Opportunistic information forwarding using wireless terminals in the internet-of-things

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016007288-A1
Application number	US-201414323146-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 3, 2014
Priority date	Jul 3, 2014
Publication date	Jan 7, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A capability for opportunistic forwarding of information using a wireless terminal is presented. An energy limited node includes a wake-up circuit configured to detect a wake-up signal from a wireless terminal where the wake-up signal includes a modulated waveform signal, and a communication module configured to switch, based on a control signal generated by the wake-up circuit, from a sleep mode in which the communication module is not operable to communicate with the wireless terminal to an active mode in which the communication module is operable to communicate with the wireless terminal. A wireless terminal includes a first wireless communication interface configured for communication with a device using a wireless communication protocol, a second wireless communication interface configured for wireless communication with a wireless access node of a wireless network, and a processor configured to support opportunistic forwarding of information between the device and the wireless access node of the wireless network.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An energy limited node, comprising:
a wake-up circuit configured to detect a wake-up signal from a wireless terminal, the wake-up signal comprising a modulated waveform signal; and a communication module configured to switch, based on a control signal generated by the wake-up circuit, from a sleep mode in which the communication module is not operable to communicate with the wireless terminal to an active mode in which the communication module is operable to communicate with the wireless terminal.

2 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up signal comprises an analog waveform.

3 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up signal comprises information included in a frame of a short-range wireless communication protocol.

4 . The energy limited node of claim 3 , wherein the short-range wireless communication protocol comprises WiFi, Bluetooth, or Zigbee.

5 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up signal comprises at least a portion of a synchronization signal of a short-range wireless communication protocol.

6 . The energy limited node of claim 5 , wherein the at least a portion of a synchronization signal of the short-range wireless communication protocol comprises one of:
a portion of a preamble of a WiFi frame; a Short Training Sequence (STS) portion of a preamble of a WiFi frame; a Long Training Sequence (LTS) portion of a preamble of a WiFi frame; a combination of an STS portion and an LTS portion of a preamble of a WiFi frame; at least a portion of a preamble portion of a synchronization header (SHR) of a Zigbee frame; at least a portion of an access code of a Bluetooth frame; or at least a portion of a header of a Bluetooth frame.

7 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up signal comprises information included in a payload portion of a frame of a short-range wireless communication protocol.

8 . The energy limited node of claim 7 , wherein the information included in the payload portion of the frame of the short-range wireless communication protocol comprises one or more signal components.

9 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up signal comprises a sequence of frames of a short-range wireless communication protocol.

10 . The energy limited node of claim 9 , wherein the sequence of frames is configured to have a duration during which the sequence of frames is transmitted, a number of frames transmitted in the sequence of frames, and a period between the frames transmitted in the sequence of frames.

11 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up circuit comprises:
a first element configured to receive the wake-up signal and to provide a filtered or selective version of the wake-up signal; a second element configured to receive the filtered or selective version of the wake-up signal and to integrate at least a portion of the filtered or selective version of the wake-up signal that is below a cutoff frequency of the second element; and a detector configured to determine whether energy received from the second element satisfies a threshold.

12 . The energy limited node of claim 11 , wherein the first element comprises a bandpass filter and timer circuitry.

13 . The energy limited node of claim 11 , wherein the second element comprises at least one of an integrate-and-dump lowpass filter or an amplifier.

14 . The energy limited node of claim 11 , wherein the detector comprises an energy detector or an envelope detector.

15 . The energy limited node of claim 11 , wherein the energy detector is configured to:
based on detection that the energy received from the second element satisfies the threshold, generate the control signal for triggering the communication module to switch from the sleep mode in which the communication module is not operable to communicate with the wireless terminal to the active mode in which the communication module is operable to communicate with the wireless terminal.

16 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up circuit comprises:
a bandpass filter configured to receive the wake-up signal and to produce a bandpass signal; an integrate-and-dump lowpass filter configured to receive the bandpass filter and integrate at least a portion of the bandpass signal that is below a cutoff frequency of the integrate-and-dump lowpass filter; and an energy detector configured to determine whether energy received from the integrate-and-dump lowpass filter satisfies a threshold.

17 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the wake-up circuit comprises:
a detector module configured to receive the wake-up signal and determine device identity information from the wake-up signal; and a device identity estimator module configured to determine, based on a comparison of the device identity information with reference device identity information specific to the energy limited node, whether the wake-up signal is intended for the energy limited node.

18 . The energy limited node of claim 17 , wherein the device identity information correlator is configured to:
based on a determination that the received device identity information and the reference device identity information match, generate the control signal for triggering the communication module to switch from the sleep mode in which the communication module is not operable to communicate with the wireless terminal to the active mode in which the communication module is operable to communicate with the wireless terminal.

19 . The energy limited node of claim 17 , wherein the device identity estimator module comprises:
a device identity information correlator configured to:
receive the device identity information from the detector module; and
compare the received device identity information and the reference device identity information to determine whether the wake-up signal is intended for the energy limited node.

20 . The energy limited node of claim 17 , wherein the device identity estimator module comprises:
a device identity information correlator configured to correlate a waveform associated with the device identity information and a waveform associated with the reference device identity information specific to the energy limited node; and a threshold detector configured to determine whether correlation of the waveform associated with the device identity information and the waveform associated with the reference device identity information specific to the energy limited node causes a threshold to be satisfied.

21 . The energy limited node of claim 17 , wherein the wake-up signal comprises a sequence of frames of a short-range wireless communication protocol, wherein the reference device identity information comprises information indicative of one or more characteristics of a particular sequence of frames of a short-range wireless communication protocol specific to the energy limited node.

22 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the communication module is configured to transmit information toward the wireless terminal while in the active mode.

23 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the communication module is configured to receive information from the wireless terminal while in the active mode.

24 . The energy limited node of claim 1 , wherein the modulated waveform signal is received from the wireless terminal based on control by the wire

Assignees

• Samardzija Dragan
• Huang Howard
• Venkateswaran Vijay
• Lin Chih-Kuang
• Kennedy Irwin
• Abbot Richard
• Alcatel Lucent
• Alcatel Lucent Usa Inc

Inventors

• Samardzija Dragan
• Huang Howard
• Venkateswaran Vijay
• Lin Chih-Kuang
• Kennedy Irwin
• Abbot Richard

Classifications

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04W84/18

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

• H04W56/001

  Synchronization between nodes · CPC title

• H04W52/0229 Primary

  where the received signal is a wanted signal · CPC title

• H04W4/008

  Electricity · mapped topic