METHOD AND SYSTEM OF FLOW CONTROL IN MULTI-HOP WIRELESS ACCESS NETWORKS

• US 20100034148A1
• Filed: 08/17/2009
• Published: 02/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Periyalwar, Shalini, Zhang, Hang
• Granted Patent: US 9,590,723 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/328
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/155 Ground-based stations H04B7/204 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2606 Arrangements for base station coverage control, e.g. by using relays in tunnels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/263 Rate modification at the source after receiving feedback
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/30 in combination with information about buffer occupancy at either end or at transit nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/34 ensuring sequence integrity, e.g. using sequence numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/02 Traffic management, e.g. flow control or congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/14 using intermediate storage
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/02 Buffering or recovering information during reselection ; Modification of the traffic flow during hand-off
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/04 adapted for relaying to or from another terminal or user

Abstract

A system, method and relay transceiver for multi-hop wireless communications. In the relay, there is a receiver for adapted to receive packets on a first wireless link collectively destined for at least one mobile terminal. The transmitter buffers them and then transmits the packets on a second wireless link. A flow control function is implemented to provide flow control over the first wireless link to limit an amount buffered in the relay transceiver for a given mobile terminal.

Claims

1. A mobile terminal adapted to receive packets directly from a first transceiver and to receive packets indirectly from the first transceiver via a relay transceiver, the mobile terminal being further adapted to:

detect a gap in a received packet flow;

upon detecting a gap in the received packet flow, wait a period of time for the gap to be filled before transmitting a control message indicating occurrence of the gap.

2. A mobile terminal according to claim 1 wherein the period of time set to be long enough for a relay transceiver to empty its buffer.

3. A mobile terminal according to claim 1 wherein the message is a layer 2 NACK.