Avoidance of collisions and connection loss in network device serving multiple networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11997575-B2
Application number	US-202016901100-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 15, 2020
Priority date	Mar 10, 2016
Publication date	May 28, 2024
Grant date	May 28, 2024

Abstract

A network device serving two or more networks using periodic times slots for transmission events is configured to determine that one of the periodic time slots on one of the networks has or soon will collide with one of the periodic time slots on the other network by processing time stamps for events on each network. Either of the periodic time slots may be occasionally shifted by a time shift amount to avoid a collision between the periodic time slots on each network. Shifting the periodic time slots may be performed by transmitting a Bluetooth connection parameter update packet.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
establishing, by a device, a connection on a first network, wherein the device is assigned a first set of time slots for performing transactions on the first network based on a first reference clock;
establishing, by the device, a connection on a second network, wherein the device is assigned a second set of time slots for performing transactions on the second network based on a second reference clock, wherein the first reference clock and the second reference clock have a relative drift rate;
determining a collision between the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots;
in response to determining the collision, shifting a set of time slots selected from among the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots by setting a transmit window offset parameter associated with the selected set of time slots; and
determining a time shift to reduce a number of collisions between the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots, wherein the setting of the transmit window offset parameter is based on the time shift.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transmit window offset parameter is a Bluetooth transmitWindowOffset parameter.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining of the time shift includes:
calculating a set of durations, wherein each of the set of durations is between a respective end of a respective time slot of the first set of time slots and a respective start of a respective time slot of the second set of time slots;
adding an offset value to each of the set of durations; and
determining a number of collisions associated with the offset value based on the set of durations with the offset value added.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the time shift is determined to produce a minimum number of collisions.

5. The method of claim 1 , further including determining the relative drift rate between the first reference clock and the second reference clock.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first network is a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) network.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the second network is a BLE network.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the device is a slave device with respect to the first network, and wherein the device is a master device with respect to the second network.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the device is a slave device with respect to the first network, and wherein the device is a slave device with respect to the second network.

10. A method comprising:
establishing, by a device, a connection on a first network, wherein the device is assigned a first set of time slots for performing transactions on the first network based on a first reference clock;
establishing, by the device, a connection on a second network, wherein the device is assigned a second set of time slots for performing transactions on the second network based on a second reference clock, wherein the first reference clock and the second reference clock have a relative drift rate;
determining a collision between the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots; and
in response to determining the collision, shifting a set of time slots selected from among the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots by setting a transmit window offset parameter associated with the selected set of time slots, wherein the device is a slave device and the shifting of the set of time slots includes transmitting, to a master device, a request to set the transmit window offset parameter.

11. A method comprising:
establishing, by a device, a connection on a first network, wherein the device is assigned a first set of time slots for performing transactions on the first network based on a first reference clock;
establishing, by the device, a connection on a second network, wherein the device is assigned a second set of time slots for performing transactions on the second network based on a second reference clock, wherein the first reference clock and the second reference clock have a relative drift rate;
determining a collision between the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots; and
in response to determining the collision, shifting a set of time slots selected from among the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots by setting a transmit window offset parameter associated with the selected set of time slots, wherein the determining of the collision includes comparing a duration between an end of a first time slot of the first set of time slots and a start of a second time slot of the second set of time slots to a sum of a duration of the first time slot and a duration of the second time slot.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the determining of the collision comprises comparing the end of the first time slot to the start of the second time slot based on the duration of the first time slot being greater than the duration of the second time slot.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the determining of the collision comprises determining the collision based on the duration between the end of the first time slot and the start of the second time slot being between zero and the sum of the duration of the first time slot and the duration of the second time slot.

14. A device comprising:
a transmitter and a receiver that are configured to communicate via a first network and a second network;
and
processing logic coupled to the transmitter and the receiver and configured to:
establish a connection on the first network such that the device is assigned a first set of time slots for performing transactions on the first network based on a first reference clock;
establish a connection on the second network such that the device is assigned a second set of time slots for performing transactions on the second network based on a second reference clock;
determine a collision between the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots;
in response to determining the collision, shifting either the first set of time slots or the second set of time slots by setting a transmit window offset parameter; and
determine a time shift to reduce a number of collisions between the first set of time slots and the second set of time slots, wherein the transmit window offset parameter is based on the time shift.

15. The device of claim 14 , wherein the transmit window offset parameter is a Bluetooth transmitWindowOffset parameter.

16. The device of claim 14 , wherein the processing logic is configured to determine the time shift by:
calculating a set of durations, wherein each of the set of durations is between a respective end of a respective time slot of the first set of time slots and a respective start of a respective time slot of the second set of time slots;
adding an offset value to each of the set of durations; and
determining a number of collisions associated with the offset value based on the set of durations with the offset value added.

17. The device of claim 14 , wherein the time shift is determined to produce a minimum number of collisions.

18. The device of claim 14 , wherein the processing logic is configured to determine a relative drift rate between the first reference clock and the second reference clock.

19. A device comprising:
a transmitter and a receiver that are configured to communicate via a first network and a second network; and
processing logic coupled to the transmitter and the receiver and configured to:
establish a connection on the first network such that the device is assigne

Assignees

• Texas Instruments Inc

Inventors

• Ben-Shachar Matan
• Eshel Omri
• Jakira Yuval
• Brecher Liran
• Ziv Dotan
• Loewy Chen

Classifications

• H04W4/80 Primary

  Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication · CPC title

• H04W74/085

  collision avoidance · CPC title

• H04W72/0446

  Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames · CPC title

• H04W84/18

  Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks · CPC title