Energy-Efficient On-The-Fly Wi-Fi Hotspot Using Mobile Devices

• US 20120026992A1
• Filed: 07/29/2010
• Published: 02/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Navda, Vishnu, Ramjee, Ramachandran, Padmanabhan, Venkata N., Sharma, Ashish
• Granted Patent: US 8,532,074 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/338
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0203 in the radio access network or backbone network of wireless communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/12 Application layer protocols, e.g. WAP [Wireless Application Protocol]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/04 adapted for relaying to or from another terminal or user
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

One or more mobile devices and a cloud server computing device are utilized to provide Internet access to one or more client computing devices. One of the clients is designated as a Wi-Fi access point. The Wi-Fi access point implements a reverse-infrastructure Wi-Fi mode which tethers available mobile devices and other clients to the access point. The cloud server periodically computes an optimal number of the mobile devices to be used for data striping, and transmits a webpage to a requesting client by striping data associated with the webpage across the optimal number of the mobile devices.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented process for utilizing one or more mobile devices to provide Internet access to one or more client computers, comprising:

using the client computers to perform the following process actions;

designating one of the clients as a Wi-Fi access point (AP); and

using the Wi-Fi AP to implement a reverse-infrastructure Wi-Fi mode which tethers available mobile devices and other clients to the Wi-Fi AP.

2. The process of claim 1, wherein the process action of designating one of the clients as a Wi-Fi AP comprises an action of implementing a consensus-based protocol on each of the clients to select the client to be designated as the Wi-Fi AP.

3. The process of claim 1, wherein the available mobile devices comprise mobile devices that are co-located in the vicinity of the Wi-Fi AP, and are turned on, and are idle.

4. The process of claim 1, wherein,

the Wi-Fi AP establishes an on-the-fly Wi-Fi hotspot which generates a Wi-Fi wireless local area network (WLAN),

the available mobile devices and other clients are tethered to the Wi-Fi AP via the WLAN, and

the process action of using the Wi-Fi AP to implement a reverse-infrastructure Wi-Fi mode which tethers available mobile devices and other clients to the Wi-Fi AP comprises the actions of:

each available mobile device and each other client joining the WLAN by associating with the Wi-Fi AP as a Wi-Fi client;

computing an optimal beacon interval (b_optimal); and

periodically transmitting at b_optimal a beacon over the WLAN to each available mobile device and each other client.

5. The process of claim 4, wherein the optimal beacon interval (b_optimal) is given by the equation

6. The process of claim 4, wherein the process action of using the Wi-Fi AP to implement a reverse-infrastructure Wi-Fi mode which tethers available mobile devices and other clients to the Wi-Fi AP further comprises the actions of:

whenever a new mobile device or client becomes available, said new device or client joining the WLAN by associating with the Wi-Fi AP as a Wi-Fi client; and

whenever an existing mobile device or client that is currently a member of the WLAN becomes unavailable, said existing device or client leaving the WLAN by disassociating with the Wi-Fi AP.

7. The process of claim 4, wherein each available mobile device is configured to operate in Wi-Fi adaptive power save mode.

8. The process of claim 4, wherein the process action of designating one of the clients as a Wi-Fi AP comprises the actions of:

whenever the Wi-Fi AP leaves the WLAN, detecting an absence of the beacon on the clients remaining on the WLAN; and

implementing a leader election procedure on said remaining clients to designate another client as the Wi-Fi AP.

9. The process of claim 1, wherein,

the Wi-Fi AP establishes an on-the-fly Wi-Fi hotspot which generates a Wi-Fi wireless local area network (WLAN),

the available mobile devices and other clients are tethered to the Wi-Fi AP via the WLAN,

a session comprises a period of time during which a given client is accessing a plurality of webpages which are located on the Internet,

an idle time period comprises a period of time between successive sessions, and

the process action of using the Wi-Fi AP to implement a reverse-infrastructure Wi-Fi mode which tethers available mobile devices and other clients to the Wi-Fi AP comprises the actions of:

each available mobile device and each other client joining the WLAN by associating with the Wi-Fi AP as a Wi-Fi client;

computing a first optimal beacon interval (b_optimal);

computing a second optimal beacon interval (b<sub>optimal—

session</sub>);

during a given session, periodically transmitting at b_optimal a beacon over the WLAN to each available mobile device and each other client; and

during the idle time period between successive sessions, periodically transmitting at b<sub>optimal—

session</sub> the beacon over the WLAN to each available mobile device and each other client.

10. The process of claim 9, wherein,

the first optimal beacon interval (b_optimal) is given by the equation

11. The process of claim 1, wherein the mobile devices comprise smartphones.

12. A computer-implemented process for utilizing a plurality of mobile devices and a cloud server computer to deliver a webpage to a requesting client computer, comprising:

using the cloud server computer to perform the following process actions;

periodically computing an optimal number of the mobile devices to be used for data striping; and

transmitting the webpage to the requesting client by striping data associated with the webpage across the optimal number of the mobile devices.

13. The process of claim 12, wherein the process action of periodically computing an optimal number of the mobile devices to be used for data striping comprises the actions of:

periodically transmitting at a prescribed interval of time a query to each of the mobile devices to learn its residual battery life, wherein said transmission occurs over a wireless wide area network (WWAN);

receiving residual battery life data from each of the mobile devices;

identifying any mobile devices having a residual battery life that is below a prescribed threshold and eliminating such mobile devices, resulting in a subset of mobile devices;

identifying any mobile devices in said subset that are not currently idle and further eliminating such devices, resulting in a set of currently eligible mobile devices;

computing an optimal number of the currently eligible mobile devices to be used for data striping (n<sub>s—

optimal</sub>); and

equating the optimal number of the mobile devices to be used for data striping to n<sub>s—

optimal</sub>.

14. The process of claim 13, wherein the prescribed interval of time is 30 seconds.

15. The process of claim 13, wherein,

the process action of periodically computing an optimal number of the mobile devices to be used for data striping further comprises an action of determining which of the mobile devices has the highest residual battery life, and

the prescribed threshold is five percent of the maximum capacity of the battery in the mobile device having the highest residual battery life.

16. The process of claim 13, wherein the optimal number of the currently eligible mobile devices to be used for data striping (n_s—

_optimal) is given by the equation

17. The process of claim 12, wherein the process action of transmitting the webpage to the requesting client by striping data associated with the webpage across the optimal number of mobile devices comprises the actions of:

partitioning the data associated with the webpage into prescribed sized chunks;

tagging each chunk with a sequence number; and

transmitting the chunks to the requesting client by sequentially striping the chunks across the optimal number of the mobile devices.

18. The process of claim 17, wherein the process action of partitioning the data associated with the webpage into prescribed sized chunks comprises using an Hypertext Transfer Protocol byte-range mechanism.

19. The process of claim 17, wherein the chunks are transmitted to the requesting client in a single burst.

20. A computer-implemented process for utilizing a mobile device to provide Internet access to a client computer, comprising the following process actions:

designating the client computer as a Wi-Fi access point (AP); and

whenever the mobile device is located in the vicinity of the Wi-Fi AP, and is turned on, and is idle, using the Wi-Fi AP to implement a reverse-infrastructure Wi-Fi mode which tethers the mobile device to the Wi-Fi AP, wherein,

the Wi-Fi AP establishes an on-the-fly Wi-Fi hotspot which generates a Wi-Fi wireless local area network (WLAN),

the mobile device is tethered to the Wi-Fi AP via the WLAN, and

said implementation comprises;

the mobile device joining the WLAN by associating with the Wi-Fi AP as a Wi-Fi client;

computing an optimal beacon interval b_optimal which is given by the equation