Periodic bandwidth reservations for multiple access radio communication networks

摘要

To transmit data between nodes in a non-centralized communication network (a network without a centralized management and signaling controller), bandwidth on a channel of the network is periodically reserved over a period P for communication between a pair of the nodes and announced to the network. Data is transmitted to the network from a sender node in accordance with the reservation that has been made, and when the data has been transmitted the reservation is released. An interval CFI is defined within each period R of the reservation during which data can be transmitted from the sender node without contention, and during this interval a message is included within each transmission by the sender node. The message contains some or all of information relating to: the time remaining to the end of the interval; the time remaining to the beginning of the next period; or a time remaining to the overall end of the reservation. This information assists other nodes that wish to transmit to make the most efficient use of the channel without undue collision.