Media access control protocol data unit aggregation in a time division multiple access media access control layer

• US 9,385,881 B2
• Filed: 12/15/2006
• Issued: 07/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Stahl, Thomas Anthony, Tian, Qingjiang, Rhodes, Robert Andrew, Diemer, Rodger Anthony
• Primary Examiner(s): Sciacca, Scott M
• Application Number:
  US12/312,793
• Publication Number:
  US 20100091759A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,490 Days
• Field of Search: 370/347, 709/236
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2832 Interconnection of the control functionalities between home networks single bridge functionality H04L12/4625
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2841 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2849 Audio/video appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

A method and apparatus are described for creating a multi-media stream (e.g., video, voice, audio, etc. . . . ) Super-MAC frame in a physical protocol data unit, including inserting a physical layer header into a channel time allocation and generating the multi-media stream SuperMAC frame further including, appending a media access control header after the physical layer header, calculating a header correction code, appending the header correction code after the media access control header, appending a media access control multi-media stream payload from a transmit queue, calculating a frame check sequence, appending the frame check sequence after the media access control multi-media stream payload and repeating the above acts, after inserting the physical layer header, until one of the channel time allocation is full or all transmit queues are empty.

Claims

1. A method for creating a multi-media stream SuperMAC frame in a physical protocol data unit using a time division multiple access (TDMA) Media Access Control (MAC) layer, said method comprising:

generating said multi-media stream SuperMAC frame including at least two individual IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frames, said generating act further comprising;

a) inserting a physical layer header into an assigned channel time allocation of said TDMA MAC layer, wherein a length of said channel time allocation is varied according to a MAC bandwidth management command about a queue length for a previous transmission at a remote device;

b) retrieving a multi-media Ethernet frame from a transmit queue;

c) converting said multi-media Ethernet frame to an IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frame, wherein said converting includes;

d) appending an IEEE 802.15.3b MAC header to said SuperMAC frame the IEEE 802.15.3b MAC header containing a length of a multi-media stream payload;

e) calculating a header correction code used to correct errors in the IEEE 802.15.3b MAC header;

f) appending said header correction code to said IEEE 802.15.3b MAC header;

g) appending a multi-media stream payload from the Ethernet frame to said header correction code;

h) calculating a frame check sequence code used to detect errors in the multi-media stream payload; and

i) appending said frame check sequence to said multi-media stream payload;

repeating steps b) through i) until one of said channel time allocation is full or the transmit queue is empty, wherein said repeating act is executed at least once, and wherein each IEEE 802.15.3b MAC header is associated with one header correction code and each multi-media stream payload is associated with one frame check sequence; and

sending the multi-media stream SuperMAC frame to a receiving device.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising transmitting said physical layer header at a first predetermined rate.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising transmitting said SuperMAC frame at a second predetermined rate.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein said physical layer header includes a length of said SuperMAC frame.

5. A method for decoding a received multi-media stream SuperMAC frame, said method comprising:

a) receiving a multi-media stream SuperMAC frame by a remote device, the multi-media stream SuperMAC frame including at least two individual IEEE 802.15.3b Media Access Control (MAC) frames;

b) isolating a media access control header of an IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frame from said multi-media stream SuperMAC frame carried in an assigned channel time allocation of a time division multiple access (TDMA) MAC layer, and a length of said channel time allocation is varied according to a MAC bandwidth management command about a queue length for a previous transmission at the remote device;

c) isolating a header correction code of the IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frame;

d) checking for and correcting errors in said media access control header using the header correction code;

e) determining a boundary for a unit of multi-media stream payload within said multi-media stream SuperMAC frame using payload length information within the media access control header of the IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frame;

f) detecting errors in the multi-media stream payload of the IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frame using a frame control sequence of the IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frame;

g) converting the IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frame into a multi-media Ethernet frame by inserting the multi-media stream payload, the frame control sequence and a priority mapping into a multi-media Ethernet frame;

repeating steps b) through g) until the multi-media stream payloads of all of the at least two individual IEEE 802.15.3b MAC frames have been recovered from said multi-media stream SuperMAC frame, wherein said repeating act is executed at least once; and

outputting each of the multi-media stream payloads by the remote device.