US 10,897,771 B2Granted

Wireless stream broadcast system using spectrum-impact-smoothed channel sequencing and deferred acknowledgments

AssigneeHall Labs LLC

InventorsDavid R. Hall, Craig Boswell, Everett D. Robinson, Joe Fox

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Abstract

Disclosed herein are wireless devices operable at intermediate wireless at ranges of thousands of meters, utilizing packets that include a preamble and a data payload. Devices may be such things as keypads, door latches, occupancy monitors, sprinkler controllers and other devices needing a communications link. A digital spread-spectrum frequency hopping rotation is used, wherein packet transmissions rotate through frequency sequences. Used is a spectrum-impact-smoothed channel sequence, each channel specifying a unique preamble frequency relative to the other sequences and channels. The set is traversed as a broadcasted stream is transmitted, thereby distributing the focused radio-frequency emission impact of packets having long preambles over time. Packet acknowledgments are deferred until a group of packets in a stream has been exchanged. Detailed information on various example embodiments of the inventions are provided in the Detailed Description below, and the inventions are defined by the appended claims.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system of wireless communications devices operational at intermediate ranges, one of said devices being a stream-producer and others being stream-receivers, said devices utilizing a set of discrete radio frequencies upon which are organized a set of spectrum-impact-smoothed (SIS) channels each having a distinct digital spread spectrum frequency sequence, each SIS channel specifying a unique frequency to be used in a transmission of a packet preamble relative to all other SIS channels within the set, the system comprising:

a stream-producing device, comprising:
a memory, and
a processor in electronic communication with the memory, the memory storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
(a) transmit to a stream-receiving device a directive to engage communication using an SIS channel sequence,
(b) transmit to the stream-receiving device a stream-initiating packet, the stream-initiating packet containing group information indicating packet identifiers for each packet that is part of a stream of packets to be transmitted, the stream-initiating packet including a broadcast identifier,
(c) transmit each packet in the stream of packets to the stream-receiving device using a schedule of SIS channels, wherein each packet is identified by a packet identifier contained within the packet,
(d) request a deferred acknowledgment from the stream-receiving device following the transmission of the stream of packets, wherein the request is included in at least one of the packets in the stream of packets, and
(e) receive the deferred acknowledgment from the stream-receiving device following the request for the deferred acknowledgment, the deferred acknowledgment identifying any individual packets in the stream of packets that were not received based on the packet identifier for the individual packet;
and
the stream-receiving device, comprising:
a memory;
a processor in electronic communication with the memory, the memory storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
(f) receive the directive to engage in communication with the stream-producing device using the SIS channel sequence,
(g) receive the stream-initiating packet containing the group information,
(h) annotate receipt of a packet identified by the packet identifier contained within each packet for each packet in the stream of packets exchanged using the schedule of SIS channels,
(i) receive the request for the deferred acknowledgment from the stream-producing device, and
(j) transmit the deferred acknowledgment to the stream-producing device following the request for the deferred acknowledgment.

14 more elements

a stream-producing device, comprising:
a memory, and
a processor in electronic communication with the memory, the memory storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
(a) transmit to a stream-receiving device a directive to engage communication using an SIS channel sequence,
(b) transmit to the stream-receiving device a stream-initiating packet, the stream-initiating packet containing group information indicating packet identifiers for each packet that is part of a stream of packets to be transmitted, the stream-initiating packet also including a broadcast identifier,
(c) transmit each packet in the stream of packets to the stream-receiving device, wherein each packet in the stream of packets is identified by a packet identifier contained within the packet, and wherein each packet in the stream of packets includes a device identification, wherein the device identification was transmitted in an earlier-transmitted stream-initiating packet,
(d) request a deferred acknowledgement from the stream-receiving device following the transmission of the stream of packets, wherein the request is included in at least one of the packets in the stream of packets,
(e) receive the deferred acknowledgment from the stream-receiving device following the request for the deferred acknowledgment, the deferred acknowledgment identifying any individual packets in the stream of packets that were not received based on the packet identifier for the individual packet, and
(f) retransmit individual packets identified in the deferred acknowledgment that were not received by the stream-receiving device;
and
the stream-receiving device, comprising:
a memory;
a processor in electronic communication with the memory, the memory storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
(g) receive the directive to engage in communication with the stream-producing device using the SIS channel sequence,
(h) receive the stream-initiating packet containing the group information,
(i) filter each packet in the stream of packets based on the device identification in each packet in the stream of packets, wherein the device identification was received in the earlier-received stream-initiating packet,
(j) annotate receipt of a packet identified by the packet identifier contained within each packet in the stream of packets,
(k) receive the request for the deferred acknowledgment from the stream-producing device,
(l) transmit the deferred acknowledgment to the stream-producing device following the request for the deferred acknowledgment, and
(m) receive retransmissions of individual packets identified as not being received in the deferred acknowledgment.

17 more elements

A wireless communications device operational at intermediate ranges, said device utilizing a set of discrete radio frequencies upon which are organized a set of spectrum-impact-smoothed (SIS) channels each having a distinct digital spread spectrum frequency sequence, each SIS channel specifying a unique frequency to be used in a transmission of a packet preamble relative to all other SIS channels within the set, said device comprising:

a memory;
a transceiver functional for wireless communication using the distinct digital spread spectrum frequency sequence of the spectrum-impact-smoothed channels;
and
a processor in electronic communication with the memory, the memory storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
(a) configure said transceiver to transmit or receive a packet on a channel having distinct communication parameters, wherein the channel is specified by a schedule of SIS channels,
(b) receive a directive from a stream-producing device to engage in communication with the stream-producing device using an SIS channel sequence,
(c) receive from the stream-producing device a stream-initiating packet containing group information indicating packet identifiers for each packet that is part of a stream of packets to be transmitted using a schedule of SIS channels, the stream initiating packet including a broadcast identifier,
(d) receive a plurality of packets in the stream of packets from the stream-producing device using the schedule of SIS channels,
(e) annotate receipt of a packet identified by a packet identifier contained within each packet in the stream of packets,
(f) receive a request for a deferred acknowledgment from the stream-producing device, wherein the request is included in at least one of the packets in the stream of packets,
(g) transmit the deferred acknowledgment to the stream-producing device following the request for the deferred acknowledgment, the deferred acknowledgment identifying any individual packets in the stream of packets that were not received based on the packet identifier for the individual packet, and
(h) receive retransmissions of individual packets identified as not being received in the deferred acknowledgment.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.