Signaling for parameterized quality of service (QoS) support

• US 20030081547A1
• Filed: 04/09/2002
• Published: 05/01/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Ho, Jin-Meng
• Granted Patent: US 7,349,433 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/229
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/15 in relation to multipoint traffic arrangements for broadcast or multicast in data networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2433 Allocation of priorities to traffic types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/805 QOS or priority aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/808 User-type aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/824 Applicable to portable or mobile terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/02 Traffic management, e.g. flow control or congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

The creation, modification, and deletion of a traffic stream 224 with parameterized QoS expectations between two communicating stations 205 and 207, when there is no built-in mechanism for support of parameterized QoS expectations, requires signaling of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters between the management entities such as SME 212 and MLME 214 and between the MAC entities of the communicating stations 205 and 207. Either the station 205 and 207 or a hybrid coordinator may initiate the signaling. The end result of the signaling is the creation of a new traffic stream that is used to associate user traffic to a particular set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters, which are then used in the scheduling of the transmission of the user traffic. Another end result of the signaling is the modification of an existing traffic stream in terms of its traffic characteristics and QoS parameters.

Claims

1. A method for initiating a QoS action on a traffic stream with parameterized QoS expectations at a first station in a communications network, the method comprising:

sending a QoS action signal from a higher layer signaling unit of the first station to a station management entity (SME) of the first station;

creating a first QoS action primitive at the SME of the first station, the first QoS action primitive comprising a first QoS action frame body;

issuing the first QoS action primitive to a medium access control sublayer entity (MLME) of the first station;

transmitting a first QoS action frame containing the first QoS action frame body to a second station;

receiving an acknowledgment from the second station;

creating a second QoS action primitive at a medium access control (MAC) sublayer of the first station; and

issuing the second QoS action primitive to the SME of the first station.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first station is a source station of the traffic stream.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first station is a destination station of the traffic stream.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first station is a station containing a hybrid coordinator.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second station is a source station of the traffic stream.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the second station is a destination station of the traffic stream.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the second station is a station containing a hybrid coordinator.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the traffic stream is a unidirectional traffic stream between the first and second stations of the traffic stream.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the traffic stream is a bi-directional traffic stream between the first and second stations of the traffic stream.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a QoS action, and the first QoS action primitive is a request for the QoS action.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a QoS action, and the second QoS action primitive is a confirmation on the QoS action to report the status of the first QoS action primitive.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the first QoS action frame containing the first QoS action frame body is transmitted from the first station to the second station via a MAC sublayer and a physical (PHY) layer of the first and second stations.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the first QoS action frame body is transmitted over-the-air to the second station.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the first QoS action frame is transmitted using radio frequency signals to the second station.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a first set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters of the traffic stream.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the traffic characteristics and QoS parameters is contained in a set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters, and the set may be different for different traffic streams.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the set comprises:

a traffic stream information parameter;

a retry interval parameter;

an inactivity interval parameter;

an interarrival interval parameter;

a nominal data unit size parameter;

a minimum data rate parameter;

a mean data rate parameter;

a maximum burst size parameter;

a delay bound parameter; and

a jitter bound parameter.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the traffic stream information parameter comprises:

a traffic type parameter;

a bi-direction type parameter;

an acknowledgment policy parameter;

an FEC usage parameter; and

a delivery priority parameter.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the set further comprises:

a search priority parameter;

a classifier type parameter; and

a frame classifier.

20. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

at the second station;

receiving the first QoS action frame at a medium access control (MAC) sublayer of the second station;

transmitting the acknowledgment to the first station;

creating a third QoS action primitive containing the first QoS action frame body at a medium access control sublayer entity (MLME) of the second station,

transferring the third QoS action primitive from the MLME to a station management entity (SME) of the second station;

generating a fourth QoS action primitive containing a second QoS action frame body at the SME of the second station;

transferring the fourth QoS action primitive from the SME to the MLME of the second station;

stripping the second QoS action frame body from the fourth QoS action primitive at the MAC of the second station; and

transmitting a second QoS action frame containing the second QoS action frame body to a third station.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a QoS action, and the third QoS action primitive is an indication of the receipt of the QoS action.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the fourth QoS action primitive is a response to the third QoS action primitive.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the second QoS action frame body contains a second set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters of the traffic stream.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a first set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters, and the second set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters is the same as the first set.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a first set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters, and the second set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters is different as the first set.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein the third station is the same as the first station.

27. The method of claim 20, wherein the third station is different from the first station.

28. The method of claim 20, wherein the third station is the same as the first station, a first set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters is contained in the first QoS action frame body, a second set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters is contained in the second QoS action frame body, the method further comprising:

receiving the second QoS action frame at the MAC of the first station;

transmitting a second acknowledgment to the second station;

creating a fifth QoS action primitive containing the second QoS action frame body at the MLME of the first station;

transferring the fifth QoS action primitive to the SME of the first station; and

,

replacing the first set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters of the traffic stream with the second set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters of the traffic stream at the MAC and SME of the first station.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the fifth QoS action primitive is a confirmation of the QoS action to report a status of the first QoS action primitive.

30. The method of claim 20, wherein the third station is different from the first station, the method further comprising:

at the third station;

receiving the second QoS action frame at a medium access control (MAC) sublayer of the third station;

transmitting a third acknowledgment frame to the second station;

creating a sixth QoS action primitive containing the second QoS action frame body at a medium access control sublayer management entity (MLME) of the third station; and

transferring the sixth QoS action primitive from the MLME to a station management entity (SME) of the third station.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a QoS action, and the QoS action on the traffic stream involves the creation of a new traffic stream.

32. The method of claim 1, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a QoS action, and the QoS action of the traffic stream involves the modification of an existing traffic stream.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a traffic stream identifier of the existing traffic stream.

34. The method of claim 32, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a third set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters of the traffic stream in addition to a first set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters of the traffic stream.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein the third set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters of the traffic stream is different from the first set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters used for the existing traffic stream.

36. The method of claim 34 further comprising the step of using the third set of traffic characteristics and QoS parameters to modify the traffic stream after the second issuing step.

37. The method of claim 1, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a QoS action, and the QoS action on the traffic stream involves the deletion of an existing traffic stream.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the first QoS action frame body contains a traffic stream identifier of the existing traffic stream.

39. The method of claim 38 further comprising the step of deleting an existing traffic stream with a traffic stream identifier matching the traffic stream identifier specified in the first QoS action frame body after the second issuing step.

40. A method for communicating with parameterized QoS expectations in a communications network comprising:

creating a set of parameterized QoS expectations;

transmitting the set to a destination station; and

receiving an acknowledgment from the destination station to establish a communications link; and

commencing communications based on limitations of the set using the communications link.

41. The method of claim 40 further comprising the step of deleting the communications link after the commencing step completes.

42. The method of claim 41, wherein there is a station at each end of the communications link, and the deleting step comprises:

generating a delete request at one station in the communications link;

transmitting the delete request to the other station in the communications link; and

deleting the communications link upon receipt of an acknowledgment from the other station.

43. The method of claim 40, wherein the source station comprises:

a higher layer signaling unit, a station management entity (SME), a MAC layer management entity (MLME), and a PHY layer management entity (PLME), and the creating step comprising;

receiving the set of parameterized QoS expectations from the higher layer signaling unit at the SME;

generating a QoS action primitive with the parameterized QoS expectations provided in the set of parameterized QoS expectations; and

transferring the QoS action primitive to the MLME.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein the creating step further comprises:

extracting a QoS action frame from the QoS action primitive; and

providing the QoS action frame to a PHY layer of the source station.

45. The method of claim 40, wherein there are a plurality of messages transmitted in the communications network, and each message can be transmitted using a different set of parameterized QoS expectations.