METHOD FOR SCHEDULING CLOSED LOOP INFORMATION IN WIRELESS NETWORKS
First Claim
1. A method for determining a transmission schedule for one or more transmissions from a first node to a first set of one or more child nodes in a multi-hop wireless network, wherein each node is a child node to a corresponding parent node, each child node being configured to receive messages originating from a sink node via its corresponding parent node and wherein the method comprises a parent node of the first node:
- listening for signals indicating scheduled timeslots for transmission between nodes in the network and, if a signal is detected, updating a record of scheduled transmissions;
receiving from the first node a preliminary schedule specifying one or more timeslots for transmission to each of the first set of one or more child nodes;
determining, based on the record of scheduled transmissions, whether the preliminary schedule includes any scheduled transmissions that would conflict with any scheduled transmissions in the record of scheduled transmissions or whether the length of the preliminary schedule can be reduced without conflicting with any other scheduled transmissions in the record of scheduled transmissions; and
responsive to a determination that there would be a conflict or that the length of the preliminary schedule can be reduced without conflict;
determining an updated schedule for the first node by determining a set of scheduled timeslots that minimises the number of scheduled timeslots without conflicting with any of the scheduled transmissions in the record of scheduled transmissions; and
sending the updated schedule to the first node to assign the updated schedule to the first node.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
Arrangements described herein provide a distributed means of scheduling communications originating from a control node to nodes in a multi-hop wireless network. By listening for other messages assigning schedules to other nodes, each node is able to create its own local record of scheduled transmissions in its area. This allows each node to determine a preliminary schedule. Having said this, the parent node of the node will have additional information regarding the scheduled local transmissions. Accordingly, the node sends the preliminary schedule to its parent node for confirmation that it provides no collisions/conflicts with other scheduled transmissions. As the parent node is involved in the scheduling of each child node, it is better able to determine whether the child nodes are proposing schedules that may conflict with each other.
13 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A method for determining a transmission schedule for one or more transmissions from a first node to a first set of one or more child nodes in a multi-hop wireless network, wherein each node is a child node to a corresponding parent node, each child node being configured to receive messages originating from a sink node via its corresponding parent node and wherein the method comprises a parent node of the first node:
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listening for signals indicating scheduled timeslots for transmission between nodes in the network and, if a signal is detected, updating a record of scheduled transmissions; receiving from the first node a preliminary schedule specifying one or more timeslots for transmission to each of the first set of one or more child nodes; determining, based on the record of scheduled transmissions, whether the preliminary schedule includes any scheduled transmissions that would conflict with any scheduled transmissions in the record of scheduled transmissions or whether the length of the preliminary schedule can be reduced without conflicting with any other scheduled transmissions in the record of scheduled transmissions; and responsive to a determination that there would be a conflict or that the length of the preliminary schedule can be reduced without conflict; determining an updated schedule for the first node by determining a set of scheduled timeslots that minimises the number of scheduled timeslots without conflicting with any of the scheduled transmissions in the record of scheduled transmissions; and sending the updated schedule to the first node to assign the updated schedule to the first node. - View Dependent Claims (2, 15)
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3. A method for determining a transmission schedule for a first node in a multi-hop wireless network, wherein each node is a child node to a corresponding parent node, each child node being configured to receive one or more messages originating from a sink node via its corresponding parent node and wherein the method comprises the first node:
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listening for signals indicating scheduling timeslots for transmission between nodes in the network and, if a signal is detected, updating a record of scheduled transmissions; determining whether to schedule a transmission of a corresponding message to each of one or more child nodes of the first node; determining a preliminary schedule specifying, for each of the one or more child nodes, a corresponding timeslot for transmission to the respective child node, the preliminary schedule being based on the record of scheduled transmissions; sending the preliminary schedule to the corresponding parent node of the first node for approval; and setting an assigned schedule based on a response from the corresponding parent node. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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16. A computer implemented method for scheduling closed loop communication within a multi-hop wireless network, the wireless network comprising a control node and a plurality of slave nodes, the slave nodes being configured to relay downlink communications from the control node and uplink communications towards the control node, the control node being configured to send a downlink communication in a downlink direction to a first set of one or more sink nodes, each sink node in the first set being configured to send an uplink response to the downlink communication, the method comprising:
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scheduling downlink transmissions sequentially, on a node by node basis, starting from the control node and moving downlink through the network; scheduling uplink transmissions, wherein the uplink transmissions are scheduled on a node by node basis in a slave node order that minimises the time difference between each slave node of the first set receiving the downlink communication and the corresponding uplink response being sent.
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Specification