Tiered contention multiple access (TCMA): a method for priority-based shared channel access
US7095754B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 2, 2001 |
| Grant date | Aug 22, 2006 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 3, 2023 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04W84/12
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Quality of Service (QoS) support is provided by means of a Tiered Contention Multiple Access (TCMA) distributed medium access protocol that schedules transmission of different types of traffic based on their service quality specifications. In one embodiment, a wireless station is supplied with data from a source having a lower QoS priority QoS(A), such as file transfer data. Another wireless station is supplied with data from a source having a higher QoS priority QoS(B), such as voice and video data. Each wireless station can determine the urgency class of its pending packets according to a scheduling algorithm. For example file transfer data is assigned lower urgency class and voice and video data is assigned higher urgency class. There are several urgency classes which indicate the desired ordering. Pending packets in a given urgency class are transmitted before transmitting packets of a lower urgency class by relying on class-differentiated urgency arbitration times (UATs), which are the idle time intervals required before the random backoff counter is decreased. In another embodiment packets are reclassified in real time with a scheduling algorithm that adjusts the class assign…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.