Dynamic subflow control for a multipath transport connection in a wireless communication network

• US 9,264,353 B2
• Filed: 09/22/2011
• Issued: 02/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Krishnaswamy, Dilip, Cavendish, Dirceu G., Soliman, Samir S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lai, Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Andrews, Hoyet H
• Application Number:
  US13/241,149
• Publication Number:
  US 20130077501A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,608 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/24 Multipath
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/306 Route determination based on the nature of the carried application
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/70 Routing based on monitoring results
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/193 at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0231 based on communication conditions dynamic wireless traffic scheduling definition based on channel quality criteria H04W72/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

A multipath transport protocol such as multipath TCP can utilize metrics such as a wireless link condition corresponding to one or more paths as a parameter for controlling a dynamic allocation of data and control signaling over respective paths. Fault-tolerant control can enable retransmissions of packets already sent on a poor path, onto a good path. Further, the feedback, the retransmissions, and other control signaling can be provided on a separate subflow or on a UDP overlay. In this way, a multipath TCP connection can be more reliable and efficient as flow control and data flow are enhanced.

Claims

1. A method of wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection, comprising:

communicating over a first subflow on a first path that comprises a first wireless link, wherein the first path is between a first node and a second node;

communicating over a second subflow on a second path between the first node and the second node; and

sending one or more control signaling packets between the first node and the second node, the control signaling packets comprising a health metric indicative of a quality of the first wireless link comprising a link-layer characteristic of the first wireless link,

wherein the quality of the first wireless link comprises a goodput corresponding to an amount of data packets, excluding data packets to be retransmitted, successfully passed through the first wireless link, and

wherein the health metric is sent on a third subflow on at least one of the first path or the second path.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality of the first wireless link comprises a link-layer characteristic of the first wireless link, comprising at least one of a modulation scheme, a coding scheme, a signal strength, a physical layer throughput, a packet error rate, or a bit error rate corresponding to the first wireless link.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality of the first wireless link comprises a TCP-layer characteristic of the first path, comprising at least one of a congestion window, a round trip time, a smoothed round trip time, a transport level throughput, or a number of packets in a corresponding retransmission queue.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the second path comprises a second wireless link, and wherein the health metric further corresponds to a quality of the second wireless link.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first subflow comprises a TCP subflow corresponding to a multipath TCP flow;

and wherein the second subflow comprises a TCP subflow corresponding to the multipath TCP flow.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the third subflow comprises a UDP overlay.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the third subflow comprises a TCP overlay.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the third subflow comprises a TCP subflow managed by a multipath TCP entity.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the third subflow comprises a UDP subflow managed by a multipath TCP entity.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending an acknowledgment corresponding to a received packet over one of the first subflow or the second subflow.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining whether the received packet is a duplicate packet for which an acknowledgment has already been sent.

12. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first path comprises a first IP address at a source and a second IP address at a destination, and

wherein the second path comprises a third IP address at the source and a fourth IP address at the destination.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the first IP address is different from the third IP address.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the second IP address is different from the fourth IP address.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the health metric further corresponds to a round trip time and a congestion window.

16. A method of wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection, comprising:

receiving one or more control signaling packets at a first node from a second node, the control signaling packets comprising a health metric corresponding to a quality of a first wireless link comprising a link-layer characteristic of the first wireless link;

allocating a first portion of a TCP flow to a first subflow on a first path that comprises the first wireless link, wherein the first path is between the first node and the second node;

allocating a second portion of the TCP flow to a second subflow on a second path between the first node and the second node, wherein an amount of the first portion and an amount of the second portion is determined in accordance with the health metric; and

retransmitting a packet transmitted over the first subflow, on the second subflow in accordance with the health metric indicating that the second path has a higher quality than the first path.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the retransmitting comprises utilizing the second subflow on the second path.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the retransmitting comprises utilizing a third subflow on the second path.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving an acknowledgment corresponding to the packet transmitted on the second path; and

updating a retransmission scoreboard to indicate that the packet transmitted over the first path has been acknowledged on the second path.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the receiving of the health metric comprises receiving information over a UDP overlay.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the receiving of the health metric comprises receiving information over a third subflow on at least one of the first path or the second path.

22. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

determining a predicted health metric corresponding to a trend in the health metric, the trend corresponding to a change in the health metric over time,

wherein the amount of the first portion and the amount of the second portion are further determined in accordance with the predicted health metric.

23. A method of wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection comprising a plurality of paths between a first node and a second node, the method comprising:

transmitting a first portion of a data flow over a first subflow on a first path of the plurality of paths;

transmitting a second portion of the data flow over a second subflow on a second path of the plurality of paths; and

transmitting one or more control signaling packets between the first node and the second node, the control signaling packets comprising control information corresponding to the first subflow and the second subflow over at least two paths of the plurality of paths, wherein the control information is duplicated over each of the at least two paths.

24. A computer program product for wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising;

instructions for causing a computer to communicate over a first subflow on a first path that comprises a first wireless link, wherein the first path is between the computer and a node;

instructions for causing the computer to communicate over a second subflow on a second path between the computer and the node; and

instructions for causing the computer to send one or more control signaling packets between the computer and the node, the control signaling packets comprising a health metric indicative of a quality of the first wireless link comprising a link-layer characteristic of the first wireless link,

wherein the quality of the first wireless link comprises a goodput corresponding to an amount of data packets, excluding data packets to be retransmitted, successfully passed through the first wireless link, and

wherein the health metric is sent on a third subflow on at least one of the first path or the second path.

25. A computer program product for wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising;

instructions for causing a computer to receive one or more control signaling packets at the computer from a node, the control signaling packets comprising a health metric corresponding to a quality of a first wireless link comprising a link-layer characteristic of the first wireless link;

instructions for causing the computer to allocate a first portion of a TCP flow to a first subflow on a first path that comprises the first wireless link, wherein the first path is between the computer and the node;

instructions for causing the computer to allocate a second portion of the TCP flow to a second subflow on a second path between the computer and the node, wherein an amount of the first portion and an amount of the second portion is determined in accordance with the health metric; and

retransmitting a packet transmitted over the first subflow, on the second subflow in accordance with the health metric indicating that the second path has a higher quality than the first path.

26. A computer program product for wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection comprising a plurality of paths between a computer and a node, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising;

instructions for causing the computer to transmit a first portion of a data flow over a first subflow on a first path of the plurality of paths;

instructions for causing the computer to transmit a second portion of the data flow over a second subflow on a second path of the plurality of paths; and

instructions for causing the computer to transmit one or more control signaling packets between the computer and the node, the control signaling packets comprising control information corresponding to the first subflow and the second subflow over at least two paths of the plurality of paths, wherein the control information is duplicated over each of the at least two paths.

27. An apparatus for wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection, comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory coupled to the at least one processor,

wherein the at least one processor is configured to;

communicate over a first subflow on a first path that comprises a first wireless link, wherein the first path is between the apparatus and a node;

communicate over a second subflow on a second path between the apparatus and the node; and

send one or more control signaling packets between the apparatus and the node, the control signaling packets comprising a health metric indicative of a quality of the first wireless link comprising a link-layer characteristic of the first wireless link,

wherein the quality of the first wireless link comprises a goodput corresponding to an amount of data packets, excluding data packets to be retransmitted, successfully passed through the first wireless link, and

wherein the health metric is sent on a third subflow on at least one of the first path or the second path.

28. An apparatus for wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection, comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory coupled to the at least one processor,

wherein the at least one processor is configured to;

receive one or more control signaling packets at the apparatus from a node, the control signaling packets comprising a health metric corresponding to a quality of a first wireless link comprising a link-layer characteristic of the first wireless link;

allocate a first portion of a TCP flow to a first subflow on a first path that comprises the first wireless link, wherein the first path is between the apparatus and the node;

allocate a second portion of the TCP flow to a second subflow on a second path between the apparatus and the node, wherein an amount of the first portion and an amount of the second portion is determined in accordance with the health metric; and

retransmitting a packet transmitted over the first subflow, on the second subflow in accordance with the health metric indicating that the second path has a higher quality than the first path.

29. An apparatus for wireless communication over a multipath TCP connection comprising a plurality of paths between the apparatus and a node, the apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory coupled to the at least one processor,

wherein the at least one processor is configured to;

transmit a first portion of a data flow over a first subflow on a first path of the plurality of paths;

transmit a second portion of the data flow over a second subflow on a second path of the plurality of paths; and

transmit one or more control signaling packets between the apparatus and the node, the control signaling packets comprising control information corresponding to the first subflow and the second subflow over at least two paths of the plurality of paths, wherein the control information is duplicated over each of the at least two paths.