METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DETERMINISTIC DIRECTIONAL DISCOVERY OF WIRELESS DEVICES

• US 20130059544A1
• Filed: 04/26/2011
• Published: 03/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Hsu, Chun-Wei, Chou, Chun-Ting, Chen, Yi
• Granted Patent: US 9,967,726 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/67.11
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/28 using beam steering
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A method for deterministic directional discovery of neighbor devices by a device in a wireless network comprises dividing equally an access time to a discovery channel to predefined number of sector scanning periods (410), wherein each sector scanning period includes a predefined number of discovery sweep periods (430), and each discovery sweep period includes a pre-defined number of time slots (440); scanning the discovery channel in a single sector during a current sector scanning period (S310); transmitting a discovery frame towards each sector during each time slot of each discovery sweep period of the current sector scanning period (S320); checking if at least one response to a transmitted discovery frame has been received during the current sector scanning period (S330); and setting the device to scan the discovery channel in a next sector during a next sector scanning period, thereby sequentially accessing the predefined number of sector scanning periods (S35)

Claims

1. A method for deterministic directional discovery of neighbor devices by a device in a wireless network, comprising:

dividing equally an access time to a discovery channel into a number of sector scanning periods (410), wherein each sector scanning period includes a predefined number of discovery sweep periods (430), and each discovery sweep period includes a predefined number of time slots (440);

scanning the discovery channel in a single sector during a current sector scanning period (S310);

transmitting a discovery frame towards each sector during each time slot of each discovery sweep period of the current sector scanning period (S320);

checking if at least one response to a transmitted discovery frame has been received during the current sector scanning period (S330); and

setting the device to scan the discovery channel in a next sector during a next sector scanning period, such that the sector scanning periods (S350) are sequentially accessed.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording each device that responded to the transmitted discovery frame, and repeating periodically the scanning of the discovery channel through the number of sector scanning periods if no responses are received.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the duration of each of the predefined time slots is fixed.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of sector scanning periods is equal to the number of sectors, and the predefined number of discovery sweep periods is greater or equal to two.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the discovery frame is transmitted after a random time interval from the beginning of a time slot.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the discovery frames are transmitted using an asynchronous contention based medium access mechanism.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting in each time slot of a sector scanning period a discovery frame towards a single sector, and scanning the discovery channel in a different sector during each time slot of each discovery sweep period of the sector scanning period.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the device is one of a type A or a type B Ecma-387 based device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the neighbor devices is at least one of a type A Ecma-387 based device, a type B Ecma-387 based device, and a type C Ecma-387 based device.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the discovery frame is constructed as discovery beacon blocks (DBBS) (610).

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the DBBS include a mode-D0 beacon (611), mode-B0 poll frames (612), mode-C0 poll frames (613), a mode-D0 scanning period (621), a mode-B0 scanning period (622), and a mode-C0 scanning period (623).

12. A device (700) for deterministic directional discovery of neighbor devices in a wireless network, comprising:

an array of directional antennas (710-1, 710-M) for receiving and transmitting wireless signals in M different sectors;

a receiver (720) for scanning a discovery channel in M different sectors;

a transmitter (730) for transmitting discovery frames towards M different sectors; and

a controller (740) for controlling the array of directional antennas, the receiver, and the transmitter in order to perform the deterministic directional discovery.

13. The device of claim 12, wherein an access time to the discovery channel is divided equally into number of sector scanning periods (410), each sector scanning period including a predefined number of discovery sweep periods (430), and each discovery sweep period including a predefined number of time slots (440);

wherein the discovery channel is scanned in a single sector during a current sector scanning period;

wherein a discovery frame is transmitted towards each sector during each time slot of each discovery sweep period of the current sector scanning period;

wherein it is checked if at least one response to a transmitted discovery frame has been received in the current sector scanning period;

wherein the array of antennas and the receiver are set to scan the discovery channel in a next sector during a next sector scanning period, thereby sequentially accessing the sector scanning periods; and

wherein the scanning of the discovery channel is repeated periodically through the number of sector scanning periods if no responses are received.

14. The device of claim 12, wherein a discovery frame is transmitted towards a single sector in each time slot of a sector scanning period;

and wherein the discovery channel is scanned in a different sector during each time slot of each discovery sweep period of the sector scanning period.