Wireless LAN system and method for roaming in a multiple base station

• US 7,324,487 B2
• Filed: 02/10/2003
• Issued: 01/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Saito, Jun
• Primary Examiner(s): Milord; Marceau
• Application Number:
  US10/360,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20030169716A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,814 Days
• Field of Search: 370/338, 370/320, 370/331, 370/342, 370/330, 370/395.3, 370/332, 455/436
• US Class Current: 370/338
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/18 for allowing seamless reselection, e.g. soft reselection
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

In a wireless communication system including base transceiver stations connected to a wired network and wireless system terminals, the wireless system terminals are individually registered in a plurality of communicable base transceiver stations and at the same time set in a multilink connection state. Then, a base transceiver station that has a lower communication load and in a more stable communication state at current point in time is selected from among the multilink base transceiver stations connected to a wireless system terminal, thereby performing data communication with the wireless system terminal. With this arrangement, when an individual fixed connection is switched, no load is produced at the time of roaming, and stabilization of communication and balancing of communication loads resulting from switching of the base transceiver stations for use are realized. The throughput of the overall wireless communication system is thereby improved.

Claims

1. A method of controlling communication in a wireless communication system including a plurality of base transceiver stations and at least one wireless system terminal, each of the base transceiver stations being connected together via a wired network, the method comprising the steps of:

causing said at least one wireless system terminal to be each concurrently connected to at least two of the base transceiver stations that are connected together via said wired network; and

causing said at least one wireless system terminal to perform data communication with one of said at least two base transceiver stations connected thereto.

2. The method of controlling communication according to claim 1, wherein the step of causing said at least one wireless system terminal to be concurrently connected to said at least two base transceiver stations comprises the steps of:

causing said at least one wireless system terminal to each measure a receiving signal strength of each of the base transceiver stations; and

connecting said at least one wireless system terminal to said each of the at least two base transceiver stations when the receiving signal strength of said each of the at least two base transceiver stations is equal to or more than a predetermined level, and disconnecting said at least one wireless system terminal from said each of the at least two base transceiver stations when the receiving signal strength of said each of the at least two base transceiver stations is smaller than the predetermined level.

3. The method of controlling communication according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

detecting a communication load on each of the at least two base transceiver stations; and

selecting one of the at least two base transceiver stations with a smallest communication load from among the at least two base transceiver stations;

wherein said at least one wireless system terminal performs wireless communication with said selected one of the at least two base transceiver stations with the smallest communication load.

4. The method of controlling communication according to claim 3, wherein detection of the communication load on said each of the at least two base transceiver stations is performed according to a period of time taken for said each of the at least two base transceiver stations to respond to transmission from said at least one wireless system terminal.

5. The method of controlling communication according to claim 3, wherein detection of the communication load on said each of the at least two base transceiver stations is performed according to a buffered data amount of a communication buffer of said each of the at least two base transceiver stations.

6. A method of controlling communication in a wireless communication system including a plurality of base transceiver stations and at least one wireless system terminal, each of the base transceiver stations being connected together via a wired network, the method comprising the steps of:

causing said at least one wireless system terminal to be each concurrently connected to at least two of the base transceiver stations that are connected together via said wired network;

causing each of said at least two base transceiver stations to buffer communication data to be transmitted to said at least one wireless system terminal connected in common; and

causing one of said at least two base transceiver stations with a smallest communication load to transmit the buffered communication data to said at least one wireless system terminal connected thereto.

7. The method of controlling communication according to claim 6, further comprising the step of:

causing said at least one wireless system terminal that has received the buffered communication data from said one of said at least two base transceiver stations to transmit a signal commanding to discard the buffered communication data to each of said at least two base transceiver stations other than said one of said at least two base transceiver stations.

8. The method of controlling communication according to claim 6, further comprising the step of:

causing said one of said at least two base transceiver stations that has transmitted the buffered communication data to said at least one wireless system terminal to transmit a signal commanding to discard the buffered communication data to said each of said at least two base transceiver stations other than said one of said at least two base transceiver stations, connected to said at least one wireless system terminal.

9. The method of controlling communication according to claim 6, further comprising the step of:

performing transmission from said at least one wireless system terminal to said one of said at least two base transceiver stations that has transmitted the buffered communication data to said at least one wireless system terminal.

10. A method of controlling communication in a wireless LAN system including a plurality of base transceiver stations and at least one wireless system terminal, each of the base transceiver stations being connected together via a wired network, wherein the wireless LAN system includes a base transceiver station managing server for managing the base transceiver stations, and wherein the method comprises the steps of:

causing said at least one wireless system terminal to be each concurrently connected to at least two of the base transceiver stations that are connected together via said wired network;

causing the base transceiver station managing server to detect a communication load on each of the at least two base transceiver stations;

causing the base transceiver station managing server to select one of the at least two base transceiver stations that buffers communication data to be transmitted to said at least one wireless system terminal, based on the communication load on said each of the at least two base transceiver stations;

causing said one of the at least two base transceiver stations thus selected to buffer the communication data; and

causing said one of the at least two base transceiver stations thus selected to transmit the buffered communication data to said at least one wireless system terminal.

11. A wireless LAN system comprising wireless system terminals and base transceiver stations, each of the base transceiver stations being connected together via a wired network,

wherein each of the wireless system terminals is concurrently connected to at least two of the base transceiver stations that are connected together via the wired network, and

wherein one of said at least two base transceiver stations performs wireless transmission and reception of communication data with said each of the wireless system terminals common to said at least two base transceiver stations other than said one of said at least two of base transceiver stations.

12. The wireless LAN system according to claim 11, wherein said each of the wireless system terminals includes a first link table in which a plurality of the base transceiver stations recognized as communicable are registered,

wherein each of the base transceiver stations includes a second link table where a plurality of the wireless system terminals recognized as communicable are registered, and

wherein one of the wireless system terminals is connected to the at least two base transceiver stations and selects one of the at least two base transceiver stations connected to said one of the wireless system terminals to perform wireless communication, said selected one of the at least two base transceiver stations and said one of the wireless system terminals connected thereto being registered in the corresponding first link table and second link table thereof, respectively.

13. The wireless LAN system according to claim 11, wherein said each of the wireless system terminals and each of the base transceiver stations respectively have a wireless communication unit for performing time-division concurrent communication, and

wherein said each of the wireless system terminals is concurrently and wirelessly connected to said at least two base transceiver stations.

14. The wireless LAN system according to claim 11, wherein said each of the wireless system terminals and each of the base transceiver stations respectively have a wireless communication unit having a plurality of channels, and

wherein said each of the wireless system terminals is concurrently and wirelessly connected to said at least two base transceiver stations.

15. The wireless LAN system according to claim 11, wherein each of said at least two base transceiver stations has a buffer for temporarily storing communication data to be transmitted to said each of the wireless system terminals, and

wherein the communication data stored in the buffer of one of said at least two base transceiver stations with a small communication load is transmitted to said each of the wireless system terminals.

16. The wireless LAN system according to claim 15, wherein said each of the wireless system terminals that has received the communication data transmits to said each of said at least two base transceiver stations other than said one of said at least two of base transceiver stations that has transmitted the communication data a discard signal for clearing the buffer therein.

17. The wireless LAN system according to claim 16, wherein said each of the wireless system terminals performs wireless data transmission to said one of said at least two base transceiver stations from which said each of the wireless system terminals has received data immediately before the wireless data transmission.

18. A wireless LAN system including base transceiver stations and wireless system terminals, each of the base transceiver stations being connected together via a wired network, wherein each of the wireless system terminals is concurrently connected to at least two of the base transceiver stations comprising first and second base transceiver stations,

wherein the wireless LAN system comprises a base transceiver station managing server for managing a communication load on each of the base transceiver stations that are connected together via the wired network, and

wherein the base transceiver station managing server selects one of at least two of the base transceiver stations for relaying communication data to be transmitted to said each of the wireless system terminals according to the communication load on said each of the at least two base transceiver stations.

19. A wireless LAN system including a wireless system terminal, wherein the wireless system terminal comprises:

a wireless communication unit concurrently connected to a plurality of base transceiver stations for buffering identical communication data to be transmitted to the wireless system terminal, each of the base transceiver stations being connected together via a wired network;

a link table for storing the connected base transceiver stations that are connected together via the wired network; and

a communication processing procedure unit for referring to the link table when receiving the communication data to be transmitted to the wireless system terminal from one of the connected base transceiver stations, and then sending a buffered data discard signal to each of the connected base transceiver stations other than said one of the base transceiver stations that has transmitted the communication data.

20. A wireless LAN system including base transceiver stations, each of the base transceiver stations being connected tog ether via a wired network, wherein each of the base transceiver stations comprises:

a wireless communication unit concurrently connected to a plurality of wireless system terminals;

a link table for storing the connected wireless system terminals;

a buffer for temporarily storing communication data to be transmitted to each of the wireless system terminals stored in the link table, for said each of the wireless system terminals; and

a communication processing procedure unit for clearing the buffer when receiving a discard signal from one of the wireless system terminals stored in the link table before the communication data stored in the buffer is transmitted to said one of the wireless system terminals.