KR20180009684A - Electronic Apparatus and Controlling Method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are an electronic apparatus which is a master apparatus for controlling a piconet in a wireless communication network composed of a plurality of piconets and a control method thereof. The control method of an electronic apparatus includes the steps of: periodically receiving radio frequency channel status information from an external coordinator apparatus; receiving virtual address information and clock information corresponding to the piconet allocated from the external coordinator apparatus; and performing wireless data communication based on the radio frequency channel status information, the virtual address information, and the clock information. Accordingly, the present invention can improve communication efficiency between wireless apparatuses.

Description

[0001] DESCRIPTION [0002] ELECTRONIC APPARATUS AND CONTROLLING METHOD [0003]

The present disclosure relates to an electronic device and a control method thereof. More particularly, this disclosure relates to an electronic device for preventing interferences and collisions between radio frequency channels in a wireless network environment and a control method thereof.

Wireless technologies and devices using shared frequency bands in wireless networks are increasing.

Wireless technologies and devices that use a shared frequency band are increasing in Wifi wireless networks.

WiFi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee share a band of 2.4 gigahertz (gigahertz). Devices using the 2.4 GHz band have a variety of wireless devices, including microwave ovens, Bluetooth media players, mobile phones, and so on.

In recent years, the use of various wearable devices equipped with Bluetooth is increasing. Bluetooth devices perform wireless data communication within a range of about 10 meters using a 2.4 GHz frequency spectrum in an Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency band.

When at least two Bluetooth devices are connected to each other, one piconet is created. When various Bluetooth devices are mixed in the shared frequency band, a plurality of piconets are generated. At this time, the plurality of piconets operate independently of each other, and the wireless channel can not be efficiently utilized in the common frequency band. That is, Bluetooth devices have a problem in that radio performance due to interference with other peripheral devices sharing the 2.4 GHz band as well as other Bluetooth piconets is degraded.

Therefore, there is a need for techniques to improve radio performance by minimizing interference and collisions between wireless devices in the 2.5 GHz band.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic coordinator apparatus and an electronic coordinator apparatus for preventing communication and interference between radio frequency channels in a wireless network environment by using an external coordinator apparatus, And a control method.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of controlling an electronic device that is a master device for controlling a piconet in a wireless communication network including a plurality of piconets, the method comprising: receiving, from an external coordinator device, Receiving virtual address information and clock information corresponding to the piconet allocated from the coordinator apparatus, and performing wireless data communication based on the radio frequency channel state information, the virtual address information, and the clock information .

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic device, which is a master device for controlling a piconet in a wireless communication network including a plurality of piconets, includes a communication unit for performing wireless network communication with an external device, And a controller for receiving radio frequency channel status information periodically from an external coordinator apparatus, virtual address information and clock information corresponding to the piconet allocated from the coordinator apparatus through the communication unit, and transmitting the radio frequency channel status information, And a processor for performing wireless data communication based on the clock information.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a coordinator apparatus for performing wireless communication with a plurality of piconets, comprising: a communication unit for wirelessly communicating with the plurality of piconets; And a processor for periodically transmitting status information to a plurality of piconets and allocating virtual addresses and clock information corresponding to each of the plurality of piconets to each of the plurality of piconets.

As described above, according to various embodiments of the present disclosure, this disclosure can increase the communication efficiency of an electronic device in a shared frequency band by searching for available channels of the piconet using an external coordinator device.

Moreover, in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure, this disclosure can minimize frequency channel interference between piconets in a wireless network environment comprising a plurality of piconets, thereby increasing the signal recognition rate of the electronic device.

And, in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure, this disclosure may increase the available channel space of other wireless communication standards that use electronic devices and shared frequency bands.

1 is a diagram illustrating a wireless network system including a plurality of piconets according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;
2 is a simplified block diagram of an electronic device and an external coordinator device, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;
Figure 3 is a simplified block diagram of a "Hop Selection Kernel" included in an outer coordinator device, in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure.
4A is a diagram for explaining a conventional method of searching for a channel available for each piconet in a plurality of piconets.
FIG. 4B is a diagram for explaining a method of searching for a channel available for each piconet in a plurality of piconets according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; FIG.
FIG. 5A is a diagram for explaining a conventional method of recognizing a piconet when a plurality of piconets share a Wi-Fi channel.
5B is a diagram for explaining a method of recognizing a piconet when a plurality of piconets and a Wi-Fi channel are shared according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
FIG. 6A is a diagram showing the visibility of a plurality of piconets in a shared frequency band according to the prior art.
6B is a diagram illustrating the visibility of a plurality of piconets in a shared frequency band, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.
FIG. 7A is a diagram illustrating an available bandwidth according to a conventional frequency hopping sequence of a plurality of piconets.
7B is a diagram illustrating the available bandwidth according to a frequency hopping sequence of a plurality of piconets, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.
8 is a graph illustrating packet error rates for a plurality of piconets, in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure.
9 is a sequence diagram of an electronic apparatus and an external coordinator apparatus for explaining a control method of an electronic apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;
10 is a flowchart of an electronic device for explaining a control method of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the contents described in the accompanying drawings. In addition, a method of manufacturing and using the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the description of the attached drawings. Like reference numbers or designations in the various drawings indicate components or components that perform substantially the same function.

The term " and / or " includes any combination of a plurality of related listed items or any of a plurality of related listed items.

The terminology used in this disclosure will hereinafter be described in detail by way of example embodiments in accordance with the invention with reference to the description in the accompanying drawings. In addition, a method of manufacturing and using the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the description of the attached drawings. Like reference numbers or designations in the various drawings indicate components or components that perform substantially the same function.

The term " and / or " includes any combination of a plurality of related listed items or any of a plurality of related listed items.

The terms used in this disclosure are used to illustrate the embodiments and are not intended to limit and / or limit the invention. The singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

In this disclosure, terms such as "comprises" or "having" are intended to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or combinations thereof, But do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or combinations thereof. Like reference numerals in the drawings denote members performing substantially the same function.

In the drawings of the present disclosure, 'BT1', 'BT2', 'BT3', and 'BT4' refer to each piconet to which at least two Bluetooth devices are connected. "Bluetooth device" means "electronic device" in this disclosure.

In this disclosure, "wifi" means a wireless local area network (WLAN).

1 is a diagram illustrating a wireless network system including a plurality of piconets according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Referring to FIG. 1, a wireless network system 100 includes a piconet 1, a piconet 2, and a piconet 3 as a coordinator 100 and a plurality of piconets 200. Although the present disclosure shows a system 10 that includes three piconets, this is not an exhaustive list.

For example, the coordinator 100 may be an external coordinator device for externally controlling wireless devices such as an access point (AP) or an Internet on Hub (IoT) hub. The coordinator 100 may also be any of a variety of smart devices capable of controlling other wireless devices. For example, a smart device can be, but is not limited to, a smart phone, a tablet PC, a mobile phone, and the like. The coordinator 100 may be a device supporting Bluetooth communication.

For example, piconet 200, piconet 1, is an ad-hoc computer network that connects a group of users of devices using the Bluetooth protocol. The piconet 200 may include one master device 300-1 and a plurality of slave devices 300-2. One of the electronic devices 300 included in the piconet 200 is the master device 300-1 and the other is the slave device 300-2. One of the slave devices 300-2 becomes the master device 300-1 and the master device 300-1 becomes the slave device 300-2. The slave device 300-2 is controlled by the master device 300-1. The piconet 200 is synchronized based on the address information and the clock information of the master device 300-1. Therefore, all the electronic devices 300 included in the piconet 200 can transmit data based on the frequency hopping sequence of the master device 300-1.

The electronic device 300 may support AFH (adaptive frequency hopping) as a device using the Bluetooth protocol. For example, the electronic device 300 may be, but not limited to, a Bluetooth headset, a Bluetooth MP3 player, a Bluetooth media player, a smart phone, a smart glass, and the like.

In general, all the electronic devices 300 included in the piconet 200 each have a unique 48-bit address (BD_ADDR). The electronic device 300 requests address information of another Bluetooth device and transmits address information of the electronic device 300 to be connected to another Bluetooth device.

The electronic device 300 may receive virtual address information and clock information of the piconet 200 including the electronic device 300 from the external coordinator 100, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. That is, the virtual address information and the clock information received from the coordinator 100 by the master device 300-1 are transmitted to the master device 300-1 including the piconet 200 and the plurality of slave devices 300-2 Address information, and clock information. Accordingly, the piconet 1, the piconet 2, and the piconet 3 can receive, from the coordinator 100, virtual address information and clock information corresponding to each piconet.

In addition, the coordinator 100 may assign virtual address information and clock information to each piconet, and may transmit synchronization information synchronized with each piconet to each piconet based on the allocated information. Accordingly, each piconet can be synchronized by the clock information allocated by the coordinator 100. [

The master device 300-1 can control the sequence of frequency hopping based on the virtual address information allocated from the coordinator 100. [ The master device 300-1 can control the phase of the frequency hopping based on the virtual clock information allocated from the coordinator 100. [

Hereinafter, in this disclosure, the electronic device 300 may refer to the master device 300-1 of the piconet 200. [ Accordingly, the control method of the electronic device 300 may be a method of controlling the piconet 200 including the electronic device 300. For example, "communicating with a piconet" in this disclosure may mean "communicating with a master device of a piconet. &Quot; "Communicating with the master device of the piconet" may mean "communicating with the electronic device" of this disclosure.

A method of controlling the electronic device 300 according to the embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail in Figs. 2 to 10. Fig.

2 is a simplified block diagram of an electronic device and an external coordinator device, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure; However, the configuration unit of the block diagram shown in FIG. 2 is an embodiment, and is not limited thereto and may include additional configuration units.

Referring to FIG. 2, the coordinator apparatus 100 includes a communication unit 110 and a processor 120.

The communication unit 110 can communicate with Bluetooth devices included in a plurality of piconets through wired and / or wireless network communication. The communication unit 110 can transmit and receive signals and data to and from the communication unit 310 of the electronic device 300.

The communication unit 110 is configured to perform communication with various types of external devices according to various types of communication methods. The communication unit 110 may include various communication chips such as a Wi-Fi chip, a Bluetooth chip (including Bluetooth BLE), an NFC chip, a wireless communication chip, an IR chip, and the like. Among these, the NFC chip refers to a chip operating in an NFC (Near Field Communication) system using 13.56 MHz band among various RF-ID frequency bands such as 135 kHz, 13.56 MHz, 433 MHz, 860 to 960 MHz and 2.45 GHz. The wireless communication chip refers to a chip that performs communication according to various communication standards such as IEEE, ZigBee, 3G (3rd Generation), 3GPP (3 ^rd Generation Partnership Project), LTE (Long Term Evolution)

The processor 120 may execute various programs stored in the memory.

The processor 120 periodically transmits the radio frequency channel state information to the plurality of piconets via the communication unit 110 and allocates the virtual address and the clock information corresponding to each of the plurality of piconets to each of the plurality of piconets have.

For example, the radio frequency channel may be but is not limited to a Wi-Fi channel of a WLAN.

Processor 120 may determine radio frequency channel state information based on occupancy state information of a radio frequency channel and busy time ratio information of a radio frequency channel. The processor 120 may generate a channel map including frequency channel information that each of the plurality of piconets can use for data communication and transmit the channel map to each of the plurality of piconets through the communication unit 110. [

For example, the frequency channel information that each of the plurality of piconets can use for data communication may be a usable channel among 79 Bluetooth frequency hopping channels.

The processor 120 determines the channel occupancy state of the WiFi channel and the Bluetooth hopping channel sharing the 2.4 GHz band, determines whether or not each channel is in use, and determines whether the channel is occupied by the busy time ratio Can be stored in the memory as radio frequency channel status information. In addition, the processor 120 may generate and store a channel map indicating the time at which each channel can be used as a Bluetooth frequency hopping channel based on radio frequency channel status information stored in the memory.

In addition, the processor 120 may periodically allocate virtual address information and clock information to each of a plurality of piconets using a predetermined input parameter through the communication unit 110. [ The processor 120 is connected to a Bluetooth selection hop kernel, which is a hardware device, and periodically allocates virtual address information and clock information for each of a plurality of piconets to the input parameter " E "of the Bluetooth hop selection kernel . Generally, Bluetooth devices have built-in hardware called a hop selection kernel. The hop selection kernel may be used to determine the hopping sequence of the Bluetooth system.

The electronic device 300 includes a communication unit 310 and a processor 320. The electronic device 300 may be a master device that controls the slave devices of the piconet.

The communication unit 310 can perform wired and / or wireless communication with various external devices.

The communication unit 310 may include a transceiver that supports Bluetooth AFH (Adaptive Frequency Hopping). The communication unit 310 may perform Bluetooth communication using a time-division duplex (TDD) scheme.

The communication unit 310 is configured to perform communication with various types of external devices according to various types of communication methods. The communication unit 310 may include various communication chips such as a Wi-Fi chip, a Bluetooth chip (including Bluetooth BLE), an NFC chip, a wireless communication chip, an IR chip, and the like. Among these, the NFC chip refers to a chip operating in an NFC (Near Field Communication) system using 13.56 MHz band among various RF-ID frequency bands such as 135 kHz, 13.56 MHz, 433 MHz, 860 to 960 MHz and 2.45 GHz. The wireless communication chip means a chip that performs communication according to various communication standards such as IEEE, ZigBee, 3G (3rd Generation), 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), Long Term Evolution (LTE)

The processor 320 periodically receives radio frequency channel status information from the external coordinator apparatus 100 through the communication unit 310 and outputs virtual address information corresponding to the piconet allocated from the external coordinator apparatus 100 and a clock And perform wireless data communication based on the received radio frequency channel status information, virtual address information, and clock information.

The virtual address information and the clock information may be periodically allocated to each of the plurality of piconets through a predetermined input parameter of the coordinator apparatus 100. [

In addition, the radio frequency channel status information may include information on the occupancy state of the radio frequency channel and the busy time ratio information of the radio frequency channel, as described above, to the processor (not shown) of the coordinator apparatus 100 120, and each of the plurality of piconets may be information on a channel map including frequency channel information usable for wireless data communication.

The processor 320 may synchronize time with piconets adjacent to the piconet including the electronic device 300 among the plurality of piconets, and perform frequency hopping in the synchronized time slot.

The processor 320 may receive the synchronization information between the plurality of piconets synchronized by the external coordinator apparatus 100 through the communication unit 310 based on the virtual address information and the clock information.

The processor 320 requests the external coordinator apparatus 100 for radio frequency channel information, and based on the synchronization information between the plurality of piconets, the processor 320 generates a piconet having the same time slot as the piconet including the electronic device 300 The transmitting power of the piconets may be combined with the transmission power of the defendant including the electronic device 300 and transmitted to the external coordinator device 100 through the communication unit 310. [

The processor 320 may perform frequency hopping on a predetermined number of times of the Bluetooth channel. At this time, the radio frequency channel is a Wi-Fi channel, and the predetermined number of frequency channels may be the maximum number of Bluetooth channels that can be included in one Wi-Fi channel.

For example, in the 2.4 GHz band, there can be 79 frequency hopping channels with which Bluetooth can communicate. Each of the 79 channels has 1 megahertz (MHz, megahertz). Also, in the 2.4 GHz band, a single WiFi channel has about 20 megahertz. Therefore, the maximum number of Bluetooth channels that can be included in one Wi-Fi channel may be 20.

Thus, in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure, the processor 320 may be configured to perform frequency hopping with 20 frequency hopping channels.

3 is a simplified block diagram of a hop selection kernel included in an external coordinator device, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

 Typically, the Bluetooth device address is a 48-bit unique number. The hop selection kernel, shown in Figure 3, uses only the low 28 bits of the Bluetooth device address as the hardware built into the Bluetooth device. In addition, the Bluetooth device has a 28-bit native clock. The clock determines the timing and hopping of the Bluetooth transceiver. In addition, the clock is synchronized with other Bluetooth devices.

The hop selection kernel has input parameters (X, Y1, Y2, A, B, C, D, E, and F), and each input parameter has values corresponding to the respective parameters.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, input parameters (X, Y1, Y2, A, B, C, D, F) may be shared with a plurality of piconets in a wireless network system comprising a plurality of piconets . On the other hand, the input parameter " E " may be assigned a constant offset that is unique to each of the plurality of piconets. For example, the input parameter "E" may be assigned to each of the plurality of piconets with a 28 bit address and 28 bit clock values. In addition, to create time synchronization of a plurality of piconets, an input parameter " E "may be assigned a virtual address and clock, which is an offset-invariant corresponding to each piconet periodically.

The coordinator apparatus 100 allocates a virtual address and a clock corresponding to each of the plurality of piconets using the input parameter "E" of the hop selection kernel, and synchronizes the piconets based on the assigned virtual address and clock Synchronization information can be stored in memory.

Therefore, according to one embodiment of the present invention described above, the Bluetooth devices included in the plurality of piconets request the unique address and the clock information of each device, and the time required to acquire the requested information may be reduced have.

4A is a diagram for explaining a conventional method of searching for a channel available for each piconet in a plurality of piconets.

4A, in general, a plurality of Bluetooth devices 300-1 and 300-2 included in the piconet 200 search all 79 Bluetooth hopping channels and use the available channels, Create a map.

Thus, for example, when the wireless network system is composed of three piconets as shown in FIG. 1, each of the three piconets searches all available channels of each piconet on all 79 channels, Create a used channel map. The above-described method is performed in the master device 300-1 of each piconet. Accordingly, the channel classification time of the plurality of piconets according to the conventional method may take a time between about 500 ms and 1500 ms.

FIG. 4B is a diagram for explaining a method of searching for a channel available for each piconet in a plurality of piconets according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; FIG.

Referring to FIG. 4B, the electronic device 300, which is a master device of each of the plurality of piconets, may transmit a 'probe request frame' requesting network information to the external coordinator 100 (S410).

The external coordinator 100 may generate a channel map in which the piconet including the electronic device 300 can be used (S420).

For example, the external coordinator 100 determines occupancy state information of the Wi-Fi channel occupied in the Wi-Fi channel and busy time ratio of each Wi-Fi channel to inform the electronic device 300 of the status information of the Wi- It can be transmitted periodically. At this time, the occupied state information of the Wi-Fi channel may be information on whether the Wi-Fi channel is currently occupied or unoccupied. In addition, the busy time ratio of each Wi-Fi channel may be information on a ratio of time when each Wi-Fi channel is used most frequently. In addition, the external coordinator 100 may periodically transmit information on whether the Wi-Fi channel is currently available (unused channels) or used channels as channel state information to the electronic device 300 periodically. At this time, the information on the Wi-Fi channel also includes information on 79 Bluetooth frequency hopping channels.

The external coordinator 100 may generate a usable channel map in which the frequency hopping channels available in the piconet including the electronic device 300 are mapped on a time basis based on the channel state information.

The external coordinator 100 may periodically transmit the generated used channel map to the electronic device 300 as a probe response (S430).

The electronic device 300 may perform frequency hopping by selecting a channel and a time to perform frequency hopping based on the available channel map information received from the external coordinator 100. [

According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the electronic device 300 does not separately generate usable channel maps by classifying the 79 channels by channel to search for available frequency hopping channels. Thus, in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure, the electronic device 300 may take between about 40 ms and 520 ms to search for a frequency hopping channel.

FIG. 5A is a diagram for explaining a conventional method of recognizing a piconet when a plurality of piconets share a Wi-Fi channel.

As shown in FIG. 5A, in the 2.4 GHz band, channel 1, channel 6, and channel 11 are mostly used among the Wi-Fi channels. Channel 1, channel 6, and channel 11 are channels that do not overlap with each other.

For example, there may be four piconets (BT1, BT2, BT3, BT4) in the 2.4 GHz band. The four piconets may be located in the area of different Wi-Fi channels in the same time period. At this time, the Wi-Fi can detect only the transmission power of at least two piconets existing in the same Wi-Fi channel area at the same time having the designated piconet signal that the Wi-Fi can detect among four piconets. Therefore, the remaining piconets that are not detected are hidden in the Wi-Fi channel. It is to be understood that the present invention is not limited to this example, as long as the piconet signal that can be detected by the WiFi is equal to or more than the sum of at least two piconet signals present in the same Wi-Fi channel.

In general, the nominal output power of a Bluetooth device is 0 dBm. The rated output power of the WiFi device is 10 to 20 dBm and the energy sensing threshold is -62 dBm. Thus, if the Bluetooth signal is weak, the Wi-Fi device can not find the Bluetooth device and the Bluetooth piconet may be hidden by the nearby Wi-Fi.

Typically, the nominal visible range for the line of sight (LOS) in the Wi-Fi band is within 20 m and the visible area for NLOS (near line of sight) is within 10 m.

For example, assume that the distance between the master device and the slave device of the piconet is 1 meter and the Wi-Fi output power is 20 dBm. At this time, the rated interference area for LOS is within 50 meters, and the visible area for NLOS may be within 15 meters. Also, the hidden range of the piconet for the LOS may be 20 to 50 meters, and the hidden area for the NLOS may be 10 to 15 meters.

Thus, a blind Bluetooth piconet may collide with other piconets or other wireless devices.

5B is a diagram for explaining a method of recognizing a piconet when a plurality of piconets and a Wi-Fi channel are shared according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

5B, the electronic device 300 can receive synchronization information between a plurality of piconets BT1, BT2, BT3, and BT4 synchronized based on virtual address information and clock information from the external coordinator device 100 have.

Accordingly, the electronic device 300 can acquire information on another piconet located in an adjacent channel of a channel in which the piconet including the electronic device 300 is being used, from the coordinator device.

When requesting radio frequency channel information from the external coordinator apparatus 100, the electronic apparatus 300 generates the same information as the piconet including the electronic apparatus 300 among the plurality of piconets, based on synchronization information by the external coordinator apparatus 100, The transmitting power of the piconet having the time slot may be combined with the transmission power of the defendant including the electronic device 300 and transmitted to the external coordinator device 300. [

For example, if BT2 is assumed to be a piconet that includes the electronic device 300, then the electronic device 300 is configured to transmit BT2 at the transmission power of the other piconets BT1, BT3, and BT4 having the same time slot t1 as BT2 in the time slot t1 And transmits the Bluetooth signal to the external coordinator device 100. [0050] FIG. At this time, the Wi-Fi can detect a plurality of piconets BT1, BT2, BT3, and BT4 signals on Wi-Fi channel 1. [

In another example, BT2 may transmit the Bluetooth signal to the external coordinator device 100 by combining the transmission power of BT2 with the transmission power of the other piconets having the same time slot t2 as BT2 in the time slot t2. At this time, the Wi-Fi can detect a plurality of piconets BT1, BT2, BT3, and BT4 signals on the Wi-Fi channel 11. [

Also, BT3 may transmit the Bluetooth signal to the external coordinator device 100 by combining the transmission power of BT2 with the transmission power of the other piconets having the same time slot t3 as BT2 in the time slot t3. At this time, the Wi-Fi can detect all of the plurality of piconets BT1, BT2, BT3, and BT4 signals on the Wi-Fi channel 6. [

That is, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the electronic device 300 may improve the probability of signal detection within a Wi-Fi channel bandwidth using a Bluetooth channel that is adjacent to a plurality of piconets.

When the transmission power of the four piconets is combined in the same time slot using the electronic device 300 according to the above-described embodiment, the WiFi for the LOS has a nominal visible range capable of sensing the Bluetooth piconet signal, May be within 42 meters.

5A, the hidden range of the piconet according to one embodiment of the present disclosure shown in FIG. 5B is between 42 meters and 50 meters, assuming that the WiFi output power is 20 dBm. Lt; / RTI > That is, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the hidden area of the piconet hidden area 22m to 55m according to the related art described in FIG. 5A is reduced, and the visibility of the piconet in the Wi-Fi channel area can be improved.

6A and 6B are views showing visibility of a plurality of piconets in a shared frequency band.

FIG. 6A is a diagram showing the visibility of a plurality of piconets in the shared frequency band according to the prior art, and FIG. 6B is a diagram showing a visibility of a plurality of piconets in a shared frequency band, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Fig.

Referring to FIGS. 6A and 6B, since the transmission power of a plurality of piconets is independently transmitted, the number of piconets recognized in each Wi-Fi channel at a same time when a plurality of piconets are synchronized is smaller than that of FIG. 6B.

FIG. 7A is a diagram illustrating an available bandwidth according to a conventional frequency hopping sequence of a plurality of piconets.

As shown in FIG. 7A, in general, a plurality of piconets independently perform frequency hopping irrespective of adjacent piconets, thereby increasing collision between the Wi-Fi device and the Bluetooth device. Therefore, the frequency band in which Wi-Fi equipment can be used is reduced. In addition, since piconet hopes 79 frequency channels capable of data communication, Bluetooth performance is also reduced.

7B is a diagram illustrating the available bandwidth according to a frequency hopping sequence of a plurality of piconets, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 7B, the electronic device 300 can perform frequency hopping in a period of a predetermined number of Bluetooth channels. The predetermined number of frequency channels may be the maximum number of the Bluetooth channels that can be included in one Wi-Fi channel. For example, the predetermined number of Bluetooth channels may be 20 out of 79 frequency hopping channels.

The electronic device 300 may synchronize time with piconets adjacent to a usable frequency channel of the piconet including the electronic device 300 among the plurality of piconets and perform frequency hopping in the synchronized time slot.

For example, the electronic device 300 may be a master device included in the piconet BT1. The electronic device 300 can synchronize the piconets BT2 (CH1) and BT3 (CH2) adjacent to the usable frequency channel 20 among the plurality of piconets BT2 and BT3 in the same time slot. Thus, BT1 (CH20), BT2 (CH1), and BT3 (CH2) can be synchronized in the same timeslot. BT1 (CH1), BT2 (CH2), and BT3 (CH20) can be synchronized in the same timeslot. BT1 (CH2), BT2 (CH20), and BT3 (CH1) may be synchronized in the same timeslot

Thus, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, the electronic device 300 and the wireless network system can be increased by 80% over the conventional method shown in FIG. 7A for the Wi-Fi enabled period (diagonal area).

In addition, the electronic device 300 according to one embodiment of the present disclosure can hop the hopping channel search time of the electronic device 300 by hopping to the 20 channel periods without hopping all of the 79 Bluetooth hopping channels.

8 is a graph illustrating packet error rates for a plurality of piconets, in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 8, a wireless network system including an electronic device 300 and a coordinator device 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure described above with respect to FIGS. 1 to 7B is configured such that as the number of piconets increases, error rate, PER) is lower than that of the prior art.

For example, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the system (" proposed ") has a 56% packet error rate reduction in CH59 over the prior art ("time sync" The error rate can be reduced. Further, the system according to the embodiment of the present disclosure ("proposed") can reduce the packet error rate of 61.6% in CH50 and the packet error rate of 43.8% in CH39, compared with a method based on general Bluetooth frequency hopping.

9 is a sequence diagram of an electronic apparatus and an external coordinator apparatus for explaining a control method of an electronic apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Referring to FIG. 9, in step S910, the external coordinator 100 may assign a virtual address and a clock to the electronic device 300 so that the electronic device 300 can synchronize piconets with other piconets.

In step S920, the electronic device 300 may combine the transmission power of piconets adjacent to the piconet in which the electronic device 300 is included. For example, the electronic device 300 may combine the transmission power with the piconets adjacent to the WiFi channel where the piconet including the electronic device 300 is located among the same piconets, which are synchronized by the external coordinator 100 .

In step S930, the electronic device 300 may transmit the probe 300 to the external coordinator 100 through a probe request frame requesting the frequency hopping channel information available to the electronic device 300. [

In step S940, the external coordinator 100 may determine radio frequency channel status information. For example, a radio frequency channel may include a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi channel and a Bluetooth channel. The external coordinator 100 may determine the radio frequency channel status information based on the occupancy status information of the radio frequency channel and the time ratio information of the radio frequency channel.

In step S950, the external coordinator 100 may generate a channel map in which the available frequency hopping channels of the electronic device 300 are mapped to available times based on the determined radio frequency channel state information. The channel map may include availability information for 79 Bluetooth hopping channels.

In step S960, the external coordinator 100 may periodically transmit channel state information and channel map information to the electronic device 300 through the Probe Response frame.

In step S970, the electronic device 300 can control frequency hopping based on channel state information and channel map information received from the external coordinator 100. [

For example, the electronic device 300 can control frequency hopping to synchronize time with piconets adjacent to a piconet including the electronic device 300 among a plurality of piconets. Also, the electronic device 300 may control frequency hopping to perform frequency hopping at a predetermined number of hopping channel number periods.

In step S980, the electronic device 300 may perform frequency hopping in the synchronized time slot and the hopping channel number period in step S970.

The Probe Request and Probe Response used in FIGS. 4B and 9 refer to the frames defined in the IEEE 802.11 standard.

10 is a flowchart of an electronic device for explaining a control method of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Referring to FIG. 10, in step S1010, the electronic device 300 may receive radio frequency channel status information, virtual address information, and clock information from an external coordinator apparatus. Since the characteristic of step S1010 has been described in detail in this disclosure, the description is omitted here.

In step S1020, the electronic device 300 can perform wireless data communication based on the information received from the external coordinator device. Wireless data communication may mean packet transmission between Bluetooth devices using frequency hopping. Since the characteristic of step S1020 has been described in detail in this disclosure, the description is omitted here.

The methods according to embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in the form of program instructions that can be executed through various computer means and recorded on a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium may include program instructions, data files, data structures, and the like, alone or in combination. For example, the computer-readable medium may be a volatile or non-volatile storage device, such as a storage device such as a ROM, or a memory such as a RAM, a memory chip, a device, or an integrated circuit, whether removable or rewritable. , Or a storage medium readable by a machine (e.g., a computer), such as a CD, a DVD, a magnetic disk, or a magnetic tape, as well as being optically or magnetically recordable.

It will be appreciated that the memory that may be included within electronic device 100 is an example of a machine-readable storage medium suitable for storing programs or programs containing instructions for implementing the embodiments of the present invention. Program instructions to be recorded on the storage medium may be those specially designed and constructed for the present invention or may be available to those skilled in the art of computer software.

As described above, the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments and drawings. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents. .

Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited by the exemplary embodiments described, but should be determined by the equivalents of the claims, as well as the claims.

10: Wireless communication system
100: External coordinator device
110:
120: Processor
200: piconet
300: electronic device
310:
320: Processor
300-1: Master device
300-2: Slave device

Claims (20)

A control method of an electronic device, which is a master device for controlling a piconet in a wireless communication network composed of a plurality of piconets,
Receiving radio frequency channel state information periodically from an external coordinator apparatus, virtual address information corresponding to the piconet allocated from the coordinator apparatus, and clock information; And
And performing wireless data communication based on the radio frequency channel state information, the virtual address information, and the clock information. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the radio frequency channel status information comprises:
The occupancy state information of the radio frequency channel and the busy time ratio information of the radio frequency channel being used by the coordinator device, and each of the plurality of piconets is used for the wireless data communication And information on a channel map including usable frequency channel information. 3. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the step of performing wireless data communication comprises:
Synchronizing time with piconets adjacent to the piconet among the plurality of piconets; And
And performing frequency hopping in the synchronized time slot. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the receiving comprises:
And receiving synchronization information between the plurality of piconets synchronized by the coordinator device based on the virtual address information and the clock information. 5. The method of claim 4,
Requesting radio frequency channel information from the external coordinator device; Further comprising:
Wherein the requesting step comprises:
And combining the transmission power of the piconet having the same time slot as the piconet of the plurality of piconets with the transmission power of the defendant including the electronic device based on the synchronization information. The method of claim 3,
Wherein performing the frequency hopping comprises:
And performing hopping on the basis of a predetermined number of Bluetooth channels. The method according to claim 6,
Wherein the radio frequency channel is a Wi-Fi channel,
Wherein the predetermined number of frequency channels is a maximum number of the Bluetooth channels that can be included in one Wi-Fi channel. The method according to claim 1,
The virtual address information and the clock information are,
And is periodically allocated to each of the plurality of piconets via a predetermined input parameter of the coordinator device. 1. An electronic device as a master device for controlling a piconet in a wireless communication network composed of a plurality of piconets,
A communication unit for performing wireless network communication with an external device;
And a controller for receiving radio frequency channel status information periodically from an external coordinator apparatus, virtual address information and clock information corresponding to the piconet allocated from the coordinator apparatus through the communication unit, and transmitting the radio frequency channel status information, And a processor for performing wireless data communication based on the clock information. 10. The method of claim 9,
Wherein the radio frequency channel status information comprises:
The occupancy state information of the radio frequency channel and the busy time ratio information of the radio frequency channel being used by the coordinator device, and each of the plurality of piconets is used for the wireless data communication And information on a channel map including usable frequency channel information. 11. The method of claim 10,
The processor comprising:
And synchronizing time with piconets adjacent to the piconet among the plurality of piconets, and performing frequency hopping in a synchronized time slot. 10. The method of claim 9,
The processor comprising:
And receives synchronization information between the plurality of piconets synchronized by the coordinator device based on the virtual address information and the clock information through the communication unit. 13. The method of claim 12,
The processor comprising:
Requesting the external coordinator apparatus for radio frequency channel information, and transmitting, based on the synchronization information, a transmission power of the defendant including the electronic apparatus to a transmission power of piconets having the same time slot as the piconet among the plurality of piconets, And transmits the combined information to the external coordinator device via the communication unit. 12. The method of claim 11,
The processor comprising:
And performs frequency hopping in a period of a predetermined number of Bluetooth channels. 15. The method of claim 14,
Wherein the radio frequency channel is a Wi-Fi channel,
Wherein the predetermined number of frequency channels is the maximum number of the Bluetooth channels that can be included in one WiFi channel. 10. The method of claim 9,
The virtual address information and the clock information are,
And is periodically allocated to each of the plurality of piconets via a predetermined input parameter of the coordinator device. A coordinator apparatus for performing wireless communication with a plurality of piconets,
A communication unit for wirelessly communicating with the plurality of piconets;
And a processor for periodically transmitting radio frequency channel status information to a plurality of piconets via the communication unit and allocating virtual addresses and clock information corresponding to each of the plurality of piconets to the plurality of piconets, . 18. The method of claim 17,
The processor comprising:
Determining occupancy state information of the radio frequency channel and busy time ratio information used by the radio frequency channel to determine the radio frequency channel state information, And generates a channel map including usable frequency channel information to transmit the channel map to each of the plurality of piconets via the communication unit. 18. The method of claim 17,
The processor comprising:
And periodically allocates the virtual address and the clock information to each of the plurality of piconets using a predetermined input parameter through the communication unit. 19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the radio frequency channel is a Wi-Fi channel and the usable frequency channel information is Bluetooth channel information.

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