Motorola Corporation

Motorola Mobility LLC

Matthew R Perkins

Neal K Patwari

Robert J O'Dea

Vernon Anthony Allen

Yan Huang

Jian C Huang

Lance Eric Hester

Priscilla L Chen

Juan Carlos Palacios

Tzer-Hso Lin

Robert E Stengel

Edgar Herbert Callaway, Jr

Mark J Johnson

Qicai Shi

Spyros Kyperountas

Jisun Lee

Neiyer S Correal

Yoonmee Doh

Noseong Park

Hyunhak Kim

Monique J Bourgeois

Zhiying Yao

Padmaja Ramadas

A method and apparatus for address assignment and node scheduling within an ad-hoc communication system is provided herein. During operation a personal area network coordinator (PANC) () will divide a superframe () into a plurality of slots, assigning each sub-tree under the PANC's direct child node to each slot for communication with the PANC. Each sub-tree coordinator will be assigned a same logical address by the PANC. As a result, a sub-tree coordinator synchronizes to the PANC node in only one subsuperframe slot assigned by the PANC with different sub-tree coordinators synchronizing to the PANC in different slots.

Node scheduling and address assignment within an ad-hoc communication system

A method and apparatus for providing quality of service over a contention access period of a wireless personal area network is provided herein. Particularly, the layers above the MAC are allowed to reserve portions of a contention access period (CAP) in order to schedule their QoS actions cooperatively thereby avoiding the dependence on the MAC for QoS performance. By using cooperative scheduling, a node can send a QoS packet from the QoS_Layer to the MAC, and know that it will be transmitted according to the specified QoS requirement. As a result, whenever a node sends a QoS packet in the reserved portion of the CAP, the channel will be guaranteed to be free from competing nodes' packets because those competing nodes will delay their transmissions based on the shared schedule.

Method and apparatus for providing quality of service over a contention access period of a wireless personal area network

A communications network () has coordinator devices () each transmitting a beacon message in a cluster area (). Neighboring coordinator devices () define overlap areas () in which each beacon message of the neighboring coordinator devices is present. Neighboring coordinator devices () may also define non-overlap areas () in which each beacon message is present. A method for distributing communication signals includes providing nodes (), () within a transmission region () of the coordinator devices (). The node () or nodes () detect at least one beacon message of the neighboring coordinator devices (), determine the existence of a condition (), and warn neighboring coordinator devices of the condition. The condition () is corrected by making an adjustment to the communication signal (such as beacon timing) by a correction amount ().

Method and device for distributing communication signals

A method and apparatus for message flooding is provided that takes advantage of the availability of node locations. The transmission of a flood message by a node is based on location information of neighboring nodes. In particular, each node within the communication system will delay retransmission of flood messages by a predetermined amount of time. If, during this delay, a node hears the flood message from a neighboring node (home flooding) or another node (neighborhood flooding), it then cancels transmission of the flood message.

Method and apparatus for message flooding within a communication system

An adaptive channel access scheme allows for statistics that are collected to be used to group radio users into subgroups according to the desired statistic. The subgroups then utilize channels, separated by time or frequency, to access the communication system (). The sub-grouping of the radio users is designed to help minimize the chances of channel-access collisions from occurring.

Adaptive channel access scheme

A system and method for inferring an electronic rendering () of an environment () comprises a plurality of devices (and), and a processing device. Each wireless device is capable of determining a distance between a neighboring wireless device. Moreover, each device is capable of performing at least one of the following: determining an environmental attribute of the environment, and determining a location of an object in the environment. The processing device gathers information determined from the plurality of devices and infers the electronic rendering of the environment based on the information gathered.

System and method for inferring an electronic rendering of an environment

In order to discover neighboring nodes () within a particular piconet, a first node () determines a list of all nodes () within its piconet () and then transmits to each node within the piconet, a message requiring a response. Depending upon which nodes are heard from, a list is formulated by the first node comprising those nodes neighboring the first node. In order for neighboring nodes within other piconets to 'discover' the first node, the first node will also scan its environment to determine piconet identifications for other piconets, and then broadcast a 'discovery' message having a piconet identification of a neighboring piconet. In a similar manner, the first node will also scan its environment to determine discovery messages transmitted by other nodes, thus determining neighboring nodes outside its piconet.

Method and apparatus for discovering neighbors within a piconet communication system

An optically based location system and method of determining a location at a structure include a lighting infrastructure having lights at a structure. Each light is configured to illuminate and to transmit a respective relative or absolute terrestrial position through modulation of emitted light. An optical receiver is configured to detect the lights, to demodulate the position of detected lights, and to determine from the detection a position of the receiver. The receiver can have a conventional optical detector for determining a two-dimensional position of the receiver relative to a detected light, or can have a three-dimensional spot collimating lens and charged couple device optical detector for determining a three-dimensional position of the receiver relative to a detected light. The receiver and lights can be synchronized for converting a delay time into a distance measurement to calculate a distance between a light and the receiver.

Optically-based location system and method for determining a location at a structure

A device for detecting the direction of a light source. The device has a pin-hole lens that allows a collimated light beam to excite a light sensing surface behind the lens. The output from the light sensing surface is passed to a processor that determines the position of the surface that has been excited and the direction of the light source. When the position of one or more light sources is known, the device may further determine its own position. The devices may be used in a location system to provide known reference points to a network of other devices. The light sources may be modulated, in which the device can select or identify a particular light source based upon its modulation pattern.

Two-dimensional angle of arrival detection device

A method is provided for estimating relative location information for wireless devices. Individual estimates are obtained from two or more alternative means that determining the relative location, such as range information, of first and second wireless devices with respect to each other ( ). At least one of these estimates involves an estimate of relative location between one of the first and second devices and a third device. These estimates are combined to provide a new estimate that is statistically more accurate than any one of the individual estimates ( ).

Method for determining location information

A technique for intra-piconet location determination and tomography is described. This technique uses received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values in conjunction with transmitted power levels to determine the relative location of each device within a small network employing frequency hopped spread spectrum transmission. In addition to the location determination properties of the invention, the geometry of the devices in the network, as well as the path loss information between pairs of devices, may be used to infer the location of absorbers and reflectors within the piconet. This absorption and reflection information may be used in creating the piconet tomography. The approach described in this specification may be applied in conjunction with the Bluetooth wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) specification to determine device locations, mitigate the effects of multi-path, and perform indoor location and security functions, and other application functions requiring cost-effective location determination.

Intra-piconet location determination and tomography

A contention resolution method includes the steps of determining a contention has occurred and requesting contention resolution from radios in the system ( ). Radios in the system receive the request and do not transmit in the next control frame ( ). Group leader radios ( and ) transmit the identification code they were able to demodulate in the previous frame to the master radio ( ). The master radio ( ) receives the information from the group leaders and transmits a control-channel access message to one of the contending radios ( ).

Neighbor-assisted contention resolution for multi-user communication

An interference-robust coded-modulation scheme for optical communications and a method for modulating illumination for optical communications include optical signal transmitters connected to signal multipliers. The signal to be transmitted is multiplied by a pseudo-random noise code and transmitted within the transmitter emissions. A receiver converts the received modulated light and correlates the received signal. An estimate of the signal to be transmitted is made by multiplying the received signal by the noise code and correlating such multiplication over the length of the code. A threshold switch outputs the correlation result to a bit estimator approximately when a deterministic peak of the output signal exceeds a threshold.

Interference-robust coded-modulation scheme for optical communications and method for modulating illumination for optical communications

A system for locating a number of devices ( ) by measuring signals transmitted between known location devices ( ) and unknown location devices ( ), and signals transmitted between pairs of unknown location devices ( ), entering signal measurements into a graph function that includes a number of first sub-expressions, a number of which include signal measurement prediction sub-expressions, and have extrema when a predicted signal measurement is equal to an actual signal measurement, and optimizing the graph function.

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Sunrise, FL, United States of America

Matthew R Perkins