530, it may establish a communications link with PNC-A at 540. At 550, the two PNC's may then exchange information about their respective network schedules, and one or both PNC's may rearrange a part of its network schedule to avoid the reported interference. As before, the superframe timing between the two networks may be unsynchronized, so a common timing reference may need to be established by the two PNC's so they can convert superframe timings between the two networks. If the devices in the networks use directional transmissions, then only the timing of B-2 to B-1 transmissions and A-2 to A-1 transmissions may need to be considered for rescheduling, for the specific interference example shown in
Although the embodiment of
The foregoing description is intended to be illustrative and not limiting. Variations will occur to those of skill in the art. Those variations are intended to be included in the various embodiments of the invention, which are limited only by the spirit and scope of the following claims.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 12215157 | Jun 2008 | US |
Child | 13459371 | US |