Multiplex communications – Communication over free space – Combining or distributing information via time channels
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-29
2004-01-27
Olms, Douglas (Department: 2661)
Multiplex communications
Communication over free space
Combining or distributing information via time channels
C370S465000, C370S338000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06683866
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for efficiently synchronizing MAC and physical communication protocol layers of a wireless communication system.
2. Description of related Art
As described in the commonly assigned related co-pending application No. Ser. 08/974,376, a wireless communication system facilitates two-way communication between a plurality of subscriber radio stations or subscriber units (fixed and portable) and a fixed network infrastructure. Exemplary communication systems include mobile cellular telephone systems, personal communication systems (PCS), and cordless telephones. The key objective of these wireless communication systems is to provide communication channels on demand between the plurality of subscriber units and their respective base stations in order to connect a subscriber unit user with the fixed network infrastructure (usually a wire-line system). In the wireless systems having multiple access schemes a time “frame” is used as the basic information transmission unit. Each frame is sub-divided into a plurality of time slots. Some time slots are used for control purposes and some for information transfer. Subscriber units typically communicate with a selected base station using a “duplexing” scheme thus allowing for the exchange of information in both directions of connection.
Transmissions from the base station to the subscriber unit are commonly referred to as “downlink” transmissions. Transmissions from the subscriber unit to the base station are commonly referred to as “uplink” transmissions. Depending upon the design criteria of a given system, the prior art wireless communication systems have typically used either time division duplexing (TDD) or frequency division duplexing (FDD) methods to facilitate the exchange of information between the base station and the subscriber units. Both the TDD and FDD duplexing schemes are well known in the art.
Recently, wideband or “broadband” wireless communications networks have been proposed for delivery of enhanced broadband services such as voice, data and video. The broadband wireless communication system facilitates two-way communication between a plurality of base stations and a plurality of fixed subscriber stations or Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). One exemplary broadband wireless communication system is described in the co-pending application Ser. No. 08/974,376 and is shown in the block diagram of FIG.
1
. As shown in
FIG. 1
, the exemplary broadband wireless communication system
100
includes a plurality of cells
102
. Each cell
102
contains an associated cell site
104
that primarily includes a base station
106
and an active antenna array
108
. Each cell
102
provides wireless connectivity between the cell's base station
106
and a plurality of customer premises equipment (CPE)
110
positioned at fixed customer sites
112
throughout the coverage area of the cell
102
. The users of the system
100
may include both residential and business customers. Consequently, the users of the system have different and varying usage and bandwidth requirement needs. Each cell may service several hundred or more residential and business CPEs.
The broadband wireless communication system
100
of
FIG. 1
provides true “bandwidth-on-demand” to the plurality of CPEs
110
. CPEs
110
request bandwidth allocations from their respective base stations
106
based upon the type and quality of services requested by the customers served by the CPEs. Different broadband services have different bandwidth and latency requirements. The type and quality of services available to the customers are variable and selectable. The amount of bandwidth dedicated to a given service is determined by the information rate and the quality of service required by that service (and also taking into account bandwidth availability and other system parameters). For example, T
1
-type continuous data services typically require a great deal of bandwidth having well-controlled delivery latency. Until terminated, these services require constant bandwidth allocation for each frame. In contrast, certain types of data services such as Internet protocol data services (TCP/IP) are bursty, often idle (which at any one instant may require zero bandwidth), and are relatively insensitive to delay variations when active. The base station media access control (“MAC”) allocates available bandwidth on a physical channel on the uplink and the downlink. Within the uplink and downlink sub-frames, the base station MAC allocates the available bandwidth between the various services depending upon the priorities and rules imposed by their quality of service (“QoS”). The MAC transports data between a MAC “layer” (information higher layers such as TCP/IP) and a “physical layer” (information on the physical channel).
Due to the wide variety of CPE service requirements, and due to the large number of CPEs serviced by any one base station, the bandwidth allocation process in a broadband wireless communication system such as that shown in
FIG. 1
can become burdensome and complex. This is especially true with regard to rapidly transporting data while maintaining synchronization between the MAC and physical communication protocol layers. Base stations transport many different data types (e.g. T
1
and TCP/IP) between the MAC and physical layers through the use of data protocols. One objective of a communication protocol is to efficiently transport data between the MAC and physical layers. A communication protocol must balance the need for transmitting data at maximum bandwidth at any given time against the need for maintaining synchronization between the MAC and physical layers when the data is lost during transportation.
Prior art communication protocols have been proposed for transporting data in a wireless communication system. One prior art communication protocol teaches a system for transporting MAC messages to the physical layer using variable length data packets comprising headers and payloads. A payload contains data for a MAC message data type (e.g., T
1
and TCP/IP). In the prior art, a header starts at a physical layer boundary and provides the wireless communication system with information such as the length of the payload and the location of the next data packet. Typically, the communication protocol provides adequate bandwidth usage via the variable length data packets. However, this type of protocol provides poor synchronization between the MAC and physical layers because when the system loses a header the protocol overlooks all of the subsequent data until it finds the next header at the beginning of the physical layer boundary. The system then begins using data from that physical layer boundary. Thus, the variable length data packet protocol loses a relatively large amount of received data (i.e., the data received between the lost header and the next physical boundary). It is therefore an inefficient communication protocol for use in a wireless communication system.
Another prior art protocol teaches a system for transporting MAC messages using fixed length data packets. In accordance with these systems, a message always begins at a fixed position relative to the other messages. When the system loses a part of a message, the protocol only loses that one message because it can find the next message at the next fixed position. Thus, the fixed length data packet protocol provides adequate MAC to physical layer synchronization. However, the fixed length data packet protocol provides poor bandwidth usage because a fixed length data packet must be sufficiently large to accommodate the largest message from any given data type. As most messages are much smaller than the largest message, the fixed length packet protocol typically wastes a large amount of bandwidth on a regular basis.
Therefore, a need exists for a data transportation and synchronization method and apparatus for efficiently transporting data between th
Behar Jacques
Samad, Jr. Gary Lee
Stanwood Kenneth L.
Ensemble Communications Inc.
Jaquez Martin J.
Jaquez & Associates
Olms Douglas
Wilson Robert W.
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