Method for evaluating radio links in a communication network

• US 7,940,789 B2
• Filed: 01/28/2003
• Issued: 05/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Fontaine, Patrick, Dore, Renaud, Jeanne, Ludovic
• Primary Examiner(s): Moe; Aung S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Grey; Christopher P
• Application Number:
  US10/353,212
• Publication Number:
  US 20030147423A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,024 Days
• Field of Search: 370/241, 370/241.1, 370/247, 370/521, 370/252, 370/253, 370/328, 370/338, 370/346, 370229-234, 370/445, 370/447, 370/461, 370/462, 370/251, 455/513, 455/515, 455/68, 455/69, 455/127.1, 455/127.2, 455/500
• US Class Current: 370/445
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/06 Testing, supervising or monitoring using simulated traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/10 Flow control between communication endpoints
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/18 Negotiating wireless communication parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for the rate regulation of radio link probing in a communication network comprising at least a receiver terminal and at least one transmitter terminal, characterized by the steps, at the level of the receiver terminal, of:

• • determining the amount of data sent by each transmitter terminal to the receiver terminal through respective radio links,
  • when a probing of a link is to be made, probing the link corresponding to the transmitter terminal having sent the greatest amount of data.

Claims

1. A method for rate regulation of radio link probing in a communication network comprising at least a receiver terminal and at least two transmitter terminals comprising:

determining the amount of data sent by each transmitter terminal to the receiver terminal through respective radio links, the determining step comprising the step of accumulating a value of a function taking into account an amount of data received from respective transmitter terminals and wherein the value that is accumulated is reset after a probe for its corresponding transmitter terminal has been carried out; and

when a probing of a radio link is to be made, probing the radio link corresponding to the transmitter terminal having sent the greatest amount of data since last a probe, the probing of a radio link comprising an evaluation of a quality criterion, the quality criterion being based on a predetermined response triggered by a triggering message comprising a packet with no payload data and corresponding to at least a reception condition associated to the probed radio link, at least one parameter of the radio link being modified if a value of evaluated quality criterion is better than a value of evaluated quality criterion of a last probe.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the amount of data received from a transmitter terminal is weighted before being added to a corresponding accumulator.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the weight used for the data from a given transmitter terminal is a function of the type of data transmitted by said given transmitter terminal.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein an element of a ordered chained list is associated with each transmitter terminal, each element comprising a transmitter terminal identifier, the current accumulator value and pointers to the previous and next element, the list being ordered according to decreasing accumulator content.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein elements corresponding to transmitter terminals not having transmitted for a given period of time are removed from the list.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein probing is carried out substantially periodically.

7. The method according to claim 1, further including the step of probing transmitter terminals with no operational link.