Frame-based, on-demand spectrum contention source resolution
AssigneeSTMicroelectronics S.r.l.
InventorWendong Hu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and system by which a base station in a Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN), and more generally a transceiver in a cognitive radio (CR) system, can communicate with other transceivers to fairly share transmission and reception of scheduled use (“occupancy”) of frames on a single channel within a frame-based, on demand spectrum contention system. The method and system disclose how the base station can initiate contentions for an increased share of the frames available in the following superframe of the CR system. The method and system assure fair and efficient access to the transmission channel by a random number based contention process.
Claims18
A method for use in operating a cognitive radio (CR) communication network, the method comprising:
- operating the CR communication network using synchronized frames and superframes to provide communication services within cells of base stations of the CR communication network;
- operating a communication link between the base stations;
- maintaining a schedule of assignments (SchAs) of frames, within a channel, to the base stations, wherein each frame is assigned to at most one base station for exclusive use for the communication services by the base stations;
- communicating the SchAs between base stations on the communication link;
- and
- using a frame contention among a plurality of contending base stations to share use of a single channel by assigning individual frames to base stations for scheduled sole use for communication services;
- wherein the frame contention comprises making assignments, in the SchAs, of individual frames of subsequent superframes of the single channel among the plurality of contending base stations by comparing spectrum contention numbers (SCNs) which are randomly chosen from a finite set of numbers in which each number is equally likely;
- and
- wherein the frame contention further comprises a source resolution by which a base station which does not have scheduled use of a set of assigned frames in a subsequent superframe can contend to obtain the scheduled use of some or all of the frames in the set.
A system for a cognitive radio (CR) communication network, the system comprising:
- a plurality of base station transceivers each serving as a point in a point-to-multipoint architecture, communicating on a communication link between base stations, using synchronized frames and superframes to provide communication services within cells of base stations, wherein there is a beacon window in each frame;
- wherein the system maintains a schedule of assignments (SchAs) of frames within a channel to the base stations, wherein each frame is assigned to at most one base station for exclusive use for communication services by the base station;
- wherein the system communicates the SchAs between the base stations on the communication link;
- wherein the system operates a frame contention among a plurality of contending base stations to share use of a single channel by assigning frames for exclusive communication services to base stations;
- wherein the frame contention comprises making assignments in the SchAs of individual frames of subsequent superframes of the single channel among the plurality of contending base stations by comparing spectrum contention numbers (SCNs) which are randomly chosen from a finite set of numbers in which each number is equally likely;
- and
- wherein the frame contention further comprises a source resolution by which a base station which does not have scheduled use of a set of assigned frames in a subsequent superframe can contend to obtain the scheduled use of some or all of the frames in the set.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.