Method for scheduling access point of wireless local area network, controller, access point, and system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9713163-B2
Application number	US-201514924500-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 27, 2015
Priority date	May 10, 2013
Publication date	Jul 18, 2017
Grant date	Jul 18, 2017

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for scheduling an access point of a wireless local area network, including: receiving, by a first controller in a current scheduling period of a network running state, performance statistical data of a last scheduling period reported by a plurality of access points in a first access point cluster in the last scheduling period, where the first access point cluster includes the first controller and the plurality of access points connected to the first controller; generating a scheduling scheme for the plurality of access points for a next scheduling period according to the performance statistical information; and broadcasting the scheduling scheme to the plurality of access points. According to the method, impact on other access points due to communications between different access points and user equipments are reduced in a wireless local area network with a plurality of access points.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for scheduling an access point of a wireless local area network, comprising:
receiving, by a first controller, in a current scheduling period of a running state of a network, performance statistical data of a last scheduling period reported by a plurality of access points in a first access point cluster, wherein the first access point cluster comprises the first controller and the plurality of access points connected to the first controller;
generating, by the first controller, a scheduling scheme for the plurality of access points for a next scheduling period according to the performance statistical data; and
broadcasting, by the first controller, the scheduling scheme for the next scheduling period to the plurality of access points, to enable the plurality of access points to configure, in the current scheduling period, a transmitting parameter for the next scheduling period according to the scheduling scheme and to communicate with a user equipment according to the transmitting parameter in the next scheduling periods;
wherein the transmitting parameter comprises an antenna direction, an upper limit of transmitting power, and a clear channel assessment parameter threshold.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein, before the network is in the running state, the method further comprises:
generating, by the first controller, in an initialization phase, prior information according to receive signal strength indicators reported by the plurality of access points, wherein the prior information is used for generating a scheduling scheme for a first scheduling period and a second scheduling period of the running state of the network.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein generating the prior information according to the receive signal strength indicators further comprises:
establishing, by the first controller, connections with the plurality of access points to form the first access point cluster;
instructing, by the first controller, the access points in the first access point cluster to take turns to transmit a training sequence;
receiving, by the first controller, receive signal strength indicators from each access point in the first access point cluster based on the transmitted training sequences from other access points; and
generating, by the first controller, the prior information according to the received receive signal strength indicators.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein, in the initialization phase, the method further comprises:
establishing, by the first controller, a connection with at least one second controller to form a controller group, wherein each controller in the controller group controls a respective access point cluster.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein after generating the prior information according to the receive signal strength indicators, the method further comprises:
negotiating, by the first controller, with other controllers in the controller group to determine respective scheduling schemes for access point clusters corresponding to each controller for the first scheduling period and the second scheduling period.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein negotiating with the other controllers further comprises:
notifying, by each controller, the other controllers in the controller group of a scheduling scheme for the access point cluster corresponding to the controller;
determining, by each controller, according to respective receive signal strength indicators received in the initialization phase, whether there are overlapped coverage areas between the access point cluster to which the controller belongs and the access point clusters to which the other controllers belong; and
determining, in response to determining that there is no overlapped coverage area, a current scheduling scheme as the scheduling scheme for the first scheduling period and the second scheduling period.

7. The method according to claim 5 , wherein negotiating with the other controllers further comprises:
notifying, by each controller, the other controllers in the controller group of a scheduling scheme for the access point cluster corresponding to the controller;
determining, by each controller, according to respective receive signal strength indicators received in the initialization phase, whether there are overlapped coverage areas between the access point cluster to which the controller belongs and the access point clusters to which the other controllers belong;
in response to determining that overlapped coverage areas exist, analyzing, by each controller, scheduling schemes transmitted by the other controllers, and determining collision probabilities between the scheduling schemes for the access point clusters;
setting, by each controller, a priority for the controller when a collision probability exceeds a set threshold; and
querying different access point clusters having a collision, and adjusting scheduling schemes for access point clusters with relatively low priorities.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein, setting the priority for each controller is based on a quantity of data waiting to be transmitted by the access points in each access point cluster.

9. The method according to claim 7 , wherein, determining whether there are overlapped coverage areas further comprises:
determining there is an overlapped coverage area between two access point clusters when any access point in one access point cluster receives a training sequence transmitted by an access point in another access point cluster and a corresponding receive signal strength indicator of the training sequence exceeds a preset threshold.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein, after generating the scheduling scheme for the next scheduling period, the method further comprises:
exchanging, by the first controller, information with other controllers in a controller group, wherein the exchanged information comprises the scheduling scheme for the next scheduling period generated by the first controller; and
modifying the scheduling scheme for the next scheduling period according to data of overlapped coverage areas between the access points in the first access point cluster and one or more access points in one or more other access point clusters.

11. A method for scheduling an access point of a wireless local area network, the method comprising:
reporting, by a first access point, in a current scheduling period of a running state of a network, performance statistical data of a last scheduling period to a first controller in a first access point cluster, wherein the first access point cluster comprises the first controller and a plurality of access points connected to the first controller, including the first access point;
receiving, by the first access point, a scheduling scheme for a next scheduling period generated by the first controller according to the performance statistical data;
configuring, by the first access point, a transmitting parameter for the next scheduling period according to the scheduling scheme, wherein the transmitting parameter comprises an antenna direction, an upper limit of transmission power, and a clear channel assessment parameter threshold; and
performing, by the first access point, a communication with a user equipment according to the transmitting parameter in the next scheduling period.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein, before the network is in the running state the method further comprises:
transmitting, by the first access point, in an initialization phase, receive signal strength indicators corresponding to training sequences transmitted by a plurality of

Assignees

• Huawei Tech Co Ltd

Inventors

• Ni Rui

Classifications

• H04W72/12 Primary

  Wireless traffic scheduling · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04W28/16 Primary

  Central resource management; Negotiation of resources or communication parameters, e.g. negotiating bandwidth or QoS [Quality of Service] · CPC title

• H04L5/0091

  Signalling for the administration of the divided path, e.g. signalling of configuration information · CPC title

• H04W72/1205 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic