INCREASING DATA BANDWIDTH TO WIRELESS DEVICES

• US 20160088511A1
• Filed: 09/17/2015
• Published: 03/24/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oregon State University (Oregon University System)
• Original Assignee: Oregon State University (Oregon University System)
• Inventors: Wang, Alan X., Nguyen, Thinh P.
• Granted Patent: US 9,831,954 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/1129 Arrangements for outdoor wireless networking of information
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/503 Laser transmitters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1621 Group acknowledgement, i.e. the acknowledgement message defining a range of identifiers, e.g. of sequence numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0055 Physical resource allocation for ACK/NACK for physical mapping arrangements in ARQ protocols H04L1/1861
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling

Abstract

Techniques and solutions are provides for increasing data bandwidth to wireless devices in a wireless network. Data bandwidth to a wireless device can be increased by using an array of wireless transmitters of one type, arranged to cover one or more areas of an enclosed space, in combination with one or more wireless transmitters of another type, to simultaneously transmit data to the wireless device over different wireless communication channels.

Claims

1. A method of increasing data bandwidth to a wireless client device, comprising:

transmitting data to the wireless client device across two types of wireless communication channels simultaneously by;

transmitting a first part of a data message to the wireless client device across a first wireless communication channel via a selected one or more transmitters of an array of two or more transmitters of a first transmitter type that in combination cover one or more areas of a room; and

simultaneously transmitting a second part of the data message to the wireless client device across a second wireless communication channel via one or more transmitters of a second transmitter type, different than the first transmitter type.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an acknowledgment message from the wireless client device via the second wireless communication channel wherein the acknowledgement message includes acknowledging the first part of the data message received on the first wireless communication channel.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the first transmitter type is a free-space optical transmitter type, and

the second transmitter type is a radio frequency transmitter type.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an identifier from the wireless client device that identifies a transmitter in the array of the two or more transmitters; and

transmitting the first part of the data message to the wireless client device via the identified transmitter, without transmitting to the wireless client device via the other transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

receiving a second identifier from the wireless client device that identifiers another transmitter in the array, indicating that the wireless client device moved location; and

transmitting a third part of the data message to the wireless client device via the second identified transmitter, without transmitting to the wireless client device via the other transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

encoding the first part of the data message, wherein the encoding is based on a location of the wireless client device with respect to two or more transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters of the first transmitter type.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the encoding uses a channel matrix comprising;

two or more columns, wherein each column represents a transmitter in the array of two or more transmitters of the first transmitter type,

two or more rows, wherein each row represents a receiver configured to receive data messages over the first wireless communication channel, wherein the user device is one of the receivers, and

M×

N entries, wherein M is a number of the two or more rows, N is a number of the two or more columns, and each entry has a value that indicates whether a receiver associated with the entry'"'"'s row is in range of a transmitter associated with the entry'"'"'s column; and

wherein the channel matrix is full-rank in a finite field, wherein the finite field has a number of elements that is equal to a number of signal levels at which the transmitters represented by the columns in the channel matrix can transmit.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting data to the wireless client further comprises:

simultaneously transmitting a third part of the data message to the wireless client device across a third wireless communication channel via one or more transmitters of a third transmitter type, different than the first transmitter type and the second transmitter type.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting the first part of the data message at a first rate;

transmitting the second part of the data message at a second rate, different than the first rate; and

dynamically changing the first rate and the second rate based on the following;

signal-to-noise ratios of the first wireless communication channel and the second wireless communication channel,

a backlog associated with the first wireless communication channel and a backlog associated with the second wireless communication channel, and

a location of the wireless client device relative to the transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters of the first transmitter type.

10. A system for transmitting data to wireless devices comprising:

an array of two or more free-space optical (FSO) transmitters arranged to communicate with wireless devices in one or more areas of an enclosed space;

a second group of one or more radio frequency (RF) transmitters configured to communicate with the wireless devices in the one or more areas of the enclosed space; and

an access point coupled to the array of FSO transmitters and the second group of RF transmitters and configured to divide a data message into portions and selectively transmit some of the portions of the data message over at least one of the transmitters in the first group and some of the portions of the data message over at least one of the transmitters in the second group.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the FSO transmitters are configured to transmit data via one or more cones of diffuse light.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein three or more of the FSO transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters are arranged in a triangular lattice.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one of the FSO transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters comprises one or more light-emitting diodes.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one of the FSO transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters comprises one or more vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers.

15. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

an array of two or more FSO receivers coupled to the access point and arranged to receive signals from the wireless devices in in the one or more areas of the enclosed space.

16. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a channel quality assessor configured to dynamically adjust a first data rate for the first wireless communication channel and a second data rate for the second wireless communication channel based on;

a signal-to-noise ratio for the first wireless communication channel, and a signal-to-noise ratio for the second wireless communication channel, received from the wireless device;

a size of a backlog of at least one queue associated with the first wireless communication channel, and a size of a backlog of at least one other queue associated with the second wireless communication channel; and

a location of the wireless device relative to the transmitters in the array of two or more transmitters.

17. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions for causing a wireless computing device to perform a method of increasing data bandwidth to the wireless computing device, the method comprising:

transmitting a request to an access point over a wireless radio frequency (RF) communication channel; and

receiving from the access point;

a first part of a response over the wireless RF communication channel via an RF transmitter, and

a second part of the response over a wireless diffuse light communication channel via one or more free-space optical (FSO) transmitters configured to transmit data via one or more cones of diffuse light.

18. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

transmitting an acknowledgement message to the access point over the wireless RF communication channel after receiving the first and second parts of the response, acknowledging receipt of both the first and second parts of the response.

19. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving at least one beacon signal from one or more FSO transmitters, wherein each beacon signal comprises a transmitter identifier that uniquely identifies the FSO transmitter that sent the signal;

transmitting a location message to the access point comprising at least one of the transmitter identifiers received as part of the at least one beacon signal; and

receiving the second part of the response via one or more of the FSO transmitters from which the at least one beacon signal was received.

20. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

decoding the second part of the response received via the one or more FSO transmitters, wherein the second part of the response comprises one or more bits, and the decoding comprises decoding each bit, of the one or more bits, by performing a modulo operation on each bit by a number of possible signal levels at which the one or more FSO transmitters can transmit.