Inter-device communication in a machine to machine communication network
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A communication system comprising:
- a base station having a transmitter; and
one or more terminals each having a receiver and being configured for wirelessly receiving communications through the respective receiver from the transmitter of the base station when the transmitter is greater than 100 meters away from the respective receiver, and wherein the communications are transmitted using a communications protocol that is a spread spectrum, frequency hopping Weightless communications protocol;
wherein the communications protocol operates in a frequency band to which unlicensed access is permitted;
wherein the base station is configured to determine channels that are in whitespace of the frequency band and that are selected as available in a location of the base station and determine a frequency hopping sequence using the channels;
wherein the terminals are further configured for unattended operation and unattended, automated communication with the base station;
wherein the base station is further configured to determine whether the one or more terminals are suffering from interference on the channels of the frequency hopping sequence, and in response to determining that a number of interfered terminals is greater than a predetermined threshold are, remove an interfered channel from the frequency hopping sequence; and
wherein the base station is further configured to, in response to determining that the number of interfered terminals is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold, send a communication to at least one of the interfered terminals to modify a subsequent scheduled communication with the respective interfered terminal, wherein modifying the subsequent scheduled communications comprises at least one of allocating future communications with the respective one of the interfered terminals to time slots within the frequency hopping sequence that belong to a channel other than the interfered channel, or indicating, in advance, to the one of the interfered terminals that a future communication should be skipped.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A communication system comprising a base station and two or more terminals configured for communicating with the base station by means of a communications protocol, wherein: the communications protocol operates in a frequency band to which unlicensed access is permitted; and the terminals are configured for unattended operation with the base station.
19 Citations
17 Claims
-
1. A communication system comprising:
-
a base station having a transmitter; and one or more terminals each having a receiver and being configured for wirelessly receiving communications through the respective receiver from the transmitter of the base station when the transmitter is greater than 100 meters away from the respective receiver, and wherein the communications are transmitted using a communications protocol that is a spread spectrum, frequency hopping Weightless communications protocol; wherein the communications protocol operates in a frequency band to which unlicensed access is permitted; wherein the base station is configured to determine channels that are in whitespace of the frequency band and that are selected as available in a location of the base station and determine a frequency hopping sequence using the channels; wherein the terminals are further configured for unattended operation and unattended, automated communication with the base station; wherein the base station is further configured to determine whether the one or more terminals are suffering from interference on the channels of the frequency hopping sequence, and in response to determining that a number of interfered terminals is greater than a predetermined threshold are, remove an interfered channel from the frequency hopping sequence; and wherein the base station is further configured to, in response to determining that the number of interfered terminals is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold, send a communication to at least one of the interfered terminals to modify a subsequent scheduled communication with the respective interfered terminal, wherein modifying the subsequent scheduled communications comprises at least one of allocating future communications with the respective one of the interfered terminals to time slots within the frequency hopping sequence that belong to a channel other than the interfered channel, or indicating, in advance, to the one of the interfered terminals that a future communication should be skipped. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
-
-
14. A base station, comprising:
-
a transmitter; a processor connected to the transmitter; and a non-transitory computer readable medium connected to the processor and having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to; determine available channels, in whitespace of a frequency band in which unlicensed access is permitted, that are available for use in a location of the base station, and determine a frequency hopping sequence using the available channels; transmit the frequency hopping sequence to terminals more than 100 meters away from the transmitter; communicate, wirelessly through the transmitter and using a communications protocol, with the terminals; determine whether one or more of the terminals are suffering from interference on the channels of the frequency hopping sequence, and in response to determining that a number of interfered terminals is greater than a predetermined threshold, remove an interfered channel from the frequency hopping sequence; and send a communication to at least one of the interfered terminals to modify a subsequent scheduled communication with the respective interfered terminals in response to determining that the number of interfered terminals is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold, wherein modifying the subsequent scheduled communications comprises at least one of allocating future communications with the respective one of the interfered terminals to time slots within the frequency hopping sequence that belong to a channel other than the interfered channel, or indicating, in advance, to the one of the interfered terminals that a future communication should be skipped; wherein the communications protocol is a frequency hopping spread spectrum Weightless communications protocol having a variable data rate. - View Dependent Claims (15)
-
-
16. A method, comprising:
-
determining available channels, in whitespace of a frequency band in which unlicensed access is permitted, that are available for use in a location of a base station that is configured to wirelessly communicate with terminals more than 100 meters away from the base station, using a communications protocol, and at regular, predetermined intervals, wherein the communications protocol is a frequency hopping spread spectrum Weightless communications protocol having a variable data rate; transmitting a set of channels selected from the available channels and a frequency hopping sequence to the terminals; receiving data transmissions from the terminals using the communications protocol on channels of the set of channels and according to the frequency hopping sequence; determining whether one or more of the terminals are suffering from interference on the channels of the frequency hopping sequence, and in response to determining that a number of interfered terminals is greater than a predetermined threshold, remove an interfered channel from the frequency hopping sequence; and sending a communication to at least one of the interfered terminals to modify a subsequent scheduled communication with the respective interfered terminals in response to determining that the number of interfered terminals is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold, wherein modifying the subsequent scheduled communications comprises at least one of allocating future communications with the respective one of the interfered terminals to time slots within the frequency hopping sequence that belong to a channel other than the interfered channel, or indicating, in advance, to the one of the interfered terminals that a future communication should be skipped. - View Dependent Claims (17)
-
Specification