Fujitsu Corporation

Saied Abedi

Yassin Aden Awad

Hind Chebbo

A wireless sensor network of devices including a sensor and a coordinator:

Improvements to short-range wireless networks

A wireless network of devices comprising a relay start device, an intermediate device and a relay end device, information being communicated wirelessly in use between the relay start device and the relay end device via the intermediate device, wherein:

Short-range wireless networks

A method of allocating resources in a wireless sensor network, the network having functions including medical monitoring of a patient using multiple network devices having sensors, the method including steps of: sensing, by a network device in the network, a life parameter of the patient; recognizing the existence of an emergency condition with respect to the parameter; the network device sending a request for streaming towards a coordinator of the network; the coordinator receiving (S) the request along with any other requests from other devices in the network; and the coordinator granting (S, S) each the request by scheduling one of: a streaming allocation with highest priority for a network device which is in an emergency condition; a streaming allocation of medium priority for a network device sensing a life parameter which is not in an emergency condition; and a streaming allocation of lowest priority for a network device which is not sensing any life parameter of the patient and which is not in an emergency condition. The emergency condition may be defined with respect to one or more medical parameters of the patient. The method may be applied, for example, to monitoring of patients in a hospital using MBANs operating in accordance with IEEE 802.15.6.

Improvements wireless sensor networks

In a wireless sensor network having a plurality of mobile sensor nodes (), a sink () is provided and re-positioned as required by assigning the role of sink to one of the mobile sensors at a time. Re-positioning involves finding candidate sinks in the vicinity of a current sink, a temporary sink or a central candidate in the network; judging the suitability of each candidate, for example by estimating the data throughput likely to be achieved if each candidate is selected as the new sink; and transferring the role of sink to the best candidate found. The temporary sink or central candidate may be selected with the aid of a positioning system () of the network. Suitability of a candidate sink may take into account a desired transmission rate of each sensor node in the vicinity of a candidate, this desired rate being found from a 3-D look-up table of each sensor.

Method and wireless sensor networks

A method of controlling spectrum use in a first wireless communications system which is operable to take part in a spectrum assignment process involving a plurality of wireless communications systems including the first wireless communications system, in which spectrum assignment process one of the said wireless communications systems assigns a portion of spectrum to at least one of the other said wireless communications systems. The method comprising effecting an instance of the spectrum assignment process in response to a trigger which is based on network conditions.

Communications systems

A communication method in a wireless sensor system of networks served by a first non-beacon mode coordinator and a second beacon-mode coordinator, initially, placing all network devices in a first network of the first coordinator; monitoring a parameter of each entity by sensors of the network devices; transmitting sensor data from the network devices in the first network to the first coordinator; detecting an emergency state with respect by using the monitored parameters; in response to detection of the state, handing over the network devices to the second network; transmitting sensor data from the network devices in the second network to the second coordinator; and in response to detection of the emergency state, handing over the associated network devices to the first network.

Improvements to body area networks

The invention relates to a wireless network of devices including a network device and a coordinator; the coordinator comprising transmission and reception means for wireless communication; and the network device comprising transmission means and reception means for wireless communication; and control means operable to selectively cause the device to communicate according to two different channel access schemes, a higher throughput scheme and a lower throughput scheme; wherein a trigger is provided in the network for a switch from the lower throughput scheme to the higher throughput scheme, wherein the trigger is determined taking into account the network device's transmission requirements. The transmission requirements may be based on a network according to the present invention, wherein the transmission requirements are defined based on one or more of the following factors: data waiting in the network device's buffer, emergency status of a device, urgency status of a device and battery level.

A sensor for use in a wireless sensor network of devices, comprising:

Short range wireless networks

A method of operating a wireless sensor network having a plurality of network devices including sensors (E,) for monitoring a plurality of parameters, and a coordinator () for communicating with the network devices either directly in a star protocol or indirectly in a peer-to-peer protocol, the method comprising: arranging the coordinator () for communication over a low-priority link with at least a subset of the network devices; gathering sensor data by sensors of the network devices and transferring the data to the coordinator; detecting existence of an emergency state with respect to at least one of the network devices (E); and establishing a high-priority link with the devices (E) in the emergency state, the high-priority link having higher priority for network resources than the low-priority link. The method may be applied, for example, to monitoring of patients in a hospital using MBANs operating in accordance with IEEE 802.15.6.

A method of reducing interference in a first wireless communications system, the first wireless communications system being operable in use to take part in a spectrum assignment process involving at least a second wireless communications system, the method comprising defining an exclusion zone in proximity to the first wireless communications system, the exclusion zone indicating that any mobile communications apparatus located within the exclusion zone is not permitted to communicate with the second wireless communications system using a portion of spectrum which was pre-assigned to the first wireless communications system and which is currently re-assigned to the second wireless communications system as part of the spectrum assignment process; and varying the local size of a part only of the exclusion zone in dependence on a level of interference inflicted on the first wireless communications system.

Communications system and method for determining an exclusion zone in proximity to a wireless communications system

A method of controlling spectrum use in a first wireless communications system, the first wireless communications system being operable to take part in a spectrum assignment process involving at least the first wireless communications system and one or more other wireless communications systems, the method comprising in a single instance of the spectrum assignment process, exchanging a first portion of spectrum for a second, different portion of spectrum, by assigning the first portion of spectrum from the first wireless communications system to the one or more other wireless communications systems and accepting the assignment of the second portion of spectrum from the one or more other wireless communications systems to the first wireless communications system.

A spectrum-assignment method for use in a wireless communication system, the system comprising at least first and second communication apparatuses each having a portion of communication spectrum pre-assigned to it for communication, the method comprising: on a dynamic basis, controlling re-assignments of said spectrum between the first and second communication apparatuses in dependence upon spectrum requirements of those apparatuses and at least one indicator indicative of interference expected to result from such re-assignments, so as to tend to improve spectrum utilization between the first and second communication apparatuses.

Communication systems

Controlling spectrum use in a first wireless communications system which takes part in a spectrum assignment process, in which one of the first wireless communications system and a second wireless communications system assigns a portion of spectrum to the other of the first and second wireless communications system. The first wireless communications system includes a plurality of network elements some or all located within a cell associated with a particular network element of the second wireless communications system. The controlling includes coordinating network elements of the first wireless communications system to identify a portion of spectrum which is either available for assignment from the network elements of the first wireless communications system to the particular network element of the second wireless communications system, or required to be assigned from the particular network element of the second wireless communications system to the network elements of the first wireless communications system.

Method and apparatus for performing dynamic shared spectrum allocation between two overlapping wireless communication systems

A wireless sensor network having mobile sensors () is provided with a mobile sink (). To re-position the sink, candidate sink positions are found using information from the sensors. The candidate sink locations are then assessed to give a measure of their suitability to act as the new permanent position. To do this, the sink moves to each of the candidate positions in turn and obtains data and/or signals from the sensors () within range to estimate a total throughput expected if the sink is located at that position. The sink then transfers to the most suitable candidate position permanently, until the dynamic repositioning process is triggered again. In this way it is possible to achieve a better performance than if only the center of gravity of the sink range is taken into account to position the sink. In the second embodiment, sensors are allowed to have their say in future positioning of the sink; this involves providing a capability for the sensor that makes it possible to consider both distance from the sink and the remaining battery power to come up with the best desired maximum information rate. In effect, the sensors and sink make a collective decision on the future location of the sink.

Wireless sensor networks

A method of scheduling uplink transmissions from a plurality of source user equipments to a base station is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of determining the amount of data in the data buffer of each of the user equipments, comparing the amount of data in the data buffers of the user equipments to obtain, for each user equipment, a relative indicator, the relative indicator indicating how full that user equipment's data buffer is in comparison to the data buffers of the other user equipments, and scheduling uplink transmissions in dependence on the relative indicators. In this way, each user equipment is given some knowledge of the state of the buffer in the other user equipments. The user equipments are therefore able to make more efficient scheduling decisions. This can improve the throughput and give lower packet delivery delays.

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Reading, United Kingdom

Saied Abedi