Duty-cycle control in wireless network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9750013-B2
Application number	US-201314396816-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 22, 2013
Priority date	Apr 27, 2012
Publication date	Aug 29, 2017
Grant date	Aug 29, 2017

Abstract

A wireless network has a duty-cycle limitation, which defines a total transmission time budget and an average transmission time. A device ( 100 ) has a controller ( 102 ) for controlling the transmission of data according to the duty-cycle limitation. The controller stores past transmission time usage of the device in sequences of buckets, and determines a bucket budget of transmission time. A basic transmission time budget is assigned which is smaller than the average transmission time of the corresponding time interval, and additional transmission time is allocated to allow for temporally exceeding the average transmission time. The additional transmission time is based on the total transmission time budget and the past transmission time usage of past buckets in combination with the future basic transmission time budget of future buckets, which past, current and future buckets together cover the duty-cycle period. Advantageously, the system enables accommodating temporal fluctuation in data transmission and guarantees a minimum transmission capacity.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. Device for a wireless network, the network having a duty-cycle limitation requiring that the device is transmitting less than a predefined fraction of a predefined duty-cycle period, which fraction defines a total transmission time budget of the duty-cycle period and an average transmission time for an interval in the duty-cycle period as proportionally allowed by the duty-cycle limitation in the respective time interval, the device comprising:
an input for receiving data to be transferred,
an output for transmitting data to the network,
a controller for controlling the transmission of data according to the duty-cycle limitation, the controller being arranged for:
storing past transmission time usage of the device in a sequence of buckets, each bucket representing a respective time interval in a sequence of consecutive, adjacent time intervals, the intervals being smaller than the duty-cycle period, and
determining a bucket budget of transmission time by
assigning to the bucket budget a basic transmission time budget smaller than the average transmission time of the corresponding time interval, and
assigning an additional transmission time to a current bucket budget to allow for temporally exceeding the average transmission time of the respective time interval for accommodating temporal fluctuation in data transmission and determining the additional transmission time, based on the total transmission time budget and the past transmission time usage of past buckets in combination with the future basic transmission time budget of future buckets by
analyzing further sequences of buckets in a sliding way, the further sequences comprising past, current and future buckets together having a length covering the duty-cycle period, and calculating for each sequence an available excess budget based on the respective part of the further sequence being past buckets containing the actual usage and the complementary part of the further sequence being future buckets assigned to have the basic transmission time budget and taking the minimum of the calculated available excess budgets as the additional transmission time,
wherein the controller is arranged for network layer interaction by transmitting a non-acknowledgement message instead of a requested data transmission if the requested transmission causes the current usage of transmission time to exceed the current bucket budget.

2. Device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged for accommodating a predefined function in the wireless network by adapting components of the bucket budget to the predefined function.

3. Device as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the predefined function comprises at least one of a forwarder, a data collector, a cluster head, an application terminal.

4. Device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged for determining the additional transmission time of the current bucket, based additionally on an additional upper limit, the upper limit being less than a total excess time budget defined by subtracting from the total transmission time budget a sum of the basic budgets of the number of buckets in the sequence, which sequence covers the duty-cycle period, the upper limit enabling assigning additional transmission time to multiple buckets in a duty-cycle period.

5. Device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged for spreading the transmission within the current bucket by delaying a requested transmission within the corresponding time interval if the requested transmission causes the current usage of transmission time to exceed the transmission time as proportionally allowed by the average transmission time.

6. Device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged for accommodating at least one prioritized type of data transmission by decreasing the bucket budget by a prioritized data budget, and transmitting actual data of the prioritized type while correspondingly increasing the current bucket budget by the prioritized data budget.

7. Device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the device comprises a transmitter for wireless communication in the wireless network.

8. Device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the device comprises an application unit for controlling an application and/or receiving data from the network or providing data to the network.

9. Method of determining transmissions in a wireless network, the network having a duty-cycle limitation requiring that the device is transmitting less than a predefined fraction of a predefined duty-cycle period, which fraction defines a total transmission time budget of the duty-cycle period and an average transmission time for an interval in the duty-cycle period as proportionally allowed by the duty-cycle limitation in the respective time interval; the method comprising:
storing past transmission time usage of a device in the network in a sequence of buckets, each bucket representing a respective time interval in a sequence of consecutive, adjacent time intervals, the intervals being smaller than the duty-cycle period, and
determining a bucket budget of transmission time by
assigning to the bucket budget a basic transmission time budget smaller than the average transmission time of the corresponding time interval, and
assigning additional transmission time to a current bucket budget to allow for temporally exceeding the average transmission time of the respective time interval for accommodating temporal fluctuation in data transmission and determining ( 204 ) the additional transmission time, based on the total transmission time budget and the past transmission time usage of past buckets in combination with the future basic transmission time budget of future buckets by
analyzing further sequences of buckets in a sliding way, the further sequences comprising past, current and future buckets together having a length covering the duty-cycle period, and calculating for each sequence an available excess budget based on the respective part of the further sequence being past buckets containing the actual usage and the complementary part of the further sequence being future buckets assigned to have the basic transmission time budget and taking the minimum of the calculated available excess budgets as the additional transmission time, and
transmitting a non-acknowledgement message instead of a requested data transmission if the requested transmission causes the current usage of transmission time to exceed the current bucket budget.

10. Method as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the method comprises controlling the transmission of data of the device according to the current bucket budget.

11. Method as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the current bucket budget is determined by

bucket_budget
=

min

n
∈

(

0
⁢
…
⁢

⁢
N

-
1

)

⁢

(

bucket_excess
+

Assignees

• Philips Lighting Holding Bv

Inventors

• Goergen Daniel Martin

Classifications

• H04W28/18

  Negotiating wireless communication parameters · CPC title

• H04W72/0446 Primary

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