KR100769610B1 - Mobile communication device, and communication system and method using the mobile communication device - Google Patents

Abstract

The communication system includes at least one first portable communication device 12 capable of wireless message transmission and at least one second portable communication device 10 capable of receiving such message transmission. The first device 12 is arranged to broadcast a series of inquiry messages 60 each in the form of a plurality of predetermined data fields INQ arranged in accordance with a first communication protocol such as Bluetooth. To send additional data via broadcast, the first device 12 adds an additional data field (BCD) carrying the broadcast data to each inquiry message before transmission, and the second portable device 10 sends the transmitted inquiry message. Receive and read broadcast data from the additional data field.

Description

MOBILE COMMUNICATION DEVICE, AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD USING THE MOBILE COMMUNICATION DEVICE}

The present invention relates in particular to services provided to users of, but not limited to, mobile communication devices such as portable telephones and suitably equipped PDAs (personal digital assistant terminals). The invention further relates to a means for use in the transmission of such a service and a device for receiving the service.

Subscribers in mobile telephony networks have increased worldwide in recent years, and because of advances in technology and the addition of features, cellular phones have become a trusted personal device. As a result, a mobile information society is developing in which personalized and localized services are becoming increasingly important. Such "Context-Aware" mobile phones are being used with low power, short range base stations to provide location-specific information in places such as shopping malls. This information may include local maps, information about nearby shops and restaurants, and the like. The user's CA terminal may be equipped to filter the received information according to pre-stored user preferences, the user being alerted only when a particular item of interest data is received.

An example of a CA terminal is given in US Pat. No. 5,835,861, which discloses the use of a wireless telephone in the context of an advertising bulletin board. The user of the wireless telephone sends a prompt signal to the active advertisement source by operating his wireless telephone and receives a response signal containing the advertising vendor's telephone number from the advertising source. Get your vendor's phone number. This telephone number can then be used to automatically call the vendor through a public switched telephone network. Optionally, this phone number can then be stored for use. This arrangement can be used to call a vendor without having to remember or record the telephone number. The signal between the bulletin board and the caller may be transmitted as a modulated infrared (IR) signal.

Many services and applications proposed for CA systems benefit from real broadcast mode, which does not require mobile terminals to connect to the wireless network. MIT's Media Lab is a wearer based on i.r. When in range and in view, we have proposed 'meme badges' or 'Thinking Tags' that can allow a wearer to replace a simple text message or quote. Other similar concepts, such as "hot badges," are described, for example, by Philips Design in 1996, "The Future Prospect" (http://www.design.philips.com/vof/). Wherein a personal device broadcasts profile information about the user of the device to a local area, which can be picked up by another neighboring participant for a correlated personal match. In addition, short-range r.f devices ("Lovegety") became popular in 1998 to promote "blind dates" among teenagers in Japan. A user of Love Getty can set one of three pre-assigned signals and be alerted both acoustically and visually when another Love Getty owner was in range, where the users who meet (This setting may be different, for example to find a date).

For these devices and concepts, the authors, personal and social, can be facilitated by increased electronic communication of the user to personalities, interests, moods, skills or resources. The scope of the application is articulated. Lovegetty's pandemic is based on this short-range r.f. It represents the latent popularity of the device. In professional settings such as large commercial shows, such 'ice-breaker' devices can attract people with complementary business interests or in the form of electronic business card exchanges. Can be used.

Commercial devices such as the above devices are limited in their penetration into the market, while mobile phones are rapidly becoming commonplace. One possible solution to the problem of establishing a broadcast mode for CA applications, with the Bluetooth communication protocol predicted to be a common technology in mobile communication devices, is to implement the full current Bluetooth handshaking process. It may be to establish a two-way Bluetooth connection for data exchange between mobiles performed by agreeing to a user selecting such a service. In the context of a mobile user encountering a fixed beacon, as described in co-pending British patent application number 0015454.2 (this application claims priority from this application, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference). However, the current Bluetooth connection protocol has the following disadvantages:

The time to establish a connection before any data is replaced (10-30 seconds, by which time the other party may be out of range r.f.);

Power consumption for hand shaking transmission for a listening device to establish a network connection;

A limit on the number of active listening devices that can be addressed by the broadcast device (seven in the piconet are active);

Loss of privacy by the listening device when the device's id. Is made known by the broadcast device in the process of establishing a connection. In many appropriate situations, the listener of a broadcast wants to keep his identity and location anonymous and private. This is a major disadvantage.

Another possible solution for these CA applications is to provide a central service that registers these mobile users adjacent to a fixed infrastructure and alerts the user via a matching Bluetooth or cellular network, for example by comparing web stored user profiles. It may be via. However, it also has some of the above drawbacks (especially privacy) and, in addition, the user's location search in addition to the special encounter r.f. Restrict to a predetermined location where beacons are installed.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a means by which users of portable communication devices can broadcast information to each other without requiring dedicated hardware or a fixed infrastructure.

According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a communication system comprising at least one first portable device capable of wireless message transmission and at least one second portable device capable of receiving such message transmission, wherein The at least one first portable device is arranged to broadcast a series of inquiry messages each in the form of a plurality of predetermined data fields arranged in accordance with the first communication protocol, wherein the at least one first portable device is configured to It is further arranged to add an additional data field to the inquiry message, wherein the at least one second portable device is arranged to receive the transmitted inquiry message and to read data from the additional data field. By adding a broadcast messaging structure to the inquiry step, a message can be sent from one user to another (or many other users) without the need to connect a user device for transmission or reception to the piconet.

In such a system, at least one first portable device may be arranged to add the additional data field to the end of each inquiry message and / or at least one first portable device is configured to add a data field of one of the predetermined data fields. May be arranged to include an indication indicating the presence of said additional data field.

Although not essential, suitably, the first communication protocol mentioned above includes Bluetooth messaging, and the at least one first portable device is optionally configured to broadcast a series of inquiry messages on a predetermined clock continuous frequency, Clock information for the first portable device is included in the data carried in the additional data field. As will be described later, the additional data field may be any given size, at least 64 bits of data in several bits, and optionally more bit data.

In order for the portable device to filter out unwanted messages in such a system, the at least one first portable device may be arranged to include the first comparison data in the message, wherein the at least one second portable device is configured to include the second comparison data. A comparator means arranged to identify when there is a match between the first and second comparison data and to provide data read from the additional data field and to arrange to provide no data if it does not match. It may further include. The system may further comprise means for generating such second comparison data from user profiling of the user of the second portable device.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a mobile communication device for use as the first portable device in the above-mentioned system, each device in the form of a plurality of predetermined data fields arranged according to the first communication protocol. And a communication component arranged to add the additional data field to each inquiry message prior to transmission and to enable wireless inquiry message transmission.

In addition, according to the present invention, there is provided a mobile communication device for use as the second portable device in the above-mentioned system, which device may receive a short range wireless inquiry message comprising a plurality of data fields according to a first communication protocol. And means for determining when additional data fields have been added to the plurality of data fields, and means for reading data from the additional data fields and providing the data to a user.

Although not essential, preferably, the portable communication device implementing the present invention is configured to receive and / or transmit a message according to the Bluetooth protocol, which has the technical features of both the above mentioned first and second portable devices. Such portable communication device is control operable to switch between an operation and / or user-operable means for selecting an operation as the first or second portable device and / or when the first and second portable devices can be provided. Means may further comprise. In order to avoid a synchronization problem, as described later, the control means are suitably operable to switch between operation as the first or second portable device at pseudo-random intervals.

According to another invention, a method is provided for enabling a user of a first portable communication device to broadcast a message to a user of another portable communication device, wherein the first portable communication device is in accordance with a first communication protocol. Broadcasting a series of inquiry messages each in the form of an arranged predetermined plurality of data fields, wherein the first portable communication device adds to each inquiry message an additional data field carrying the broadcast message data prior to transmission, whereby The other portable device receives the sent inquiry message and can read broadcast data from the additional data field.

In the method, the first portable communication device may appropriately add the additional data field at the end of each inquiry message and / or the first portable communication device may add the additional data to one data field of the predetermined data field. It may include an indication of the presence of a field.

According to another embodiment of the invention, there is provided a communication system comprising at least one portable device capable of wireless message transmission and at least one fixed receiver device capable of receiving said message transmission, wherein at least One portable device is arranged to broadcast a series of inquiry messages each in the form of a plurality of predetermined data fields arranged in accordance with the first communication protocol, wherein at least one portable device has additional data in each inquiry message before transmission. It is further arranged to add a field, wherein at least one fixed receiver device is arranged to receive a transmitted inquiry message and to read data from said additional data field. Accordingly, it will be appreciated and understood that it is not a requirement for the message receiving side to be a portable device to comply with the present invention.

Preferred embodiments of the invention are now described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a simplified schematic diagram of a pair of portable devices illustrating a data flow.

2 is a block schematic diagram of a pair of portable devices and beacons implementing the present invention.

3 is a simplified diagram of a series of devices in a linked beacon infrastructure.

4 is a chart showing part of the transmission of a train of inquiry access codes centered on a given frequency.

5 shows the alternation between trains of an inquiry message over the duration of an inquiry broadcast.

6 illustrates the insertion of broadcast data packets within an existing transmission slot.

7 illustrates a first arrangement for transmitting clock data in the order of an inquiry message train.

8 illustrates an arrangement different from that of FIG. 7 for transmitting clock data.

In the following detailed description, a CA application using a Bluetooth protocol for transferring messages from a beacon to a portable device (phone, PDA, or the like), and in particular from a portable device to a beacon, and from one portable device to another, is described. Special consideration. As can be appreciated, the general inventive concept of including a broadcast channel as part of an inquiry procedure is not limited to Bluetooth devices and is applicable to other communication arrangements, in particular frequency hopping systems.

The solution is to use the basic 'data broadcast over inquiry phase' proposal where the mobile device is now a broadcaster. This method solves the limitations of full Bluetooth handshaking to establish a Bluetooth connection as described above, allowing any number of listening devices in a complex venue to listen to listeners' anonymity. ) To receive broadcast data from a broadcast user.

The inventor can expect a gross transmission rate of about 64K bytes per cycle for broadcast on inquiry. If the master performs continuous lookup cycles (ie, only broadcasts and does not set up the piconet at all), we have a total bit rate of 50k bits / second. This data rate is a broadcast message that can be tagged with a classification type to assist the user in so-called XML type profile descriptions in standardized formats such as the W3C proposal for Profile Data Format (OPS) or filtering by different listening devices. Makes it easy to broadcast around them. Optionally, when looking for a musical mood or voice stream for a user or a business or leisure partner, that interest may be broadcast in a local manner by the user.

The listening device recognizes that there is broadcast data in the incoming inquiry packet, and needs to extract its type and its information (broadcast by the mobile user) in order to decode the broadcast media format. Incoming data tagged according to classifications such as 'sports interests' and 'gender' need to be matched once again to the listener profile seeking a match.

Since a mobile equipped with Bluetooth has only one radio broadcast, one important step is necessary, where the mobile can broadcast or listen to inquiry data but not both at the same time. In addition, if two mobiles are synchronized during reception / transmission (eg, both mobiles are received by an external trigger), the two mobiles will not be able to hear each other's broadcasts at all. The solution is to arrange the mobiles to alternately enter the broadcast mode and the listen mode, and arrange so that the start time is chosen randomly for each mobile during this cycle. The user can choose from three possible states for his mobile.

Broadcast only, not listening to other broadcasts

Listening state, no broadcasting at all

Cycles between broadcast and listening states

In a typical embodiment, a "hot-badge" type of social application is queried from a fixed Bluetooth device to include a one-way connectionless data broadcast from a mobile device carried by the user. Extends Applicant's technique of embedding broadcast data in a step signal. In addition, the portal matching process is preferably included on a mobile capable of filtering such mobile broadcasts or providing signals from other users. This filtering is easy to perform when the broadcast or provided signal is tagged according to some common classification scheme (e.g., in XML).

Bluetooth-equipped GSM or UMTS or other cellular phones are expected to be a common implementation platform for terminals in this application. However, there are clearly other platforms, for example conventional PDAs and even laptop personal computers, which are usually listed as possible mobile Bluetooth platforms.

The user can optionally select a predefined, data set for his local broadcast from his mobile, which can include a website or telephone number for other parties of interest for later contact. This data may be in the form of a coded emotion graphic icon, a compressed text message, a personal interest list, or a desired characteristic. For example, some data may contain a series of SMS messages, for example, 'Are there anybody who likes rock music?' Or 'Call me, I'm a low-cost computer provider', 'I'm a doctor', 'I'm a fan of Madonna', etc. can be decoded and displayed by the listening device.

A listening device, such as another user's Bluetooth-enabled mobile, needs to be able to detect a Bluetooth inquiry polling signal tagged as containing unidirectional broadcast data. At this time, these listening devices should be able to stay still without transmitting the Bluetooth response to the incoming inquiry signal. The incoming inquiry signal tagged as containing the data packet requires decoding by the listening device to extract, decode and interpret the interpolated broadcast data. Additional characteristics involving the content of the broadcast data, or metadata (such as, for example, XML descriptions), may be selectively compared and filtered with the listener's own interests or search profiles. The remaining broadcast in this filtering process can then alert on the listener's mobile as a visual, audio, or tactile signal (eg, vibration).

Thus, r.f. Any number of other users within range of the broadcast can decode the broadcast stream while still remaining anonymous. Thus, these users can be alerted to interesting social opportunities, and optionally track any connection pointer to a web URL or phone number that accompanies the broadcast, or to their own data (probably changed in response to received data). Version of data) can be broadcast in response.

A simplified data flow for this application is shown in FIG. 1, where the data flow begins with the microphone 100 of the portable transmission device 12 and is transmitted via the active terminal 102 and the codec 104 through a broadcast terminal ( Go to 106). From antenna 108, message 60 proceeds through antenna 110 to listening terminal 112 in portable receiving device 10. From the listening terminal 112, the audio message goes to the speaker 118 via the codec 114 and the digital-to-analog converter 116. The data message for display diverges from the output of the codec 114 to the display device 120. On each side, data storage devices 122 and 124 may be used to provide local storage of messages / data and the like.

There may be many possible variations on this structure, including the use of preset messages, sampled words or messages synthesized from other alloys, speech synthesis. It may also be convenient to store messages in coded form to save memory. Other arrangements are possible.

At the broadcast terminal, broadcast data must be packetized before being transmitted over the air. The personal broadcast data packet may include the following, non-exhaustive field list:

Header:

Protocol identifier ("personal broadcast audio")

Packet length indicator

Form of packet content data (icon, text, music, voice)

Metadata about the description or agreed classification structure

Codec type

Start / last / middle / whole packet                 

Number of packets

Main body:

Coded Content Data

2 is a simplified block diagram of a CA mobile phone 10 for use with another mobile device 12 and one or more low power short range base stations or beacons 14. As mentioned above and described in more detail below, such an arrangement may be used to provide location-specific information, such as local maps, information about nearby stores and restaurants, in places such as shopping malls, The beacon downloads the information key to the mobile device: it is added to the conversation between the mobile users 10, 12. An information key is a small data object that provides a reference to the source of all information, which is in the form of a number of predetermined fields, one of which is given to the user. May contain descriptive text short text. Another field may be some form of pointer, i.e. an address, for example a URL or a telephone number. Other supplementary fields can control how data is presented to the user and how the address can be used. Beacon 14 and / or mobile device 12 generally broadcast a number of these keys cyclically, each key typically associated with a different service or data item.

The CA terminal 10 of the user includes an antenna 16 connected to the transceiver stage 18 for receiving and transmitting messages. The outgoing message originates from a user input to the phone, ie audio input via microphone 20 and A / D converter 22 or other data input via keypad or other input means 24. These inputs are processed by the signal and data processing stage 26 into a message data format and converted by the encoder 28 into a transmission format before being fed to the transceiver stage 18.

Messages received via antenna 16 and transceiver 18 are transmitted to filtering and signal processing stage 32 via decoding stage 30. If the data carried in the message is for presentation on the phone's display screen 34, this data is optionally buffered 38 and then sent to the display driver 36, which formats the display image. . As can be appreciated, the display 34 may be a relatively simple low resolution device, and the conversion of received data into display data may be performed with a subset of the functionality of the processing stage 32 without the need for a dedicated display driver stage. have.

If this message carries data coming from one of the other users 12 or beacons 14 of the beacons, the phone has the ability to filter the received information according to the pre-stored 40 user preferences. This user is only alerted if the comparison of stored preference data with the subject matter indicator in the message indicates that a particular item of interest data has been received (ie, this information is only buffer 38). And / or given to screen 34}.

For a conventional audio message, the audio data is output by the filter and processing stage 32 to the earphone or speaker 46 through the D / A converter 42 and the amplifier 44. Receipt of such a message from telephone network 48 is indicated by arrow 50: Telephone network 48 also links from telephone 10 to Wide-Area Network (WAN) server 52 and; It provides a link to one or more remote service providers 56 that provide a data source for phone 10 via WAN 54 (which may be the Internet).

The communication between the receiving CA terminal {telephone 10} and the transmitter user station 12 (or beacon 14) takes two forms: 'push' and 'pull'. In the 'push' mode, the information is broadcast to all portable terminals 10 in the form of short 'keys', indicated by 60 by devices 12 and 14. The key may take many forms depending on the application but may generally include a concise description of the information being transmitted and a pointer to more full information identifying a service provider of one of the service providers 56, eg a URL.

The key is received by the terminal 10 'involuntarily', ie without direct intervention by the user, and automatically filtered according to the user's preset preferences. Some are discarded, some are kept for further study, others are immediately alerted by the user. By way of example, a store may choose to convey a description of a particular offer to a passing terminal, recognizing that a user who is interested and thus properly configured filter 32 has been alerted by his terminal.

Occasionally, a user may wish to obtain more information than is contained in a key. Here, the 'pull' mode allows the user to establish a connection with the server 56 (not necessarily configured specifically for use of the CA), and actively requests the terminal 10 for information to download. Thus this mode is typically interactive.

Base stations or beacons are typically independent of each other (in a shopping mall configuration, each store maintains its own beacon regardless of which one is provided by its neighboring store), while the beacons It may be networked in whole or in part with at least some adjustments. FIG. 3 is a diagram of such a system 200, consisting of linked beacons implementing the present invention, for example providing an implementation of an infrastructure for use in department stores, shopping malls, theme parks, and the like. The system 200 includes a plurality of beacons 202, 204, 206, 208 distributed over a series of locales. Each beacon 202-208 broadcasts one or more short range inquiry signals in a timeslot format described in more detail below. Beacons 202-208 are controlled by a Beacon Infrastructure server (BIS) 210, with one or more terminals 212, 214, 216, 218 connected to the server 210. . Terminals 212 through 218 may be in the form of data added by the service provider, i.e., users of beacons 202 through 208, to piggyback the inquiry promotion signal transmitted by the beacons 202 through 208. Allows you to create or edit assigned service slots. The service provider may lease one beacon or one of the beacons' service slots from the infrastructure provider. For this reason, server 210 provides a simple HTML template for filling by one of the terminals 212 through 218 by the user. For example, after data is populated with a detailed description of the service and other information to be delivered over the beacon broadcast, the template may be, for example, secure HTTP (S-HTTP) or secure sockets layer (SSL). Returning to server 210 is preferably via a secure link. SSL forms a secure link between the client and server, through which any amount of data can be transmitted securely. S-HTTP is designed to securely send individual messages. The server 210 then forms an appropriate additional data packet to append to the inquiry signal of the relevant one of the beacons 202-208 based on the information submitted in the template. System 200 may further include an application server 220 to assist in executing various functions as will be readily understood by a skilled reader.

Referring again to FIGS. 1 and 2, the strong candidate technique for the radio link required for at least the 'push' mode of the CA system described above is Bluetooth. When using the 'push' mode or analyzing the Bluetooth protocol for CA broadcast, there may be a problem. In an ideal case, the terminal 10 detects the transmitting mobile 12 or fixed beacon 14 and extracts basic information from the beacon without having the terminal 10 transmit. However, this type of broadcast operation is not supported by the current Bluetooth specification.

In part, incompatibility accompanies the frequency hopping characteristics of the Bluetooth beacon system, which means that the terminal must be synchronized with this beacon in both time and frequency in order for broadcast messages (or indeed any messages) to be received by a passing terminal. it means. The portable device 10 must synchronize its clock to the beacon clock (or transmit mobile device clock) and infer which of the several hopping sequences are being used from the beacons identity.

For this reasoning, conventionally, portable devices have been required to connect piconets-as slaves-managed by beacons as piconet masters. Two sets of procedures are used, "inquiry" and "page". The inquiry allows a candidate slave (a would-be slave) to find the base station and request to connect with the piconet. The page allows the base station to invite slaves of the base station selected to connect to the net. Analysis of these procedures indicates that it may take several tens of seconds to connect to a piconet and receive information from the master, which is too long for a CA application, where the user You can move out of range of the beacons before they are complete.

The Bluetooth inquiry procedure has been specifically proposed to solve the problem of connecting the master and the slave, and the Applicant has recognized that it is possible to piggy-back the broadcast channel through an inquiry message sent by the master. . Only the CA terminal needs to read the broadcast channel message and only the CA base station or beacon transmits the message. As a result, in the air interface, the mechanism is fully compatible with conventional (non-CA) Bluetooth systems.

To illustrate how this is implemented, consider first how the inquiry procedure works with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. When a Bluetooth unit wishes to discover another Bluetooth device, it enters a so-called inquiry substate. In this mode, the Bluetooth unit sends an inquiry message containing a General Inquiry Access Code (GIAC) or a plurality of Dedicated Inquiry Access Codes (DIAC). This message transmission is repeated at several levels. First, the message is transmitted on a total of 32 to 16 frequencies that make up the inquiry hopping order. This message is sent twice at two frequencies in an even timeslot, and subsequent odd timeslots are used to hear the reply at two corresponding inquiry response hopping frequencies. The sixteen frequencies and their response counterparts can thus be covered within sixteen timeslots, or 10 Hz. The chart of FIG. 4 shows the transmission order at sixteen frequencies centered around f {k}, where f {k} represents the inquiry hopping order.

The next step is to repeat the transmission sequence of at least N _inquiry times. At a minimum, this should be set to N _lookups = 256 repetitions of the entire order of constructing a transmission train called inquiry transmission train A. Next, inquiry transmission train A is swapped with inquiry transmission train B constituting transmission order in the remaining 16 frequencies. Again, train B consists of 256 iterations of the transmission sequence. In total, the inquiry transmission cycles between the transmissions of train A and train B. As shown in FIG. 5, the specification states that this switch between trains must occur at least three times to ensure that all sets of responses are in an error-free environment. This means that the inquiry broadcast takes at least 10.24 seconds.

One way to reduce this is that the switch between inquiry transmission trains can be made more quickly, i.e., without waiting for 256 iterations of 10 ms for 2.56 seconds to cover 16 timeslots. This can be suitably achieved by setting a system to switch over if this inquiry message is not detected after 50 ms, for example, provided that the inquiry message is not detected in the rest of the existing train.

The portable device to be discovered by the beacon enters an inquiry scan substate. Here, the device hears a message containing the GIAC or DIAC of interest. The device also operates in a periodic manner. The device listens at a single hop frequency during the lookup scan period, which should be long enough to cover the 16 lookup frequencies used for lookup. The interval between the starting points of the continuous scan should not be greater than 1.28 seconds. The selected frequency comes from the 32 lists that make up the inquiry hopping order.

Upon hearing an inquiry containing the appropriate IAC, the portable device enters the so called inquiry response substep and sends a number of inquiry response messages to the beacon. The beacon then pages the portable device and invites the device to connect to the piconet.

As shown in FIG. 6 and described above, Applicants have an extra field added to the inquiry message that allows the inquiry message sent by the base station to carry a user-defined payload (CA DATA). Suggest that. In the CA scenario, this payload is used to convey broadcast information, or key, to the CA terminal during the inquiry procedure. It will be appreciated that by adding this field to the end of the inquiry message, this message can be ignored without changing the non-CA receiver. In addition, by using CA specific DIAC, the CA receiver can be alerted for the presence of extra information fields.

The presence of an extra data field means that conventionally allowed guidance space at the end of the Bluetooth inquiry packet is reduced. However, this space—the one provided to give the frequency synthesizer time to change to a new hop frequency—is not normally used, which can switch at a speed that does not require the current frequency synthesizer to expand into extra guidance space. Because there is. The standard inquiry packet is an ID packet that is 68 bits long. Since this packet is transmitted in a half-slot, the allocated guide space is (625 / 2-68) = 244.5 ms (625 ms slot duration, 1 M bits / sec signaling rate). Modern synthesizers can switch routines considered by those skilled in the art in much less time with a value of 100 ms or lower. Applicants will therefore readily appreciate that 100 bits are allocated as an appropriate size for this new field, but of course other field sizes are possible.

The CA handset can quickly receive broadcast data without having to go through long procedures to connect to the piconet. Moreover, because the handset does not need to transmit any information, there is a significant power savings that are particularly important in dense environments where many CA base stations may exist. Nevertheless, when the handset is in interactive mode and you want to connect to the piconet for more information, the handset can use the default inquiry procedure as usual. There is no loss of functionality through supporting additional data fields.

In a typical embodiment, four of the 100 bits may be lost as a trailer bit for the ID field because it is read by the correlator. Of the remaining 96 bits, Applicant's preferred allocation is 64 to be used as data and 32 to be used as 2/3 forward error correction (FEC) checksums, but here, checksums, any headers included, And other overhead may greatly reduce the number of bits available for data, in some situations to about 10 bits or less. Thus, each inquiry burst contains 8 bytes of broadcast data. In most common scenarios, by a second group of A train and B train, the portable device has discovered a base station and understood that this base station is a CA beacon and is waiting for broadcast data. Since this device will certainly listen, the portable device can read 256 bursts of data at least twice (A and B), providing two lots of 2K bytes, or 4K bytes in total. .

At this stage, the portable device does not know the phase of the beacon clock because this information is not transmitted. To assist the portable device, the clock information is transmitted to at least some trains in the first group A and B, as shown in FIG. 7, with some auxiliary information indicating when the next switching between A and B occurs. This clock information is transmitted in place of CA broadcast data, so that means are provided to identify between two data channels. Using a separate DIAC is one possible way.

If the portable device knows the timing of the beacon, the portable device also knows how the timing of the beacon hops, which provides the ability to track all train transmissions. Since there are 16 transmissions in one frame, the final CA channel has 16 times as much capacity and can carry 64K bytes of information.

Since the terminal is active every 1.28 seconds or less, the terminal generally obtains the clocking information required by the terminal by a half way mark in the first A or B period. As shown in FIG. 8, switching from clock to data in these half-marked marks provides a number of advantageous advantages. First, some data may be received in less than 5 seconds at the beginning of the inquiry procedure. Secondly, the terminal may still respond to the important key by automatically sending an inquiry response message to the base station (if the terminal is in the proper course of action), even if the key appears relatively late in the period. It should be noted that no increase in capacity is assumed.

In the foregoing, the portable device receives all additional data field packets on one of the 32 inquiry channels and thereby uses only 1/32 of the available bandwidth. As can be appreciated, if the uncertainty regarding when the portable terminal (beacon slave) receives the first inquiry packet can be overcome, the predetermined characteristic of the hopping order can be accommodated and thus the full bandwidth can be used. In order for the slave to synchronize with the master lookup hopping order from the point it received the first packet, the slave needs to know both the position and the master clock offset of the first received packet in the master hopping order. In the example below, it is assumed that the master follows a Bluetooth minimum lookup procedure that includes 256 iterations of 16 channel lookup hopping sequences through three train switches (as in FIG. 4). Each sweep across 16 channels takes 10 ms.

An alternative method of synchronizing slave hopping is to transmit clocking data in every broadcast field. The additional data field BCD (FIG. 1) carries 4 bytes including the following information:

Master clock offset (2 bytes),

Number of previous train repetitions (1 byte)-Assuming that the previous train consists of 256 repetitions of the 10 ms train, this parameter ranges from 0 to 255 (until the query switches to the next previous train). This represents the slave when the master next switches the entire train.

How many previous train switches have completed in the current lookup period (1 byte)-this data indicates to the slave what the master will do at the end of the current all train, i.e. if the master switches to another all train or the lookup procedure Indicates whether to terminate.

As long as the channel is not repeated in the 10 ms train, no field is needed to indicate the position of the current channel in the hopping sequence when the slave can derive it from the recognition of the sequence.

From the foregoing, by adding 4 bytes to each additional field packet, the slave carries 4 additional bytes at the end of the inquiry while still having 4 bytes available (from the preferred quota of 64 bits out of 100 bits for data). It will be appreciated that field packets can be picked up.

Considering the completed beacon signal, it will be readily understood that the completed beacon signal needs to be divided into a number of four byte packets and one four byte packet is transmitted in each inquiry packet. For purposes of illustration, assuming that the length of the beacon signal is fixed, the entire signal at 16kB can be adapted to a single lookup train (one train is 256 iterations of a 16 channel hopping sequence, which is 256 * 16 * 4 bytes = 16 kB).

In a broader interpretation, by determining that the first packet of the beacon signal is based on the first packet of the lookup train, from the message indicator field for the number of iterations for the current 16 channel hopping sequence of the message header, the slave completes the beacon. The location of the beacon packet received as a signal may be derived.

After reading this disclosure, other changes will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Such modifications may be used in addition to, or in place of, other features that are already known for the design, manufacture, and use of fixed and portable communication systems and systems and components included therein and those already described herein. May involve other features. For example, within a predetermined venue any broadcast data may be picked up by a local fixed Bluetooth unit for relaying from one mobile to another fixed broadcast unit covering an area larger than the range of the personal broadcast: This retains some privacy in the system if all the users are registered with the central service. Another extension may include the use of fixed beacons to trigger the broadcasting of certain subsets of user data from mobile users agreed or registered within a particular venue. For example, a beacon in a disco may be configured to trigger a personal broadcast within its own range from every user's mobile, which broadcasts to others the 'music taste' section of the personal profile. Finally, the listening mobile can record the personal broadcast that is met by the user, along with any connection pointer for later use.

The present invention is particularly used for services provided to users of electronic equipment, not limited to users of mobile communication devices such as portable telephones and suitably equipped PDAs (personal digital assistant terminals).

Claims (17)

A communication system comprising a first portable device capable of wireless message transmission and a second portable device capable of receiving said message transmission, wherein said first portable device comprises a plurality of predetermined plurality of predetermined arrangements arranged in accordance with a first communication protocol. Arranged to broadcast a series of inquiry messages, each in the form of a data field, wherein the first portable device is further arranged to add an additional data field to each inquiry message prior to transmission, and the second portable device further transmits an inquiry message. And read data from the additional data field. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the first portable device is arranged to add the additional data field to the end of each inquiry message. The communication system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the first portable device is arranged to include an indication indicative of the presence of the additional data field in one of the predetermined data fields. The communication system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the first communication protocol comprises Bluetooth messaging. 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the first portable device is configured to broadcast a series of inquiry messages at a predetermined clocked continuous frequency, wherein clock information for the first portable device is included in the data carried by the additional data field. Communication system. 2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first portable device is arranged to include first comparison data in a message, the second portable device comprising storage means for holding second comparison data and between the first and second comparison data. And a comparator means arranged to identify when there is a match and provide data read from the additional data field and to provide no data if there is a mismatch. 7. The communication system of claim 6, further comprising means for generating the second comparison data from user profiling of a user of the second portable device. A mobile communication device for use as the first portable device in the system according to any one of claims 1, 2, 6 or 7, comprising a plurality of predetermined data arranged according to a first communication protocol. And a communication component arranged to broadcast a series of inquiry messages each in the form of fields and to add the additional data field to each inquiry message prior to transmission and capable of wireless message transmission. A mobile communication device for use as said second portable device in the system of any one of claims 1, 2, 6 or 7, comprising a plurality of data fields according to a first communication protocol. A receiver capable of receiving a short range wireless inquiry message, means for determining when additional data fields have been added to the plurality of data fields, and means for reading data from the additional data fields and providing the data to a user. Mobile communication device. 10. The wireless message transmission of claim 9, arranged to broadcast a series of inquiry messages each in the form of a plurality of predetermined data fields arranged according to a first communication protocol and to add the additional data fields to each inquiry message prior to transmission. Further comprising a communication component capable of making the device further function as the first portable device. 11. The mobile communication device of claim 10, further comprising user-operable means for selecting an operation as the first or second portable device. The mobile communication device of claim 10, further comprising control means operable to switch between operation as the first or second portable device. 13. The mobile communication device of claim 12, wherein the control means is operable to switch between operation as the first or second portable device at a pseudo-random interval. A method for enabling a user of a first portable communication device to broadcast a message to a user of another portable communication device, wherein the first portable communication device is in the form of a plurality of predetermined data fields arranged according to a first communication protocol. And broadcasts a series of inquiry messages each consisting of an additional data field for transporting broadcast message data to each inquiry message prior to transmission, thereby allowing other suitably configured portable devices to transmit the transmitted inquiry messages. Receiving and reading broadcast data from the additional data field. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the first portable communication device adds the additional data field to the end of each inquiry message. 16. The method of claim 14 or 15, wherein the first portable communication device comprises an indication indicating the presence of the additional data field in one of the predetermined data fields. A portable device capable of wireless message transmission and a fixed receiver device capable of receiving said message transmission, wherein said portable device is each in the form of a plurality of predetermined data fields arranged according to a first communication protocol; Arranged to broadcast a series of inquiry messages, wherein the portable device is further arranged to add an additional data field to each inquiry message before transmission, wherein the fixed receiver device receives the transmitted inquiry message and the additional data And arranged to read data from the field.

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