MULTI-PATH NETWORK COMMUNICATION

• US 20170012861A1
• Filed: 03/04/2016
• Published: 01/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/07/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Strong Force IoT Portfolio 2016, LLC (Strong Force Intellectual Capital, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Speedy Packets, Inc.
• Inventors: Blumenthal, Steven, Ho, Tracey
• Granted Patent: US 10,129,159 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0002 by adapting the transmission rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0009 by adapting the channel coding H04L1/1812 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0041 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0076 Distributed coding, e.g. network coding, involving channel coding coding in both space and time H04L1/0618; cooperative diversity H04B7/022
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1819 with retransmission of additional or different redundancy
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1858 Transmission or retransmission of more than one copy of acknowledgement message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0097 Relays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0864 Round trip delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/22 Alternate routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/24 Multipath
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/52 Multiprotocol routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/74 Address processing for routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/127 by using congestion prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/16 in connection oriented networks, e.g. frame relay
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/20 Traffic policing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/263 Rate modification at the source after receiving feedback
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/27 Evaluation or update of window size, e.g. using information derived from acknowledged [ACK] packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/283 in response to processing delays, e.g. caused by jitter or round trip time [RTT]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/30 in combination with information about buffer occupancy at either end or at transit nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/351 : for local area network [LAN], e.g. Ethernet switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/552 : by ensuring the integrity of packets received through redundant connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/90 : Buffering arrangements
• 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 67/01 : Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 : specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 : Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 : Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 : Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 : for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/04 : Error control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/535 : based on resource usage policies

Abstract

A method for data communication between a first node and a second node over a number of data paths coupling the first node and the second node includes transmitting messages between the first node and the second node over the number of data paths including transmitting a first subset of the messages over a first data path of the number of data paths, and transmitting a second subset of the messages over a second data path of the number of data paths. The first data path has a first latency and the second data path has a second latency substantially larger than the first latency, and messages of the first subset of the messages are chosen to have first message characteristics and messages of the second subset are chosen to have second message characteristics, different from the first message characteristics.

Claims

1. A method for data communication between a first node and a second node over a plurality of data paths coupling the first node and the second node, the method comprising:

transmitting messages between the first node and the second node over the plurality of data paths including transmitting a first subset of the messages over a first data path of the plurality of data paths, and transmitting a second subset of the messages over a second data path of the plurality of data paths;

wherein the first data path has a first latency and the second data path has a second latency substantially larger than the first latency, and messages of the first subset of the messages are chosen to have first message characteristics and messages of the second subset are chosen to have second message characteristics, different from the first message characteristics.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein messages having the first message characteristics include time critical messages.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the first subset of the messages and the second subset of the messages are determined from a portion of the messages available at the first node at a time of transmission.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein, at a subsequent time of transmission, additional messages made available to the first node are divided into the first subset and the second subset based on message characteristics associated with the additional messages.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein messages having the first message characteristics are associated with an initial subset of a data set and messages having the second message characteristics are associated with a subsequent subset of the data set.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the messages of the second subset include messages that are at most n messages ahead of a last acknowledged message in a sequential transmission order associated with the messages, wherein n is determined based on a buffer size at one of the first and second nodes.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein messages having the first message characteristics include acknowledgement messages and messages having the second message characteristics include data messages.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein messages having the first message characteristics include supplemental data messages.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the supplemental data messages include data messages including redundancy data and messages having the second message characteristics include original data messages.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein first data path includes a terrestrial data path and the second data path includes a satellite data path.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the terrestrial data path includes one or more of:

a cellular data path;

a digital subscriber line (DSL) data path;

a fiber optic data path;

a cable internet based data path; and

a wireless local area network data path.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the satellite data path includes one or more of:

a low earth orbit satellite data path;

a medium earth orbit satellite data path; and

a geostationary earth orbit satellite data path.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising, for each path of the plurality of data paths, maintaining an indication of successful and unsuccessful delivery of the messages over the data path and adjusting a congestion window for the data path based on the indication.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the first data path includes a medium earth orbit satellite data path or a low earth orbit satellite data path and the second data path includes a geostationary orbit satellite data path.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising, for each path of the plurality of data paths, maintaining, at the first node, an indication of whether a number of messages received at the second node is sufficient to decode data associated with the messages, wherein the indication is based on feedback received at the first node over the plurality of data paths.

16. A system for data communication between a plurality of nodes over a plurality of data paths coupling the plurality of nodes, the system comprising:

a first node configured to;

transmit messages between to a second node over the plurality of data paths including transmitting a first subset of the messages over a first data path of the plurality of data paths, and transmitting a second subset of the messages over a second data path of the plurality of data paths;

wherein the first data path has a first latency and the second data path has a second latency substantially larger than the first latency, and messages of the first subset of the messages are chosen to have first message characteristics and messages of the second subset are chosen to have second message characteristics, different from the first message characteristics.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein messages having the first message characteristics include time critical messages.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the first subset of the messages and the second subset of the messages are determined from a portion of the messages available at the first node at a time of transmission;

19. The system of claim 18 wherein, at a subsequent time of transmission, additional messages made available to the first node divided into the first subset and the second subset based on message characteristics associated with the additional messages.

20. The system of claim 16 wherein messages having the first message characteristics are associated with an initial subset of a data set and messages having the second message characteristics are associated with a subsequent subset of the data set.

21. The system of claim 16 wherein the messages of the second subset include messages that are at most n messages ahead of a last acknowledged message in a sequential transmission order associated with the messages, wherein n is determined based on a receive buffer size at the second node.

22. The system of claim 16 wherein messages having the first message characteristics include acknowledgement messages and messages having the second message characteristics include data messages.

23. The system of claim 16 wherein messages having the first message characteristics include supplemental data messages.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the supplemental data messages include data messages including redundancy data and messages having the second message characteristics include original data messages.

25. The system of claim 16 wherein first data path includes a terrestrial data path and the second data path includes a satellite data path.

26. The system of claim 25 wherein the terrestrial data path includes one or more of:

a cellular data path;

a digital subscriber line (DSL) data path;

a fiber optic data path;

a cable internet based data path; and

a wireless local area network data path.

27. The system of claim 25 wherein the satellite data path includes one or more of:

a low earth orbit satellite data path;

a medium earth orbit satellite data path; and

a geostationary earth orbit satellite data path.

28. The system of claim 16 wherein the first data path includes a medium earth orbit satellite data path or a low earth orbit satellite data path and the second data path includes a geostationary orbit satellite data path.

29. The system of claim 16 wherein the first node is further configured to, for each path of the plurality of data paths, maintain an indication of successful and unsuccessful delivery of the messages over the data path and adjust a congestion window for the data path based on the indication.

30. The method of claim 16 wherein the first node is further configured to maintain an aggregate indication of whether a number of messages received at the second node over the plurality of data paths is sufficient to decode data associated with the messages and to transmit supplemental messages based on the aggregate indication, wherein the aggregate indication is based on feedback from the second node received at the first node over the plurality of data paths.

31. Software stored on non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions for causing one or more processors to execute a data communication method for data communication between a plurality of nodes over a data path coupling the plurality of nodes, the method comprising:

transmitting messages between a first node and a second node over the plurality of data paths including transmitting a first subset of the messages over a first data path of the plurality of data paths, and transmitting a second subset of the messages over a second data path of the plurality of data paths;

wherein the first data path has a first latency and the second data path has a second latency substantially larger than the first latency, and messages of the first subset of the messages are chosen to have first message characteristics and messages of the second subset are chosen to have second message characteristics, different from the first message characteristics.