Resilient peer network with 802.11 technology

摘要

A Wi-Fi Direct Group Owner stores network parameters needed for proper operation of a peer-to-peer network. These include the network name and identifier, the power save schedule, the security settings, MAC address of all of the group members, etc. To reduce the need for a single Group Owner, this information is distributed. As each new device is added to the network, all of these parameters are passed via IEEE 802.11 data packets from the device acting as the Group Owner to the new peer device. This way, the new peer device has all of the information about the group at the time that it joins. Any device in the Resilient Peer Network can temporarily take on the role of a traditional Wi-Fi Direct Group Owner (admission control). Selection of which peer will act as a Group Owner will depend on a user action or network event.

主权项

1. A resilient peer network comprising:
a first communication device configured to:
communicatively couple to other communication devices to form a peer-to-peer group;receive and store network parameters including MAC addresses of the other communication devices of the peer-to-peer group from an acting group owner (GO) without the first communication device becoming an acting group owner (GO), and wherein the acting group owner subsequently enters a steady state such that the communication devices in the peer-to-peer group continue communicating without any communication device in the peer-to-peer group acting as an acting group owner and transmitting beacon frames;detect at least one new communication device request for admittance to the peer-to-peer group while the peer-to-peer group operates without an acting group owner;at least temporarily take over as the acting group owner (GO);admit the at least one new communication device; andtransmit the network parameters of the peer-to-peer group, including the communication device MAC addresses, to the at least one new communication device.