Method for polling in a medium access control protocol

#The present invention relates in general to communication systems, such as wireless ultra wideband (UWB) systems, including mobile transceivers, centralized transceivers, related equipment, wireless local area networks, and corresponding methods. In particular, the present invention relates to a method for dividing up an available channel in a way that allows for efficient sharing of total transmission time. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for passing frames between devices in a network using a polling scheme in which the controller of a given channel time allocation can poll individual devices to determine whether they have frames of their own to transmit, This polling can be done simultaneously along with the transmission of data frames from the controller of the channel time allocation to other devices. As a result, the overhead for the polling is minimal.

#In communications systems with limited bandwidth, a problem can occur when multiple networks or multiple devices want to operate over the same channel using the same bandwidth. Some sort of scheme must be implemented to separate the networks in some way so that transmissions from one will not interfere with transmissions from the other.

#One option for handling multiple networks or devices is to use a time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme. In a TDMA scheme, the available transmission time is broken up into multiple time slots, and each network or device is assigned one or more of the time slots. Thus, each device is given some portion of the available transmission time to use and is forced to remain silent during all other times.

#The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views and which together with the detailed description below are incorporated in and form part of the specification, serve to further illustrate various embodiments and to explain various principles and advantages in accordance with the present invention.

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a wireless network according to a disclosed embodiment of the present invention;

#FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a TDMA scheme including superframes and channel time allocations for passing data and acknowledgement frames using an explicit polling scheme, according to a disclosed embodiment of the present invention;

#Wireless Network

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a wireless network 100 according to a disclosed embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment the network 100 is a wireless personal area network (WPAN), or piconet. However, it should be understood that the present invention also applies to other settings where bandwidth is to be shared among several users, such as, for example, wireless local area networks (WLAN), or any other appropriate wireless network.

#When the term piconet is used, it refers to a network of devices connected in an ad hoc fashion, having one device act as a coordinator (i.e., it functions as a server) while the other devices (sometimes called stations) follow the time allocation instructions of the coordinator (i.e., they function as clients). The coordinator can be a designated device, or simply one of the devices chosen to function as a coordinator. One primary difference between the coordinator and non-coordinator devices is that the coordinator must be able to communicate with all of the devices in the network, while the various non-coordinator devices need not be able to communicate with all of the other non-coordinator devices.