System and method for improving service and device discovery in a UPnP-based wireless communication network

摘要

A system and method that improve service and device discovery in a UPnP-based wireless communication network and avoids unnecessary broadcast messages on a MAC sublayer of a DLC layer caused by UPnP multicast messages on an IP layer by intercepting UPnP multicast messages in a network protocol stack below the IP layer. A module intercepts multicast UDP packets destined to a UPnP IP multicast address and port, the multicast UDP packets containing UPnP packets as payload. The module executes DLC/MAC-based service discovery functions to perform wireless network-specific device discovery and to find UPnP-enabled devices in the wireless communication network. Once a wireless network device discovery has returned nodes that fulfill criteria given in the search, the module uses unicast DLC/MAC messages to send UPnP packets to only those nodes that are UPnP-enabled and whose device type matches the respective UPnP device type sought.