Method for synchronizing a transmitter and a receiver in a CSMA ad-hoc network and corresponding devices

摘要

A transmitter and receiver in an ad-hoc network synchronise an application event, e.g. Start Of Frame 300 of a video source. The transmitter and receivers of the network share knowledge of some future expected network events, e.g. future medium access events based on carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) backoff values, and the transmitter chooses one of the future network events 322 (T4) as a reference. It transmits synchronization information 321 comprising an index of this chosen event and a time interval 311 related to the time difference between the application event at the transmitter and the reference network event. The receiver computes the time to trigger a corresponding receiver application event 301 from the received information and knowledge of a synchronization delay 330. Accordingly, the synchronisation of diverse applications is managed without disturbance in an unstable network. This generic synchronization protocol is also bandwidth efficient.