Radio interface layer

• US 20020184407A1
• Filed: 02/16/2001
• Published: 12/05/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shell, Scott R., Shen, Alan W., Sherman, Roman
• Granted Patent: US 6,826,762 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/328
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/00 Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications user-to-user messaging H04L51/00; network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A Radio Interface Layer (RIL) is disclosed. The RIL comprises an API set which provides a level of abstraction between the radio on a cell phone and the software of the cell phone. The API set of RIL is roughly based on the GSM AT interface as defined in GSM specifications 07.05 and 07.07. The API set provides access to functionality contained within a cellular telephone, such as a GSM or CDMA compatible telephone. These APIs allow applications running on an operating system in the cellular telephone to issue commands without knowledge of the underlying radio structure of the cellular telephone and specific knowledge of the GSM-type commands. For example, these APIs allow the applications to access to phonebook entries, restrict access to data and functionality using passwords, access file and message storage, and perform many other functions. The RIL is divided into a hardware-independent proxy layer, called by various software components, and a driver layer that is hardware-specific.

Claims

1. An abstraction layer for interfacing a computer to a telephony radio, comprising:

a set of APIs for abstracting out multiple radio technologies without knowledge of the underlying radio technology, wherein the set of APIs correspond to call control functions, wherein when one of the set of APIs is called, the abstraction layer determines at least one standard telephony radio command corresponding to the called API and sends the telephony radio command to the telephony radio.

2. The abstraction layer of claim 1 wherein the telephony radio is one of a plurality of telephony radios which operates based on the standard telephony radio commands.

3. The abstraction layer of claim 1 wherein the set of APIs further correspond to short messaging system functions.

4. The abstraction layer of claim 3 wherein the set of APIs further correspond to network service functions.

5. The abstraction layer of claim 4 wherein the set of APIs further correspond to data connection functions.

6. The abstraction layer of claim 5 wherein the set of APIs further correspond to interface functions.

7. A radio interface layer of a telephone for facilitating communications between an application program module and a radio, comprising:

a proxy layer for communicating with the application program and a driver layer, wherein the application program calls an API to perform a particular function and wherein the proxy layer transforms the API to an IOCTL and sends the IOCTL to the driver layer; and

wherein the driver layer communicates with the proxy layer and the radio, the driver layer receiving an IOCTL and transforming the IOCTL into a command understood by the radio to perform the particular function.

8. The radio interface layer of claim 7 wherein the driver layer further receives communications from the radio indicating that the particular function has been performed and wherein the driver layer sends a success code to the proxy layer indicating that the particular function has been performed.

9. A method for processing commands in a telephone comprising a proxy layer, a driver layer, an application and a radio, the method comprising the steps of:

causing the application to call a RIL API in the proxy layer, wherein the RIL API is associated with an action to be performed by the radio;

causing the proxy layer to translate the RIL API into input/output control (IOCTL) codes;

sending the IOCTL codes to the driver layer;

translating the IOCTL codes to a command corresponding to the action, wherein the command will be understood by the radio; and

sending the command to the radio.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the command is an AT command.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the command is one of a private API set defined by the radio manufacturer.

12. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of generating in the RIL driver layer a unique ID associated with the RIL API.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising the step of waiting for a response from the radio, and when received, calling back the calling application with the response and the unique ID returned from the call.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the RIL driver matches the response from the radio with the unique ID and the RIL driver sends the response to the calling process via a callback function.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

(f) in response to successfully performing the specific action, sending a success code to the one of the plurality of modules that generated the RIL API.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the RIL API, command and success code are associated with an identifier linking them together and linking them to the one of the plurality of modules that generated the RIL API call and wherein the radio driver receives the success code, and, using the identifier, matches the success code with the one of the plurality of modules that generated the RIL API call and sends the success code to the one of the plurality of modules that generated the RIL API call.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising the step of:

(g) generating a notification at the radio in response to detecting data that needs to be reported to one of the plurality of modules;

(h) sending the notification to the radio driver.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising the step of:

(i) sending the notification from the radio driver to one of the plurality of modules.

22. The method of claim 20 further comprising the step of:

(i) sending the notification from the radio driver to each of the plurality of modules.

23. The method of claim 20 wherein the data that needs to be reported comprises an incoming phone call to the radio.

24. The method of claim 20 wherein the data that needs to be reported comprises a signal strength change in the radio.

25. The method of claim 20 wherein the one of a plurality of modules is a TSP.

26. The method of claim 20 wherein the one of a plurality of modules is a SIM manager.

27. The method of claim 20 wherein the one of a plurality of modules is an emergency application for generating emergency calls.

28. The method of claim 20 wherein the one of a plurality of modules is a WAP layer.

29. The method of claim 20 wherein the one of a plurality of modules is a TAPI interface.

30. The method of claim 20 wherein the one of a plurality of modules is an ExTAPI interface.

31. The method of claim 20 wherein the one of a plurality of modules is connected to an application program module and receives instructions from the application program module to generate the RIL API call.

32. The method of claim 31 wherein the instructions provided by the application program module comprise instructions defined by the one of a plurality of modules and wherein the instructions are converted to the RIL API calls by the one of a plurality of modules.

15. A method of communicating between a client process and a server process in a distributed processing system of a telephone, comprising the steps of:

(a) issuing, by the client process, a call to the server process;

(b) receiving, by the server process, the call and attempting to locate a radio of the telephone in response to the call; and

(c) determining, by the server process, that the radio is not present and sending the error code RIL_E_RADIONOTPRESENT to the client process.

16. A method of communicating between a client process and a server process in a distributed processing system, comprising the steps of:

(a) issuing, by the client process, a call to the server process;

(b) receiving, by the server process, the call, locating a radio of the system and executing the call; and

(c) determining, by the server process, in executing the call, that the radio has been removed and sending the error code RIL_E_RADIOREMOVED to the client process.

17. A method of communicating between a module and a radio comprising:

(a) generating a RIL API call at one of a plurality of modules to perform a specific action;

(b) sending the RIL API call to a radio driver;

(c) at the radio driver, converting the RIL API call to a command understood by the radio;

(d) transmitting the command to the radio; and

(e) performing the specific action at the radio.