MEDIA ACCESS CONTROL AND SIGNALING PROTOCOL FOR LOW POWER, LARGE-SCALE WIRELESS NETWORKS

摘要

An implementation of a signaling protocol for low power and large scale wireless networks provides a media access control (MAC) that produces a low rate two-way communication link between a commercial infrastructure and a very large number of small, low-cost devices known as electronic tags. The numerous tags attached to merchandise or shelves communicate with a number of access points (AP) distributed throughout a facility containing merchandise for sale or storage. A store controller maintains the pricing database for the point of sale (POS) registers of the facility. Price changes are transmitted in real time to the tag, thus updating the merchandise tags and the point of sales (POS) registers simultaneously. The tags contain a controller and a battery in which conservation of power is crucial to the life of the tags.