Mesh network and piconet work system and method
First Claim
1. A method for managing a wireless network of member stations, comprising the steps of:
- joining a station to a mesh network of stations;
adding together two networks of member stations;
removing a member station from the network;
moving a member station within a network; and
sharing time slots used by other members.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method of distributed control of a wireless mesh network without knowledge of global topology. The method includes: a station joining the network with any current member by propagating the join-request, or two meshes merging using the steps of: one mesh joining the other as a whole and then re-synchronizing its timing. The method further includes: first, each station periodically transmits a beacon; second, in response to a beacon being no longer detected, a station transmitting a bitmap of stations that it can still receive; third, each station responds by adding stations that it can receive with all of the bitmaps received from other members, and retransmitting the updated bitmap; fourth, after time for all stations to respond, all stations base current membership on the bitmap. The method further includes: determining sharable time slots that will not interfere with neighbors or other slot sharers, using and then releasing those slots.
134 Citations
11 Claims
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1. A method for managing a wireless network of member stations, comprising the steps of:
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joining a station to a mesh network of stations;
adding together two networks of member stations;
removing a member station from the network;
moving a member station within a network; and
sharing time slots used by other members. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11)
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7. A method for a member station to make use of unused time slots in a member station beacon cycle, comprising the steps of:
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a) having each member station keep a map of neighbor stations that the member station can hear, and the stations that neighbors can hear (neighbors-of-neighbors);
b) a first member station selecting one or more slots not listed in the map as slots that it requests to share;
c) the first member station transmitting a map of selected slots to the other member stations in the network to notify the member stations of its desire to use the slots;
d) each member station receiving the map of desired slots, removing a time slot from the map if interference would take place when the first member station uses the time slot, and propagating the resulting map to the remainder of the network;
e) after propagation of the map to all mesh members, the map containing the granted time slots that may be used by the first member station to transmit data;
f) The first member station using one or more granted time slots to transmit data;
g) the first member station marking the time slot as no longer in use as a map of released time slots, and transmitting the map to the other member stations in the network to notify them of the release. h) the neighbor stations of the first member station receiving the map of released time slots, propagating the map to all other member stations, and so on throughout the mesh network. - View Dependent Claims (8)
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Specification