US-12627409-B2 - Data packet transaction timing solution for a wireless communication system

US12627409B2US 12627409 B2US12627409 B2US 12627409B2US-12627409-B2

Abstract

The invention relates to a wireless communication system ( 100 ) comprising a plurality of radio devices ( 102, 202, 204 ). Each of the plurality of radio devices ( 102, 202, 204 ) is capable of transmit and receive data packets ( 220 ). At least one radio device ( 102, 202, 204 ) is configured to: ACK packets ( 240 ) received from one or more neighbouring radio devices ( 102, 202, 204 ) in response to transmitted data packets ( 220 ); determine lengths of ACK gap ( 230 ) periods of the one or more neighbouring radio devices ( 102, 202, 204 ) based on the observed ACK packets ( 240 ); and adjust its ACK listening duration ( 250 ) based on the determined lengths of the ACK gap periods ( 230 ). The invention relates also to a method for a wireless communication system ( 100 ), a radio device ( 102, 202, 204 ) for a wireless communication system ( 100 ), a method for the radio device ( 102, 202, 204 ), a computer program ( 505 ), and a tangible non-volatile computer-readable medium.

Inventors

Hannu HIRVI
Ville JUVEN

Assignees

WIREPAS OY

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20211221
Priority Date: 20201223

Claims (14)

1 . A wireless communication system comprising a plurality of radio devices, each of the plurality of radio devices is capable of transmit and receive data packets, wherein at least one radio device of the plurality of radio devices is configured to: transmit data packets receive acknowledgement (ACK) packets from one or more neighboring radio devices belonging to the plurality of radio devices in response to the transmitted data packets, determine lengths of ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices based on the ACK packets, wherein each of the lengths of the ACK gap periods represents a time period during which said one or more neighboring radio devices processes reception of the data packets transmitted by said radio device and creates the ACK packets, and adjust its ACK listening duration based on the determined lengths of the ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices, wherein the ACK listening duration represents a time period during which said radio device waits to receive the ACK packets from said one or more neighboring radio devices.
2 . The wireless communication system according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one radio device is further configured to adjust its Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) duration based on the determined lengths of the ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices.
3 . The wireless communication system according to claim 2 , wherein the at least one radio device is configured to: categorize the determined lengths of the ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices into two or more categories, and include, exclude, and/or weight at least one of the two or more categories when adjusting its CCA duration.
4 . The wireless communication system according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one radio device is configured to adjust its CCA duration based on ACK gap period information received from a neighboring radio device, wherein the received ACK gap period information comprises the length of the ACK gap period of said neighboring radio device itself, the CCA duration of said neighboring radio device itself, and/or lengths of the ACK gap periods of one or more neighboring radio devices of said neighboring radio device determined based on observed received ACK packets by said neighboring radio device.
5 . The wireless communication system according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one radio device is configured to include its prevailing CCA duration and/or its prevailing length of the ACK gap period as a data field within a beacon packet.
6 . The wireless communication system according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one radio device is configured to provide its prevailing CCA duration and/or its prevailing length of the ACK gap period to at least one new radio device associating with the wireless communication system as a part of an association packet exchange.
7 . The wireless communication system according to claim 1 , wherein each transmitted data packet comprises a sequence number, which is incremented only when a new data packet is prepared for transmission.
8 . The wireless communication system according to claim 7 , wherein at least one radio device of the plurality of radio devices is configured to adjust the length of its ACK gap period and/or its ACK packet transmission period in response to receiving data packets with the same sequence number.
9 . The wireless communication system according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one radio device is configured to receive the ACK packets from the one or more neighboring radio devices during an observation time window.
10 . The wireless communication system according to claim 9 , wherein the at least one radio device is configured to adjust a length of the observation time window based on a rate of changes within the wireless communication system.
11 . A method for a wireless communication system comprising a plurality of radio devices, each of the plurality of radio devices is capable of transmit and receive data packets, wherein the method comprises: transmitting data packets receiving, by at least one radio device of the plurality of radio devices, acknowledgement (ACK) packets from one or more neighboring radio devices belonging to the plurality of radio devices in response to the transmitted data packets, determining, by the at least one radio device of the plurality of radio devices, lengths of ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices based on the ACK packets, wherein each of the lengths of the ACK gap periods represents a time period during which said one or more neighboring radio devices processes reception of the data packets transmitted by said radio device and creates the ACK packets, and adjusting, by the at least one radio device of the plurality of radio devices, its ACK listening duration based on the determined lengths of the ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices, wherein the ACK listening duration represents a time period during which said radio device waits to receive the ACK packets from said one or more neighboring radio devices.
12 . A radio device for a wireless communication system, wherein the radio device comprises: a processor, and a transceiver for providing a bi-directional radio communication with at least one other radio device, wherein the radio device is configured to: transmit data packets receive, by the transceiver, acknowledgement (ACK) packets from one or more neighboring radio devices in response to the transmitted data packets, determine, by the processor, lengths of ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices based on the ACK packets, wherein each of the lengths of the ACK gap periods represents a time period during which said one or more neighboring radio devices processes reception of the data packets transmitted by said radio device and creates the ACK packets, and adjust, by the processor, its ACK listening duration based on the determined lengths of the ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices, wherein the ACK listening duration represents a time period during which said radio device waits to receive the ACK packets from said one or more neighboring radio devices.
13 . A method for a radio device within a wireless communication system, the method comprises: transmitting data packets receiving, by the radio device, acknowledgement (ACK) packets from one or more neighboring radio devices in response to the transmitted data packets, determining, by the radio device, lengths of ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices based on the ACK packets, wherein each of the lengths of the ACK gap periods represents a time period during which said one or more neighboring radio devices processes reception of the data packets transmitted by said radio device and creates the ACK packets, and adjusting, by the radio device, its ACK listening duration based on the determined lengths of the ACK gap periods of the one or more neighboring radio devices, wherein the ACK listening duration represents a time period during which said radio device waits to receive the ACK packets from said one or more neighboring radio devices.
14 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a computer program that comprises instructions which, when the program is executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out at least the steps of the method according to claim 13 .

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The invention concerns in general the technical field of wireless communication. Especially the invention concerns wireless communication systems. BACKGROUND A wireless communication system, i.e. a wireless communication network, comprises a plurality of radio devices which may communicate with each other. The plurality of radio devices of the wireless communication system may transmit data packets to one or more other radio devices of the wireless communication system to communicate with each other. The transmission of the data packet may be e.g. a unicast transmission, a multicast transmission or a broadcast transmission. In response to receiving a data packet from another radio device (i.e. a transmitting device), a receiving radio device may transmit an acknowledgement (ACK) packet to the transmitting device. The ACK packets are typically used in the unicast communication and usually also in the multicast communication. Typically, a performance of the wireless communication system may be significantly affected by a length of a packet transaction. The unicast packet transaction (i.e. point-to-point packet transaction or packet transaction between two radio devices) may typically comprise at least the following parts: a Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) duration, an actual data packet transmission from a source device (i.e. the transmitting device) to a target device (i.e. the receiving device), an ACK gap period, and an ACK packet transmission from the target device to the source device. During the CCA duration, the source device evaluates whether a channel to be used for the transmission is free of congestion, i.e. the transmission of the data packet does not interfere other already ongoing transmissions. During the actual data packet transmission, the source device transmits the data packet. During the ACK gap period, the target device handles a reception of the data packet transmitted by the source device and creates the ACK packet. During the ACK packet transmission, the target device transmits the ACK packet to the source device. Typically, in a single modulation scheme the duration of the maximum length data packet transmission and the duration of the ACK packet transmission are fixed. A CCA duration should cover the ACK gap period so that if another radio device pair within the neighbourhood has already initiated a packet transaction, i.e. already transmitted a data packet, no-one would interrupt their packet transaction by start transmitting during their ACK gap period. The CCA may often be included with some additional random delay to decrease possible collisions between devices that start CCA at the same time. The length of the ACK gap period (and therefore also the CCA duration) varies within wireless communication systems as different implementations need different amount of time to handle the received data packet and to create the ACK packet. At least one drawback with the varying length of the ACK gap period is that all radio devices within the wireless communication system should use the worst case length of the ACK gap period, i.e. the longest possible length of the ACK gap period occurring in the wireless communication system, to avoid interfering the slowest implementations. This in turn causes suboptimal performance of the wireless communication system. Thus, there is a need to develop solutions to improve a performance of a wireless communication system. SUMMARY The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide basic under-standing of some aspects of various invention embodiments. The summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention nor to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to a more detailed description of exemplifying embodiments of the invention. An objective of the invention is to present a wireless communication system, methods, a radio device, a computer program, and a tangible non-volatile computer-readable medium. Another objective of the invention is that the wireless communication system, the methods, the radio device, the computer program, the tangible non-volatile computer-readable medium improve a performance of a wireless communication system. The objectives of the invention are reached by a wireless communication system, methods, a radio device, a computer program, and a tangible non-volatile computer-readable medium as defined by the respective independent claims. According to a first aspect, a wireless communication system comprising a plurality of radio devices is provided, wherein each of the plurality of radio devices is capable of transmit and receive data packets, wherein at least one radio device of the plurality of radio devices is configured to: observe acknowledgement (ACK) packets received from one or more neighbouring radio devices belonging to