Personal area network with automatic attachment and detachment

• US 8,149,829 B2
• Filed: 02/03/2010
• Issued: 04/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Tri-County Excelsior Foundation (Oso IP, LLC)
• Inventors: Donaghey, Robert J
• Primary Examiner(s): PHAN, MAN U
• Application Number:
  US12/699,846
• Publication Number:
  US 20100135293A1
• Time in Patent Office: 790 Days
• Field of Search: 370230-252, 370310-389, 370400-452, 709202-217, 709224-229
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/10 Program control for peripheral devices G06F13/14 - G06F13/42 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/38 Information transfer, e.g. on bus G06F13/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2612 Arrangements for wireless medium access control, e.g. by allocating physical layer transmission capacity H04B7/2615 - H04B7/2643 take precedence; provision for broadband connection H04Q11/0478
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5038 for local use, e.g. in LAN or USB networks, or in a controller area network [CAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5069 for group communication, multicast communication or broadcast communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/00 Affiliation to network, e.g. registration; Terminating affiliation with the network, e.g. de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/00 Connection management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/245 from a network towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A network (100) includes a hub device (110) and at least one unattached peripheral device (120). The unattached peripheral device (120) transmits an attach request to the hub device (110) with a selected address, receives a new address from the hub device to identify the unattached peripheral device (120), and communicates with the hub device (110) using the new address.

Claims

1. A hub device for use within a network, comprising:

circuitry; and

a transceiver in communication with the circuitry, the hub device configured to cause the transceiver to;

send a signal associated with an availability of the hub device for peripheral device attachment,

receive, from a first peripheral device, a first peripheral device message indicating an availability of the first peripheral device for communicating with the hub device,

send, to the first peripheral device, a first peripheral device identifier during an attachment process,

receive, from the first peripheral device, a first peripheral device response including the first peripheral device identifier,

send a hub message to the first peripheral device including resource information and direction information associated with data transfer, and

receive, from the first peripheral device, a second peripheral device message including the first peripheral device identifier.

2. The hub device of claim 1, wherein the transceiver further includes instructions for:

broadcasting a heartbeat signal to begin an attach cycle.

3. The hub device of claim 2, wherein the instructions for broadcasting include:

broadcasting a new range of available identifiers with each heartbeat signal.

4. The hub device of claim 1, wherein the transceiver further includes instructions for:

listening, for identifiers in a range of available identifiers, for a signal from the first peripheral device.

5. The hub device of claim 1, wherein the transceiver further includes instructions for:

determining whether a transmission from first peripheral device was successful, and

detaching the first peripheral device when the transmission fails to be successful in a predetermined number of attempts.

6. A method for attaching a first peripheral device to a network having a hub device connected to a set of peripheral devices, the method, performed by the hub device, comprising:

sending a signal associated with an availability of the hub device for peripheral device attachment;

receiving, from the first peripheral device, a first peripheral device message indicating an availability of the first peripheral device for communicating with the hub device;

sending, to the first peripheral device, a first peripheral device identifier during an attachment process;

receiving, from the first peripheral device, a first peripheral device response including the first peripheral device identifier;

sending a hub message to the first peripheral device including resource information and direction information associated with data transfer; and

receiving, from the first peripheral device, a second peripheral device message including the first peripheral device identifier.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

broadcasting a range of available identifiers from which the first peripheral device selects to use when sending the first peripheral device message to the hub device.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

listening, for each of the identifiers in the range of available identifiers, for a signal from the first peripheral device;

determining whether a transmission from the first peripheral device at one of the identifiers was successful; and

discarding an attach attempt by the first peripheral device at the one identifier when the transmission fails to be successful in a predetermined number of attempts.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

attaching the first peripheral device to the network to create a newly attached peripheral device which communicates with the hub device.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores instructions executable by a hub device to cause the hub device to perform a method for attaching a first peripheral device to a network, the method comprising:

sending a signal associated with an availability of the hub device for peripheral device attachment;

receiving, from a first peripheral device, a first peripheral device message indicating an availability of the first peripheral device for communicating with the hub device;

sending to the first peripheral device, a first peripheral device identifier during an attachment process;

receiving, from the first peripheral device, a first peripheral device response including the first peripheral device identifier;

sending a hub message to the first peripheral device including resource information and direction information associated with data transfer; and

receiving, from the first peripheral device, a second peripheral device message including the first peripheral device identifier.

12. The node of claim 10, wherein the network includes a personal area network.

13. The node of claim 10, wherein the network includes a local area network.

14. The node of claim 10, wherein the network includes a world-wide network.

15. The node of claim 10, wherein the network includes a star-topology network.

16. The node of claim 10, wherein the resource information identifies a number of bytes.

17. The node of claim 10, wherein the resource information includes an appropriate empty data block.

18. The node of claim 10, wherein the direction includes a direction from the hub to the first peripheral device.

19. The node of claim 10, wherein the direction includes a direction from the first peripheral device to the hub.

11. A peripheral device, comprising:

a memory having instructions for;

receiving a signal from a hub device in association with an availability of the hub device for peripheral device attachment to the hub device,

transmitting to the hub device a first peripheral device message indicating an availability of the first peripheral device for communicating with the hub device,

receiving a first peripheral device identifier from the hub device during an attachment process,

sending to the hub device a first peripheral device response including the first peripheral device identifier,

receiving from the hub device a hub message including resource information and direction information associated with data transfer, and

sending a second peripheral device message including the first peripheral device identifier; and

a processor that executes the instructions in the memory.