Distributed rate allocation and collision detection in wireless networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9794949-B2
Application number	US-201113813349-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 29, 2011
Priority date	Jul 30, 2010
Publication date	Oct 17, 2017
Grant date	Oct 17, 2017

Abstract

A hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device, including a hand-held wireless device having one or more antennas, a cellular wireless interface connected to at least some of the one or more antennas, and a non-cellular wireless interface connected to at least some of the one or more antennas. The non-cellular wireless interface may include a rate allocator configured to select a physical-layer rate of transmission of data from the non-cellular wireless interface based on a queue length of data to be transmitted from the hand-held cellular device and a transmitter configured to wirelessly transmit data from the queue and adjust physical-layer transmission parameters based on a physical-layer rate selected by the rate allocator.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device, comprising:
a mobile wireless device comprising:
one or more antennas;
a cellular wireless interface connected to at least some of the one or more antennas; and
a non-cellular wireless interface connected to at least some of the one or more antennas, wherein the non-cellular wireless interface comprises:
a rate allocator configured to select a physical-layer rate of transmission of data from the non-cellular wireless interface based on a queue length of data to be transmitted from the mobile wireless device,
wherein the rate allocator comprises a channel measurement module configured to determine the feasibility of transmitting at a proposed physical-layer rate in parallel with another wireless device over wireless medium resources shared with the other wireless device such that the parallel transmissions interfere with one another,
wherein the rate allocator is configured to update the selected physical-layer rate and wherein a duration of time between physical-layer rate updates is determined based on a random value; and

a transmitter configured to wirelessly transmit data from the queue and adjust physical-layer transmission parameters based on the physical-layer rate selected by the rate allocator.

2. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 1 , wherein the channel measurement module is configured to receive feedback from the other wireless device and determine the feasibility of a physical-layer rate based, at least in part, on the feedback.

3. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 2 , wherein the feedback includes a length of a frame transmitted by the other wireless device.

4. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 2 , wherein the feedback includes a sequence identifier transmitted to or from the other wireless device.

5. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 2 , wherein the non-cellular interface is configured to wait an inter-frame spacing duration before determining whether to transmit a data frame, and wherein the non-cellular interface is configured to sense the feedback during the inter-frame spacing duration.

6. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 2 , wherein non-cellular interface of the wireless device is configured to simultaneously transmit data frames on one or more frequencies of the wireless medium and receive the feedback on the one or more frequencies of the wireless medium.

7. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 1 , comprising memory coupled to the rate allocator, wherein the rate allocator is configured to store data indicative of feasibility of a physical-layer rate in the memory.

8. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 7 , wherein the rate allocator is configured to determine the feasibility of a physical-layer rate based on both feedback and the stored data indicative of the feasibility of a physical-layer rate.

9. The hybrid cellular and non-cellular multi-hop communication device of claim 1 , comprising the other mobile wireless device, wherein the other mobile wireless device comprises another cellular wireless interface and another non-cellular wireless interface comprising:
another rate allocator configured to select another physical-layer rate of transmission of data from the another non-cellular wireless interface based on a queue length of data to be transmitted from the another mobile wireless device.

10. A wireless device, comprising:
a mobile wireless device, comprising:
a queue-length monitor operable to quantify an amount of data to be transmitted or a change in an amount of data to be transmitted and output a queue-length signal indicative of the amount of data ready to be transmitted or the change in the amount of data ready to be transmitted;
a channel-measurement module operable to sense the channel-state of a wireless connection and output a channel-measurement signal indicative of a sensed channel-state; and
a distributed transmission-rate selector operable to receive the queue-length signal and the channel-measurement signal and select a physical-layer rate of transmission of data for the mobile wireless device based on both the channel-measurement signal and a function of a random input and the queue-length signal, wherein the function of the random input and the queue-length signal monotonically increases the probability of selecting a higher physical layer rate of transmission as the queue length increases,
wherein the distributed transmission-rate selector is configured to update the selected physical-layer rate and wherein a duration of time between physical-layer rate updates is determined based on a random value.

11. The wireless device of claim 10 , wherein the queue-length monitor is operable to quantify an amount of data to be transmitted or a change in an amount of data to be transmitted by more than one wireless device in a multi-hop path to a cellular base station via a non-cellular network.

12. The wireless device of claim 10 , wherein the channel-measurement module is operable to obtain feedback indicative of the feasibility of a physical-layer rate by snooping signals exchanged between other wireless devices.

13. The wireless device of claim 10 , wherein the channel-measurement module is operable to receive feedback on the same wireless medium resources for which the physical-layer rate of transmission is selected.

14. The wireless device of claim 10 , comprising a full duplex transceiver, wherein the channel-measurement module is operable to use the full duplex transceiver to receive:
a wireless signal indicative of collisions caused by transmissions from the wireless device while the wireless device is transmitting data.

15. The wireless device of claim 10 , comprising a scheduler operable to select:
a deterministic schedule based, at least in part, on the channel-measurement signal; and a timeslot in which to transmit in parallel with other wireless devices by estimating the feasibility of physical-layer rates of transmission during multiple timeslots in the selected deterministic schedule and selecting the timeslot with a highest estimated usable physical-layer rate of transmission.

16. The wireless device of claim 10 , wherein the random input is different for different mobile wireless devices sharing a wireless medium resource.

Assignees

• Bhargava Vidur
• Vishwanath Sriram
• Jose Jubin
• Univ Texas

Inventors

• Bhargava Vidur
• Vishwanath Sriram
• Jose Jubin

Classifications

• H04W72/52

  based on load · CPC title

• H04W72/541

  using the level of interference · CPC title

• H04W72/542 Primary

  using measured or perceived quality · CPC title

• H04K3/28

  with jamming and anti-jamming mechanisms both included in a same device or system, e.g. wherein anti-jamming includes prevention of undesired self-jamming resulting from jamming · CPC title

• H04W72/02

  Selection of wireless resources by user or terminal · CPC title