Method and device for deterministic directional discovery of wireless devices

• US 9,967,726 B2
• Filed: 04/26/2011
• Issued: 05/08/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Inventors: Chen, Yi, Hsu, Chun-Wei, Chou, Chun-Ting
• Primary Examiner(s): Vo, Nguyen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hu, Rui
• Application Number:
  US13/696,654
• Publication Number:
  US 20130059544A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,569 Days
• Field of Search: 455 634, 4555621, 4555757, 4551611-1692
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/28 using beam steering
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A method for deterministic directional discovery of neighbor devices by a device in a wireless network comprises dividing equally an access time to a discovery channel to predefined number of sector scanning periods (410), wherein each sector scanning period includes a predefined number of discovery sweep periods (430), and each discovery sweep period includes a predefined number of time slots (440); scanning the discovery channel in a single sector during a current sector scanning period (S310); transmitting a discovery frame towards each sector during each time slot of each discovery sweep period of the current sector scanning period (S320); checking if at least one response to a transmitted discovery frame has been received during the current sector scanning period (S330); and setting the device to scan the discovery channel in a next sector during a next sector scanning period, thereby sequentially accessing the predefined number of sector scanning periods (S35).

Claims

1. A method for deterministic directional discovery of neighbor devices by a device in a wireless network, the neighboring devices being, when discoverable, in one of a total number of sectors of the device, each of the sectors representing a different direction and wherein an access time to a discovery channel is equally divided into a number of sector scanning periods, each of the sector scanning periods being further subdivided into a predefined number of time slots, the predefined number of time slots being equal to the total number of sectors times a predefined number of discovery sweep periods within each sector scanning period, the predefined number of discovery sweep periods being at least two, the method comprising:

transmitting, by the device, during each of the predefined number of time slots of each discovery sweep period of a current sector scanning period of the sector scanning periods, a discovery frame towards one of the total number of sectors such that during each discovery sweep period of the current sector scanning period each of the total number of sectors has a discovery frame transmitted toward it;

listening to, by the device, only one of the total number of sectors during the current sector scanning period to check if at least one response to a transmitted discovery frame has been received during the current sector scanning period; and

setting the device to scan the discovery channel in a next one of the total number of sectors during a next sector scanning period, such that the sector scanning periods are sequentially accessed.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording each device that responded to the transmitted discovery frame, and repeating periodically the scanning of the discovery channel through the number of sector scanning periods if no responses are received.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a duration of each time slot of the predefined number of time slots is fixed.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of sector scanning periods is equal to the number of sectors.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the discovery frame is transmitted after a random time interval from a beginning of a time slot.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the discovery frames are transmitted using an asynchronous contention based medium access mechanism.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting in each time slot of a sector scanning period a discovery frame towards a single sector, and scanning the discovery channel in a different sector during each time slot of each discovery sweep period of the sector scanning period.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the device is any one of:

a type A Ecma-387 based device and a type B Ecma-387 based device, wherein the type A Ecma-387 based device is configured to support at least video streaming and user high gain trainable antennas, the type B Ecma-387 based device is configured to support at least video and data transmissions using non-trainable antennas.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the neighbor devices is at least one of:

a type A Ecma-387 based device, a type B Ecma-387 based device, and a type C Ecma-387 based device, wherein the type C Ecma-387 based device is configured to support data transmissions over point-to-point line-of-sight links using non-trainable antennas.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the discovery frame is constructed as discovery beacon blocks (DBBS).

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the DBBS include a mode-D0 beacon, mode-B0 poll frames, mode-C0 poll frames, a mode-D0 scanning period, a mode-B0 scanning period, and a mode-C0 scanning period.