Saving power in a wireless communication device

摘要

A terminal comprises a plurality of hardware I/O units, including a wireless transceiver having a powered-up state in which at least one of a transmit path and a receive path is enabled at the expense of higher power consumption and a powered-down state in which the at least one path is disabled in favor of lower power consumption; a processing apparatus; and a storage medium coupled to the processing apparatus and storing at least a first and a second application, an operating system, a communication protocol layer and a driver layer arranged to be executed on the processing apparatus. The operating system is arranged to arbitrate access by the plurality of applications to the hardware I/O units via the driver layer, including access to the wireless transceiver via the communication protocol layer and driver layer. The second application comprises a wireless traffic scheduler configured to coordinate traffic associated with the second application to be communicated via the wireless transceiver during a same continuous phase of the powered-up state as traffic associated with the first application.

主权项

1. A terminal comprising:
a plurality of hardware I/O units, including a wireless transceiver having a powered-up state in which at least one of a transmit path and a receive path is enabled for higher power consumption and a powered-down state in which the at least one path is disabled for lower power consumption; a processing apparatus; and a storage medium coupled to the processing apparatus and storing at least a first application and a second application, an operating system, a communication protocol layer, and a driver layer configured to be executed on the processing apparatus; the operating system configured to arbitrate access by the plurality of applications to the hardware I/O units via the driver layer, and to arbitrate access by the plurality of applications to the wireless transceiver via the communication protocol layer and driver layer; and the second application comprising a wireless traffic scheduler configured to:
receive an indication regarding scheduling of the traffic associated with the first application, the indication received by the wireless traffic scheduler in the second application responsive to the wireless traffic scheduler querying the first application regarding scheduling of the traffic associated with the first application;determine whether the traffic associated with the second application can be scheduled for communication via the wireless transceiver during a same continuous phase of the powered-up state as the traffic associated with the first application; andcoordinate traffic associated with the second application to be communicated via the wireless transceiver during the same continuous phase of the powered-up state as traffic associated with the first application based on whether or to what extent the traffic associated with one or both of the first and second applications is time critical, the wireless traffic scheduler configured to coordinate traffic by rescheduling the traffic associated with the second application to be communicated, at a time later than a scheduled time, via the wireless transceiver during the same continuous phase of the powered-up state as the traffic associated with the first application if the traffic associated with the second application is not time critical.