Method for proactive coordinator appropriation for wireless personal area network

• US 20090257397A1
• Filed: 11/29/2006
• Published: 10/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: Kwak, Byung-Jae, Kim, Jae-Young, Song, Nah-Oak
• Granted Patent: US 8,045,534 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/331
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/20 Master-slave selection or change arrangements

Abstract

Provided is a method for switching a piconet device to a coordinator in a piconet. The method receives the latest order of precedence as the next PNC information from the current PNC. Thereafter, the method detects a P-CTA allocated to devices of the piconet using a beacon of a superframe received from the PNC. On failing to receive a beacon from the PNC, the method detects whether “beacon non-receipt” indicating information that is transmitted between piconet devices during the detected P-CTA. If the “beacon non-receipt” indicating information is not detected, the method does not perform a PNC appropriation operation. If the “beacon non-receipt” indicating information is detected, the method determines that the PNC has left the piconet without performing a normal PNC handover procedure and thus performs a PNC appropriation operation according to the order of precedence information.

Claims

1. A method for proactive coordinator appropriation for a Wireless Personal Area Network, the method comprising:

receiving the latest order of precedence information from a PicoNet Coordinator (PNC);

detecting a Pseudo-static Channel Time Allocation (P-CTA) allocated to devices of a piconet from a beacon of a superframe received from the PNC;

if a new beacon is not received from the PNC, detecting whether “

beacon non-receipt”

indicating information that is transmitted between piconet devices during the detected P-CTA;

holding a PNC switch operation if the “

beacon non-receipt”

indicating information is not detected; and

if the “

beacon non-receipt”

indicating information is detected, determining that the PNC has left the piconet without performing a normal PNC handover process, and performing a PNC appropriation according to the order of precedence information.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting the “

beacon non-receipt”

indicating information to a communication peer if a new beacon is not received from the PNC.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the step of transmitting the “

beacon non-receipt”

indicating information includes writing and detecting whether an Immediate-ACKnowledgement (1 mm-ACK) is requested using a flag of a MAC header.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the “

beacon non-receipt”

indicating information is a ‘

no beacon’

indicator flag that is written at a bit b11 among 5 reserved bits b15 to b11 among 16 bits of a ‘

Frame Control’

section in an MAC header of the IEEE 802.15.3 standard.

5. The method as recited in claims 1, wherein the determining and performing includes:

performing PNC appropriation on the device with highest order if precedence taking over the role of PNC if the “

beacon non-receipt”

indicating information is transmitted and detected between all of communication peer devices in the piconet.

6. A method for proactive coordinator appropriation for a Wireless Personal Area Network, the method comprising:

receiving the latest order of precedence information from a PicoNet Coordinator (PNC);

detecting a Channel Time Allocation (CTA) allocated to devices of a piconet using a beacon of a superframe received from the PNC;

if a new beacon is not received from the PNC, detecting whether there is any packet transmitted between the piconet devices during the detected CTA;

if there is a packet transmitted between the piconet devices, not performing a PNC appropriation; and

if there is no packet transmitted between the piconet devices, determining that the PNC has left the piconet without performing a normal PNC handover process, and performing a PNC appropriation according to the order of precedence information.