Medium access control (MAC) protocol for body area networks

• US 9,468,003 B2
• Filed: 11/24/2014
• Issued: 10/11/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Inventors: Chen, Richard, Patel, Maulin D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Brenda H
• Application Number:
  US14/551,122
• Publication Number:
  US 20150078355A1
• Time in Patent Office: 687 Days
• Field of Search: 370/321, 370/400, 370/322, 370/329, 370/337, 370/347, 370/375, 370/341
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0024 for multiple sensor units attached to the patient, e.g. using a body or personal area network
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 13/005 Transmission systems in which the medium consists of the human body
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2656 for structure of frame, burst
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/26 Resource reservation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/08 Access restriction or access information delivery, e.g. discovery data delivery signalling during connection H04W76/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0446 Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/04 Scheduled access hybrid access H04W74/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/10 Small scale networks; Flat hierarchical networks

Abstract

A method for controlling access to a wireless medium in a network. The method comprises dividing an access time to the wireless medium into fixed and repeated time rounds, wherein each time round includes a plurality of superframes and each superframe includes a fixed number of time slots; allocating a global beacon period within a time round; and reserving subframes within each superframe, wherein master devices can access the wireless medium at least during the reserved subframes.

Claims

1. A wireless data communication system, comprising:

a plurality of master devices; and

a plurality of slave devices,

wherein each master and slave device access a wireless medium in a body area network, wherein each master device of said plurality of master devices communicates with an assigned set of slave devices during subframes reserved for the master device, each subframe is part of a superframe included in a time round, wherein the time round includes a plurality of superframes, each superframe includes a plurality of subframes, and each subframe includes a plurality of time slots, and wherein a length of a particular subframe is variable and determined by a master device that controls said particular subframe.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the master device of said plurality of master devices transmits both a global beacon during a global beacon period reserved within the time round and a local beacon for announcing time slots allocated for slave devices within the particular subframe.