Method and apparatus for synchronizing transmissions from multiple transmitters
AssigneeMotorola, Inc.
InventorsAnand S. Bedekar, Rajeev Agrawal
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for transmitting packets in a wireless communication system (100). The method and apparatus determining a delay period from among the various delay times at each of a plurality of access nodes (106-110) wherein the delay time is the time it takes for a node to receive a data packet from a source (102) through a network (104). During transmission of data from the source, the nodes receive data packets and from the data packets, the wall clock time is determined. The packets are transmitted from the nodes at a time equivalent to the wall clock time and the delay period so that the packets are synchronously transmitted from the multiple nodes.
Claims20
A method of transmitting packets synchronously from a plurality of nodes in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
- receiving packets asynchronously at the plurality of nodes wherein the packets are sent from a source node;
- determining a wall clock time at each of the plurality of nodes wherein the wall clock time is determined from control data of the packets and wherein the wall clock time is a time when the received packet is transmitted from the source node;
- determining a delay period to be added to the wall clock time to determine an outgoing transmission time for each of the plurality of nodes that receive the packet;
- and
- transmitting the packets synchronously from each of the plurality nodes at the outgoing transmission time.
A node for use in a wireless communication network, the node comprising:
- a transceiver for transmitting and receiving data wherein the transceiver receives packets asynchronously as compared to other nodes;
- a controller coupled to the transceiver wherein the controller is adapted to:
- determining a wall clock time when a packet was transmitted to the node from a source node, wherein the wall clock time is determined from control data of the packet;
- determining a delay period to be added to the wall clock time to determine an outgoing transmission time to send the packet from the node;
- and
- transmitting the received packets at the outgoing transmission time so that the packet is synchronously transmitted with packets transmitted from the other nodes.
A wireless communication system comprising:
- a source of data;
- a communication network that receives the data from the source and transmits the data in packets;
- a reference node within the communication network;
- and
- a plurality of access nodes within the communication network that asynchronously receive the packets transmitted by the reference node, wherein each of the plurality of access nodes synchronously transmits the packets from the access nodes at an outgoing transmission time is based on a delay period determined from control data in the packet and a wall clock time determined at each of the access nodes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.