Increasing data bandwidth to wireless devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016088511-A1
Application number	US-201514857676-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 17, 2015
Priority date	Sep 18, 2014
Publication date	Mar 24, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Techniques and solutions are provides for increasing data bandwidth to wireless devices in a wireless network. Data bandwidth to a wireless device can be increased by using an array of wireless transmitters of one type, arranged to cover one or more areas of an enclosed space, in combination with one or more wireless transmitters of another type, to simultaneously transmit data to the wireless device over different wireless communication channels.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A method of increasing data bandwidth to a wireless client device, comprising:
transmitting data to the wireless client device across two types of wireless communication channels simultaneously by: transmitting a first part of a data message to the wireless client device across a first wireless communication channel via a selected one or more transmitters of an array of two or more transmitters of a first transmitter type that in combination cover one or more areas of a room; and simultaneously transmitting a second part of the data message to the wireless client device across a second wireless communication channel via one or more transmitters of a second transmitter type, different than the first transmitter type.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an acknowledgment message from the wireless client device via the second wireless communication channel wherein the acknowledgement message includes acknowledging the first part of the data message received on the first wireless communication channel.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein:
the first transmitter type is a free-space optical transmitter type, and the second transmitter type is a radio frequency transmitter type.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an identifier from the wireless client device that identifies a transmitter in the array of the two or more transmitters; and transmitting the first part of the data message to the wireless client device via the identified transmitter, without transmitting to the wireless client device via the other transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters.

5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
receiving a second identifier from the wireless client device that identifiers another transmitter in the array, indicating that the wireless client device moved location; and transmitting a third part of the data message to the wireless client device via the second identified transmitter, without transmitting to the wireless client device via the other transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
encoding the first part of the data message, wherein the encoding is based on a location of the wireless client device with respect to two or more transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters of the first transmitter type.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein:
the encoding uses a channel matrix comprising:
two or more columns, wherein each column represents a transmitter in the array of two or more transmitters of the first transmitter type,
two or more rows, wherein each row represents a receiver configured to receive data messages over the first wireless communication channel, wherein the user device is one of the receivers, and
M×N entries, wherein M is a number of the two or more rows, N is a number of the two or more columns, and each entry has a value that indicates whether a receiver associated with the entry's row is in range of a transmitter associated with the entry's column; and
wherein the channel matrix is full-rank in a finite field, wherein the finite field has a number of elements that is equal to a number of signal levels at which the transmitters represented by the columns in the channel matrix can transmit.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the transmitting data to the wireless client further comprises:
simultaneously transmitting a third part of the data message to the wireless client device across a third wireless communication channel via one or more transmitters of a third transmitter type, different than the first transmitter type and the second transmitter type.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting the first part of the data message at a first rate; transmitting the second part of the data message at a second rate, different than the first rate; and dynamically changing the first rate and the second rate based on the following:
signal-to-noise ratios of the first wireless communication channel and the second wireless communication channel,
a backlog associated with the first wireless communication channel and a backlog associated with the second wireless communication channel, and
a location of the wireless client device relative to the transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters of the first transmitter type.

10 . A system for transmitting data to wireless devices comprising:
an array of two or more free-space optical (FSO) transmitters arranged to communicate with wireless devices in one or more areas of an enclosed space; a second group of one or more radio frequency (RF) transmitters configured to communicate with the wireless devices in the one or more areas of the enclosed space; and an access point coupled to the array of FSO transmitters and the second group of RF transmitters and configured to divide a data message into portions and selectively transmit some of the portions of the data message over at least one of the transmitters in the first group and some of the portions of the data message over at least one of the transmitters in the second group.

11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the FSO transmitters are configured to transmit data via one or more cones of diffuse light.

12 . The system of claim 11 , wherein three or more of the FSO transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters are arranged in a triangular lattice.

13 . The system of claim 11 , wherein at least one of the FSO transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters comprises one or more light-emitting diodes.

14 . The system of claim 11 , wherein at least one of the FSO transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters comprises one or more vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers.

15 . The system of claim 10 , further comprising:
an array of two or more FSO receivers coupled to the access point and arranged to receive signals from the wireless devices in in the one or more areas of the enclosed space.

16 . The system of claim 10 , further comprising:
a channel quality assessor configured to dynamically adjust a first data rate for the first wireless communication channel and a second data rate for the second wireless communication channel based on: a signal-to-noise ratio for the first wireless communication channel, and a signal-to-noise ratio for the second wireless communication channel, received from the wireless device; a size of a backlog of at least one queue associated with the first wireless communication channel, and a size of a backlog of at least one other queue associated with the second wireless communication channel; and a location of the wireless device relative to the transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters.

17 . One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions for causing a wireless computing device to perform a method of increasing data bandwidth to the wireless computing device, the method comprising:
transmitting a request to an access point over a wireless radio frequency (RF) communication channel; and receiving from the access point:
a first part of a response over the wireless RF communication channel via an RF transmitter, and
a second part of the response over a wireless diffuse light communication channel via one or more free-space optical (FSO) transmitters configured to transmit data via one or more cones of diffuse light.

18 . The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17 , wherein the method further compri

Assignees

• Univ Oregon State

Inventors

• Nguyen Thinh P
• Wang Alan X

Classifications

• H04B10/503 Primary

  Laser transmitters · CPC title

• H04L5/006

  Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling · CPC title

• H04B10/1129 Primary

  Arrangements for outdoor wireless networking of information · CPC title

• H04L5/0055

  Physical resource allocation for ACK/NACK (for physical mapping arrangements in ARQ protocols H04L1/1861) · CPC title

• H04L1/1621

  Group acknowledgement, i.e. the acknowledgement message defining a range of identifiers, e.g. of sequence numbers · CPC title