WiFi peripheral mode display system

• US 8,019,883 B1
• Filed: 09/19/2005
• Issued: 09/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 1, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Digital Display Innovations, LLC
• Inventors: Margulis, Neal D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jean-Gilles, Jude J
• Assistant Examiner(s): MEANS, JAREN M
• Application Number:
  US11/230,872
• Time in Patent Office: 2,185 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/231
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/266 Arrangements to supply power to external peripherals either directly from the computer or under computer control, e.g. supply of power through the communication port, computer controlled power-strips
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1431 using a single graphics controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1438 using more than one graphics controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1446 display composed of modules, e.g. video walls
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/005 General purpose rendering architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/20 Editing of 3D images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0037 Inter-user or inter-terminal allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/65 Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4122 additional display device, e.g. video projector digital output for controlling a plurality of local displays G06F3/1423
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42653 for processing graphics
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43637 involving a wireless protocol, e.g. Bluetooth, RF or wireless LAN [IEEE 802.11] arrangements for wireless networking or broadcasting of information in indoor or near-field type systems H04B10/114
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440218 by transcoding between formats or standards, e.g. from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 conversion of standards in analogue television systems H04N7/01
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 : End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 : WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 : Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A wireless peripheral mode is provided by a host system that communicates to a WiFi infrastructure and, utilizing the same WiFi RF subsystem, also communicates to peripherals. The host system may employ additional RF channels for communicating with high bandwidth peripherals, such as display devices, where high levels of QoS may be managed locally. The host system may be a conventional desktop computer system, a notebook computer system, a multi-media access point, a cell phone, a game machine, a portable game machine, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a smart phone or any other type of device that benefits from accessing both a WiFi infrastructure and local peripherals.

Claims

1. A host system capable of supporting a first number of local display devices and an independent multiple second number of WiFi RF remote display systems, comprising:

a graphics and display controller capable of supporting said first number of local display devices by supplying display sub frames via local display output paths and of supporting said multiple second number of WiFi RF remote display systems;

a multi-display processor for simultaneously supporting said second number of WiFi RF remote display systems by receiving display sub frames from said graphics and display controller, and encoding said display sub frames by applying a compression algorithm that uses multiple frames;

a frame compare function that detects when a given sub frame for a given remote display system is unchanged from a preceding sub frame for said given remote display system, and in response signals that said given sub frame does not need compression;

a WiFi RF network controller that allows the host system to operate as a standard WiFi client on an infrastructure mode network, that utilizes only one standard infrastructure mode WiFi RF channel and does not switch said WiFi RF channel to standard WiFi ad-hoc mode or switch to utilizing a second RF channel, and that is used for selectively transmitting both

to a WiFi router or access point using said one standard infrastructure mode WiFi RF channel and for maintaining network connectivity, and

to said second number of WiFi RF remote display systems over a direct wireless connection using said standard infrastructure mode WiFi RF channel but without first transmitting said compressed sub frames in standard infrastructure mode; and

means to connect said graphics and display controller, said multi-display processor, and said WiFi RF network controller to a CPU subsystem that is part of said host system.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein a specific code is entered at the host system to authenticate said second number of WiFi RF remote display systems during an authentication phase using said one standard infrastructure mode WiFi RF channel and without using either standard WiFi ad-hoc protocols or an access point.

3. A WiFi RF remote display system, which is for use with a host system that includes a physical WiFi RF network controller configured as an infrastructure mode WiFi client, which is capable of determining if said display system is within wireless range of said host system and which, when within wireless range of said host system, is accessible by said host system over a direct WiFi RF link utilizing a WiFi RF channel without using either a standard WiFi ad-hoc configuration or a standard WiFi network infrastructure, comprising:

a physical wireless remote network controller which enables access to said WiFi RF network controller;

a display data decoder that decompresses compressed data, received over said direct WiFi RF link, which may be for only a portion of a full frame; and

a display controller for using a most recently reassembled frame of data from multiple transmissions of multiple sub frames to refresh a remote display screen;

whereby said host system accesses said remote display system over said direct WiFi RF link, and said remote display screen displays an output of said host system, and wherein if said remote display system is not accessible over said direct WiFi RF link, then said remote display system is able to, over said standard WiFi network infrastructure utilizing said WiFi RF channel, access compressed and encoded data from said host system.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein said host system performs a discreet wavelet transform on each new sub frame, then generates a signature, and then compares the signature to a signature of a prior sub frame to determine if the new sub frame needs to be updated with a partial frame update over said WiFi direct link, and wherein said remote display system utilizes wavelet decoding techniques and displays the reassembled sub frame data from multiple frames each of which was encoded with different transform coefficients.

5. A method for operating a WiFi RF remote display system, comprising the steps of:

receiving at said display system, from a host system which includes a single multi-display controller supporting multiple remote display systems and which is a client on a WiFi infrastructure network, display frames compressed and encoded by the host system;

decoding information from the display frames; and

using a single WiFi RF channel both for the WiFi infrastructure network and, aside from the infrastructure network but while maintaining network connectivity, for transmitting the encoded display frames from the host system directly to the WiFi RF remote display system, where neither the host system nor the remote display system uses standard WiFi ad-hoc mode for either an RF controller or on the WiFi RF channel.