Adaptive polling for bursty wireless data traffic

• US 20080151789A1
• Filed: 12/21/2006
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Nie, Chun, Yang, Xiangying, Venkatachalam, Muthaiah
• Granted Patent: US 8,780,881 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/280
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/06 using polling

Abstract

Various embodiments of the invention may use adaptive polling in a wireless network when one or more consecutive polls show that the polled station has no data to transmit. When triggered to perform adaptive polling, a base station may wait for increasingly long intervals between polls to a particular subscriber station, until some maximum interval has been reached. In some embodiments, the intervals may increase exponentially.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a base station to transmit multiple polls to a subscriber station in a wireless network at a first predetermined time interval between polls, and to receive a wireless indication from the subscriber station to each of the multiple polls, the indication indicating whether the subscriber station has data to transmit to the base station;

wherein the wireless indication consists of either

     1) a wireless reply to the poll containing information on whether the subscriber station has data to transmit, or

     2) no wireless reply if the subscriber station has no data to transmit;

wherein the base station is to begin adaptive polling, responsive to a particular number of consecutive indications from the subscriber station each indicating the subscriber station has no data to transmit to the base station; and

wherein the adaptive polling is to comprise increasing the time interval between each consecutive poll to the subscriber station.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the time interval is to increase exponentially.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the time interval is to increase exponentially based on powers of two.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the time interval is to stop increasing when either:

1) the time interval reaches a second particular predetermined time interval, or

2) the time interval is increased a particular number of consecutive times.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the time intervals are to return to the first predetermined time intervals, responsive to the wireless indication indicating the subscriber station has data to transmit.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the base station further comprises multiple antennas.

7. A method, comprising:

transmitting multiple polls to a subscriber station in a wireless network at a first predetermined time interval;

receiving a wireless indication from the subscriber station to each of the multiple polls, the wireless indication indicating whether the subscriber station has data to transmit;

performing adaptive polling, responsive to a particular number of consecutive responses from the subscriber station each indicating the subscriber station has no data to transmit;

wherein the adaptive polling comprises increasing the time interval between each consecutive poll to the subscriber station; and

wherein the wireless indication consists of either;

     1) a wireless reply containing information indicating whether the subscriber station has data to transmit, or

     2) no wireless reply if the subscriber station has no data to transmit.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the time interval increases exponentially during adaptive polling.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the time interval increases exponentially based on powers of two during adaptive polling.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the time interval stops increasing when the time interval reaches a second particular predetermined time interval.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the time intervals return to the first predetermined time interval responsive to the wireless indicator indicating the subscriber station has data to transmit.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the particular number of consecutive responses is one response.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the particular number of consecutive responses is at least two consecutive responses.

14. An article comprising

a tangible machine-readable medium that contains instructions, which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising:

transmitting multiple polls to a subscriber station in a wireless network at a first predetermined time interval;

receiving a wireless indication from the subscriber station to each of the multiple polls, the wireless indication indicating whether the subscriber station has data to transmit; and

performing adaptive polling, responsive to at least one wireless indication from the subscriber station indicating the subscriber station has no data to transmit;

wherein the adaptive polling comprises increasing the time interval between each consecutive poll to the subscriber station.

15. The article of claim 14, wherein the time interval increases exponentially during adaptive polling.

16. The article of claim 14, wherein the time interval stops increasing when the time interval reaches a second particular predetermined time interval, the second predetermined time interval larger than the first predetermined time interval.

17. The article of claim 14, wherein the time intervals return to the first predetermined time intervals responsive to the response indicating the subscriber station has data to transmit.