Transitioning from an infrastructure based wireless connection to a peer to peer (P2P) wireless connection

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10594785-B2
Application number	US-201615067972-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 11, 2016
Priority date	Mar 11, 2016
Publication date	Mar 17, 2020
Grant date	Mar 17, 2020

Abstract

Disclosed in some examples are methods, systems, devices, and machine readable mediums which provide for device discovery and P2P negotiation in infrastructure mode and then a transition to P2P mode. This allows devices to take advantage of the robustness and improved device discovery of infrastructure mode and the reduced latency of P2P mode.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium comprising instructions, which when performed by a first wireless device cause the first wireless device to perform operations comprising:
establishing a first wireless connection with a wireless access infrastructure device;
discovering, using the first wireless connection, a second wireless device, the second wireless device communicatively connected to the wireless access infrastructure device;
establishing a first media streaming session with the first wireless device as a source device and the second wireless device as a sink device and wherein media is streamed from the first wireless device through the wireless access infrastructure device to the second wireless device;
determining that the second wireless device is capable of a peer-to-peer wireless connection using a communication protocol that is above a Medium Access Control Protocol in a protocol stack;
responsive to determining that the second wireless device is capable of the peer-to-peer wireless connection, establishing the peer-to-peer wireless connection with the second wireless device;
establishing a second media streaming session over the peer-to-peer wireless connection;
responsive to establishing the second media streaming session, switching streaming the media over the first media streaming session to the streaming the media over the second media streaming session, wherein switching streaming the media comprises leaving the first media streaming session open without transmitting the media over the first media streaming session;
determining, after switching the stream of the media from the first media streaming session to the second media streaming session, that the peer-to-peer wireless connection is unreliable based upon one or more metrics corresponding to the peer-to-peer wireless connection; and
responsive to determining that the peer-to-peer wireless connection is unreliable, switching the media stream back to the first media streaming session from the second media streaming session.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations of determining that the second wireless device is capable of the peer-to-peer wireless connection comprises using information in a discovery protocol message sent by the second wireless device as part of discovering the second wireless device.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise determining a peer-to-peer connection parameter using information in a discovery protocol message sent by the second wireless device as part of discovering the second wireless device, and wherein the operations of establishing the peer-to-peer wireless connection with the second wireless device comprises using the peer-to-peer connection parameter.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations of establishing the first media streaming session comprise establishing a protocol connection with the second wireless device using the first wireless connection; and
wherein the operations of determining that the second wireless device is capable of switching to the peer-to-peer wireless connection comprises utilizing the protocol connection, the protocol connection being one of:
a transport layer protocol or an application layer protocol.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 4 , wherein the protocol connection is a Transport Control Protocol (TCP).

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 4 , wherein the protocol connection is a Real Time Streaming Protocol.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein establishing the first media streaming session comprises utilizing a Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP).

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the peer-to-peer wireless connection is a peer-to-peer wireless connection according to a Wi-Fi Direct standard.

9. A first wireless device comprising:
a processor;
a memory communicatively coupled to the processor and comprising instructions, which when performed by the processor causes the processor to perform the operations comprising:
establishing a first wireless connection with a wireless access infrastructure device;
discovering, using the first wireless connection, a second wireless device, the second wireless device communicatively connected to the wireless access infrastructure device;
establishing a first media streaming session with the first wireless device as a source device and the second wireless device as a sink device and wherein media is streamed from the first wireless device through the wireless access infrastructure device to the second wireless device;
determining that the second wireless device is capable of a peer-to-peer wireless connection using a communication protocol that is above a Medium Access Control Protocol in a protocol stack;
responsive to determining that the second wireless device is capable of the peer-to-peer wireless connection, establishing the peer-to-peer wireless connection with the second wireless device;
establishing a second media streaming session over the peer-to-peer wireless connection;
responsive to establishing the second media streaming session, switching streaming the media over the first media streaming session to the streaming the media over the second media streaming session, wherein switching streaming the media comprises leaving the first media streaming session open without transmitting the media over the first media streaming session;
determining, after switching the stream of the media from the first media streaming session to the second media streaming session, that the peer-to-peer wireless connection is unreliable based upon one or more metrics corresponding to the peer-to-peer wireless connection; and
responsive to determining that the peer-to-peer wireless connection is unreliable, switching the media stream back to the first media streaming session from the second media streaming session.

10. The first wireless device of claim 9 , wherein the operations of determining that the second wireless device is capable of the peer-to-peer wireless connection comprises using information in a discovery protocol message sent by the second wireless device as part of discovering the second wireless device.

11. The first wireless device of claim 9 , wherein the operations further comprise determining a peer-to-peer connection parameter using information in a discovery protocol message sent by the second wireless device as part of discovering the second wireless device, and wherein the operations of establishing the peer-to-peer wireless connection with the second wireless device comprises using the peer-to-peer connection parameter.

12. The first wireless device of claim 9 , wherein the operations of establishing the first media streaming session comprise establishing a protocol connection with the second wireless device using the first wireless connection; and
wherein the operations of determining that the second wireless device is capable of switching to the peer-to-peer wireless connection comprises utilizing the protocol connection, the protocol connection being one of:
a transport layer protocol or an application layer protocol.

13. The first wireless device of claim 12 , wherein the protocol connection is a Transport Control Protocol (TCP).

14. The first wireless device of claim 12 , wherein the protocol connection is a Real Time Streaming Protocol.

15. The first wireless device of claim 12 , wherein the operations comprise determining a peer-to-peer c

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Rajamani Krishnan
• Huang Gary C
• Lin Xintian E
• Hansen Carl C

Classifications

• H04W8/005

  Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals · CPC title

• H04L67/104 Primary

  Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04W76/14

  Direct-mode setup · CPC title

• H04W80/06

  Transport layer protocols, e.g. TCP [Transport Control Protocol] over wireless {(transmission control protocol/Internet protocol [TCP/IP] or user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16)} · CPC title