CN-116458069-B - Packet prioritization for network-based software defined radio

CN116458069BCN 116458069 BCN116458069 BCN 116458069BCN-116458069-B

Abstract

Systems, methods, devices, and machine-readable media for improved communication between a software defined radio front end device and a network-based computing device are disclosed in some examples. Instead of grouping samples together, the same bit positions from multiple ADC samples may be grouped together. If a quality of service (QoS) metric of a network connection between the RF front-end device and the network-based processing computation falls below a threshold, the RF front-end device may preferentially send packets with more significant bits than packets with less significant bits. In other examples, the RF front-end device may prioritize samples corresponding to a particular data type over other data types.

Inventors

A.A. HASSAN
M.D. Sekalan
R.A. Penal

Assignees

微软技术许可有限责任公司

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20210903
Priority Date: 20201119

Claims (15)

1. A method for prioritizing packets for a network-based software defined radio system, the method comprising: at a computing device, using one or more processors: Receiving an output of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), the output comprising a plurality of digital samples of a Radio Frequency (RF) signal, each digital sample representing the RF signal at a different time and comprising a plurality of bits including a most significant bit and a second bit lower than the most significant bit; Creating a first packet comprising the value of the most significant bit of a first digital sample of the plurality of digital samples and the value of the most significant bit of a second digital sample of the plurality of digital samples; creating a second packet comprising a second bit value of the first digital sample and a second bit value of the second digital sample; determining metrics of a network connection between the computing device and a server computing device that provides baseband processing for the network-based software defined radio system; Determining whether the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates a quality of service (QoS) of the network connection below a threshold value, and In response to determining that the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates that the QoS of the network connection is below the threshold, the first packet is sent to the server computing device over the network connection without sending the second packet to the server computing device.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: Receiving metadata from a transmitter computing device or the server computing device, the metadata indicating a type of data sent by the transmitter and received in the RF signal; assigning a priority to the first packet based on the metadata, and Setting a priority field of a header of the first packet to the priority.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the data type comprises audio, video, or signaling data.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein assigning the priority to the first packet comprises assigning signaling data to a higher priority than audio or video data and assigning audio data to a higher priority than video data.
5. The method of claim 2, wherein the priority field of the header is a quality of service parameter.
6. A computing device for prioritizing packets for a network-based software defined radio system, the computing device comprising: one or more processors; A memory comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: Receiving an output of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), the output comprising a plurality of digital samples of a Radio Frequency (RF) signal, each digital sample representing the RF signal at a different time and comprising a plurality of bits including a most significant bit and a second bit lower than the most significant bit; Creating a first packet comprising the value of the most significant bit of a first digital sample of the plurality of digital samples and the value of the most significant bit of a second digital sample of the plurality of digital samples; creating a second packet comprising a second bit value of the first digital sample and a second bit value of the second digital sample; determining metrics of a network connection between the computing device and a server computing device that provides baseband processing for the network-based software defined radio system; Determining whether the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates a quality of service (QoS) of the network connection below a threshold value, and In response to determining that the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates that the QoS of the network connection is below the threshold, the first packet is sent to the server computing device over the network connection without sending the second packet to the server computing device.
7. The computing device of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise: Receiving metadata from a transmitter computing device or the server computing device, the metadata indicating a type of data sent by the transmitter and received in the RF signal; assigning a priority to the first packet based on the metadata, and Setting a priority field of a header of the first packet to the priority.
8. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the data type comprises audio, video, or signaling data.
9. The computing device of claim 8, wherein assigning the priority to the first packet comprises assigning signaling data to a higher priority than audio or video data and assigning audio data to a higher priority than video data.
10. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the priority field of the header is a quality of service parameter.
11. The computing device of claim 6, wherein the metric is indicative of one or more of congestion, low bandwidth, packet loss, interference, or packet error.
12. The computing device of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise: The first packet is sent twice in response to determining that the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates that the QoS of the network connection is below the threshold.
13. The computing device of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise: Determining a first type of data transmitted by a transmitter for a third packet created from the plurality of digital samples and determining a second type of data transmitted by the transmitter for a fourth packet created from the plurality of digital samples, the first type of data being a different type than the second type of data; Assigning a first priority to the third packet based on a first type of the data; Assigning a second priority to the fourth packet based on a second type of the data, the second priority being greater than the first priority, and In response to determining that the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates that the QoS of the network connection is below the threshold, the third packet is sent to the server computing device over the network connection and the fourth packet is discarded without sending the fourth packet to the server computing device.
14. A computing device for prioritizing packets for a network-based software defined radio system, the computing device comprising: A unit for receiving an output of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), the output comprising a plurality of digital samples of a Radio Frequency (RF) signal, each digital sample representing the RF signal at a different time and comprising a plurality of bits including a most significant bit and a second bit lower than the most significant bit; Means for creating a first packet comprising a value of a most significant bit of a first digital sample of the plurality of digital samples and a value of a most significant bit of a second digital sample of the plurality of digital samples; creating a second packet comprising a second bit value of the first digital sample and a second bit value of the second digital sample; means for determining metrics of a network connection between the computing device and a server computing device that provides baseband processing for the network-based software defined radio system; Means for determining whether the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates a quality of service (QoS) of the network connection below a threshold, and In response to determining that the metric of the network connection between the computing device and the server computing device indicates that the QoS of the network connection is below the threshold, sending the first packet to the server computing device over the network connection without sending the second packet to the server computing device.
15. The computing device of claim 14, further comprising: Means for receiving metadata from a transmitter computing device or the server computing device, the metadata indicating a type of data sent by the transmitter and received in the RF signal; means for assigning a priority to the first packet based on the metadata, and And setting a priority field of a header of the first packet to the priority.

Description

Packet prioritization for network-based software defined radio Technical Field Embodiments relate to software defined radio. Some embodiments relate to a network-based software defined radio. Background Software Defined Radio (SDR) is a device that uses radio frequency communications to send and receive data, where many of the components typically implemented by dedicated hardware such as mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, and detectors are implemented by a general purpose computing device such as a desktop computer or embedded system. In SDR, a Radio Frequency (RF) front end receives a radio signal and passes the signal in analog form to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which samples the radio signal to produce a digital representation of the signal. Depending on the configuration of the SDR, the RF front-end may include one or more antennas, variable frequency oscillators, mixers, filters, low noise amplifiers, and/or bandpass filters. The digital processing component may be implemented on general purpose computing hardware by software instructions, and then may retrieve the transmitted data stream by performing operations such as mixing, filtering, amplifying, demodulating, and performing other operations to complete processing of the signal. For transmitting data, a reverse process is employed, in which an input data stream is processed by a digital processing component, sent to a front-end component for conversion to an analog signal (e.g., by a digital-to-analog converter (DAC)) and transmission. SDR allows increased flexibility by replacing components conventionally implemented in dedicated hardware with software. By changing the software, the same hardware can be used to adapt the SDR's capabilities. For example, by modifying the software, the SDR can be adapted to receive and transmit different radio protocols, which allows the SDR to be more flexible and adapted to changing conditions. Drawings In the drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals may describe like components in different views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes may represent different instances of similar components. The drawings generally illustrate the various embodiments discussed in this document by way of example and not limitation. Fig. 1 illustrates a diagram of an SDR system according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 2 illustrates a diagram of a network-based SDR system according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 3 illustrates a diagram of a centralized network-based SDR system according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 4 illustrates a diagram of an SDR system based on edge network computing, according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 5 illustrates an exemplary diagram of a packet construction according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 6 illustrates a diagram of network congestion management in a network-based SDR system according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 7 illustrates a diagram of feedback indications sent from a network-based digital processing computing device or transceiver to determine priorities of one or more samples output from an ADC, according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 8 illustrates a flow chart of a method of grouping samples output by an ADC of an SDR according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 9 illustrates a flow chart of a method of prioritizing delivery of packets according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 10 illustrates a flow chart of a method for a radio RF front-end device to prioritize packets including ADC samples representing a particular data type, according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 11 illustrates a flowchart of a method for a digital processing computing device to provide feedback regarding a data type of a sample, according to some examples of the present disclosure. Fig. 12 illustrates a flow chart of a method of a transmitting device providing feedback regarding a data type of a sample according to some examples of the present disclosure. FIG. 13 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a machine on which one or more embodiments described herein may be implemented. Detailed Description In a conventional SDR, the computing device executing digital processing components to process the output of the ADC is referred to herein as a digital processing computing device, typically connected to the ADC and RF front-end device through a local connection. In the conventional SDR model, each SDR requires a local computing device. In some examples, to take advantage of the increased computing power, availability, centralized maintenance, and cost savings of network-based computing devices (sometimes referred to as cloud computing), the network-based SDR groups the output of the ADC, sending it over a network to a centralized server. The centralized server then implements