Apparatus for and method of bluetooth and wireless local area network coexistence using a single antenna in a collocated device
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorsItay Sherman, Avishai P. Shoham, Yaniv Tzoreff
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Abstract
A novel and useful apparatus for and method of providing a mechanism for achieving coexistence between a Bluetooth system and WLAN system collocated in the same communications device such as a mobile terminal. The coexistence mechanism of the present invention functions to monitor WLAN and Bluetooth system activity, determine the access priority of both WLAN and Bluetooth systems, predict Bluetooth high priority packet transmission patterns, allocate bandwidth to both the Bluetooth and WLAN systems in accordance with the traffic patterns predicted, and switch the antenna and control the Bluetooth and WLAN power amplifiers when required.
Claims8
A method of coexistence in a communications device incorporating a wireless local area network (WLAN) system and a Bluetooth system that share a single antenna, said method comprising the steps of:
- monitoring activity of said WLAN system and said Bluetooth system within said device;
- determining access priority of said WLAN system and said Bluetooth system;
- predicting high priority (HP) patterns of said Bluetooth system;
- allocating bandwidth of said device in accordance with said predictions;
- and
- switching said single antenna between said WLAN system and said Bluetooth system in accordance with said bandwidth allocation.
A coexistence communications device, comprising:
- a wireless local area network (WLAN) system;
- a Bluetooth system adapted to share a single antenna with said WLAN system;
- a Bluetooth prediction machine for predicting Bluetooth high priority transmission periods;
- and
- a decision generator for receiving requests from said Bluetooth system and said WLAN system and to allocate bandwidth to said WLAN system between Bluetooth high priority transmissions, wherein said allocation is made in accordance with the output of said Bluetooth prediction machine.
A coexistence communications device, comprising:
- a wireless local area network (WLAN) system;
- a Bluetooth system adapted to share a single antenna with said WLAN system;
- a Bluetooth prediction machine for detecting Bluetooth high priority transmission periods, wherein said Bluetooth prediction machine comprises means for predicting high priority patterns of Bluetooth transmissions by detecting differences between Bluetooth high priority transmission durations;
- and
- a decision generator for receiving requests from said Bluetooth system and said WLAN system and to allocate bandwidth therebetween in accordance with the output of said Bluetooth prediction machine.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.