STA scheduling hardware architecture of WiFi hotspot side

Abstract

The invention provides an STA scheduling hardware architecture on a WiFi hotspot side, and the architecture comprises a scheduling instruction generation module which is connected with an STA state management module and a WiFi hardware unit, and the scheduling instruction generation module calculates the time slice length of each terminal device according to the state information, generates a transmission frame according to the time slice length, and transmits the transmission frame to the WiFi hardware unit; the WiFi hardware unit is used for sequentially sending corresponding transmission frames to the terminal equipment according to a preset communication priority, and is used for confirming whether cache data of the terminal equipment is sent or not, if so, updating state information of the corresponding terminal equipment through the STA state management module, and if not, carrying out updating transmission processing to generate a new transmission frame; and the plurality of terminal devices are used for identifying and analyzing the transmission frames, and the terminal devices matched with the transmission frames send cache data to the WiFi hardware unit according to the transmission frames. By adopting the structure, the scheduling delay can be reduced, and the problem of transmission failure caused by collision of emergency data can be thoroughly solved.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present application relates to STA scheduling hardware, in particular to a STA scheduling hardware architecture on the side of a WiFi hotspot. BACKGROUND

[0002] With the popularization of the Internet of Things, WiFi4 hotspots have been widely used in smart home, industrial monitoring and other scenarios, and the number of connected terminal devices has increased from several to dozens, such as factory workshop sensor networks and shopping mall intelligent shopping guide devices. These terminal devices often need to upload data periodically (such as temperature and humidity sensors) or transmit control instructions in real time (such as intelligent switches), and have high requirements for communication timeliness and reliability. The core of WiFi communication efficiency depends on the MAC layer channel access mechanism. Currently, WiFi4 hotspots generally use the CSMA / CA mechanism, which has inherent defects in the multi-terminal device concurrent scenario: 1. Blind area leads to collision: "hidden terminal" (two terminal devices cannot see each other but can connect to the hotspot) may detect the channel as idle at the same time and send data, causing collision; multiple terminal devices may also initiate transmission at the same time at the moment when receiving data ends, causing collision.

[0003] 2. Backoff mechanism reduces efficiency: after collision, CSMA / CA starts a binary exponential backoff algorithm, and the terminal device needs to wait for a random time to retransmit. The more terminal devices there are, the higher the probability of collision, and the exponential growth of backoff time greatly reduces the proportion of effective communication time.

[0004] 3. Channel resource waste: CSMA / CA is a "preemptive" access, and the transmission time of a single terminal device is determined by the amount of its own data, which may cause small data devices to occupy the channel for too long, and devices that urgently need to transmit data cannot access the channel, resulting in unbalanced allocation of time resources. For example, a smart home WiFi hotspot connected to 10 temperature and humidity sensors transmits 10 bytes of data every 10 seconds. When using CSMA / CA, the collision probability of multiple sensors transmitting data at the same time is over 30%, and some data needs to be retransmitted 2-3 times to be successful, which increases the data upload delay from 100ms to 500ms or more, seriously affecting the response speed of intelligent control.

[0005] Therefore, in the multi-terminal device concurrent scenario of the Internet of Things, how to optimize the MAC layer scheduling mechanism of WiFi4 hotspots, reduce the data collision rate, and improve the channel utilization rate has become a technical problem that needs to be solved.

[0006] At present, for the WiFi4 hotspot multi-terminal device scheduling problem, the existing technology proposes a periodic scheduling scheme based on Beacon frame, which is applied to part of industrial-grade WiFi devices, the core is to use the broadcast characteristics of Beacon frame (beacon frame) in WiFi protocol to carry scheduling instructions, realize terminal device communication time allocation, the specific scheme is as follows: 1. Frame structure design: add scheduling information unit in the Beacon frame "optional information field". 2. Scheduling period setting: the hotspot sends Beacon frame once every 100ms, before sending, according to the data amount to be transmitted of each terminal device, the time slice is allocated through the "polling priority algorithm" - the terminal device with more than 100 bytes of data to be transmitted is allocated 20ms, the terminal device with less than 100 bytes of data is allocated 10ms, and the terminal device without data is not allocated. 3. Terminal device execution logic: the terminal device receives Beacon frame periodically, parses the scheduling information unit, matches the MAC address itself, and then sends data at the allocated start time, and releases the channel after sending; If it is not matched, it only tries to send emergency data in the "free competition period" (20% of the total period) between Beacon frames.

[0007] Although the periodic scheduling scheme based on Beacon frame can reduce the collision rate, through technical principle analysis and actual scene test, the scheme has the following core shortcomings, which cannot meet the efficient scheduling demand of Internet of Things multi-terminal device: 1. Large scheduling delay and poor real-time performance: the scheme relies on the fixed period (100ms) of Beacon frame to send scheduling instructions, and shortening the period will increase the channel overhead. 2. Emergency data transmission mechanism failure risk: the scheme sets 20% of the Beacon frame interval as the "free competition period" for terminal devices to transmit emergency data, but this period still uses the CSMA / CA mechanism. When multiple terminal devices generate emergency data at the same time, collision will occur, and the retransmission opportunity is small, resulting in high emergency data loss rate.

[0008] Therefore, at present, there is an urgent need for a STA scheduling hardware architecture that can effectively improve the scheduling real-time performance and reduce the collision rate. SUMMARY

[0009] In order to overcome the existing technical problems, the present application provides a STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side, which can effectively improve the scheduling real-time performance and reduce the collision rate.

[0010] The application adopts the following technical solutions.

[0011] A STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side, comprising: The STA state management module is connected with the WiFi hardware unit, and is used for acquiring and updating the state information of each terminal device in real time through the WiFi hardware unit, and sending to the scheduling instruction generation module; The scheduling instruction generation module is connected with the STA state management module and the WiFi hardware unit, and calculates the time slice length of each terminal device according to the state information, generates a transmission frame according to the time slice length, and transmits the transmission frame to the WiFi hardware unit; The WiFi hardware unit is used for sending the corresponding transmission frame to the terminal device in sequence according to the preset communication priority, and is used for confirming whether the cache data of the terminal device is sent, if yes, updating the state information of the corresponding terminal device through the STA state management module, if no, generating a new transmission frame through the update transmission processing; The plurality of terminal devices are used for identifying and analyzing the transmission frame, and the terminal device matched with the transmission frame sends the cache data to the WiFi hardware unit according to the transmission frame.

[0012] As a further improvement of the application, the scheduling instruction generation module comprises a time slice calculation submodule for calculating the time slice length of each terminal device according to the state information, and a frame encapsulation submodule for generating the transmission frame according to the time slice length; The WiFi hardware unit comprises a data cache module for storing the state information of each terminal device.

[0013] As a further improvement of the application, the state information comprises a data queue length, a communication priority and a retransmission rate; The time slice calculation submodule is used for calculating a data quantity factor from the to-be-sent data queue length, is used for calculating a communication quality factor from the retransmission rate, and is used for weightedly summing the data quantity factor, the communication priority and the communication quality factor to obtain the time slice length.

[0014] As a further improvement of the application, the state information comprises a historical data queue length, a historical communication priority, a historical retransmission rate, a historical effective data transmission quantity and a historical time slice length; The time slice calculation submodule has a deep learning prediction model, and the deep learning prediction model is used for predicting the time slice length of each terminal device according to the state information.

[0015] As a further improvement of the application, the WiFi hardware unit comprises a MAC layer protocol module and a data cache module for storing the state information of each terminal device; While sending the corresponding transmission frame to the terminal device in sequence according to the preset communication priority, if the MAC layer protocol module detects that the to-be-sent data queue length of a certain terminal device in the data cache module increases by more than a preset emergency scheduling byte within a preset emergency time length, the transmission frame of the terminal device is preferentially sent.

[0016] As a further improvement of the present application, the state information comprises a communication priority, and the WiFi hardware unit comprises a priority grouping module and a radio frequency transceiver module; The priority grouping module is configured to group the terminal devices into a plurality of priority groups corresponding to the communication priorities respectively. The radio frequency transceiver module is configured to send a group scheduling frame to all terminal devices in the priority group before sending the transmission frame corresponding to the preset communication priority in sequence.

[0017] As a further improvement of the present application, the transmission frame comprises a two-byte frame control, a two-byte scheduling field, a six-byte destination address, a two-byte scheduling identifier, and a four-byte frame check sequence. The scheduling field stores a time slice length corresponding to the terminal device. The specific steps of generating the transmission frame comprise setting the value of the self-sending identifier bit in the frame control to 1, filling the corresponding time slice length into the scheduling field, filling the MAC address of the corresponding terminal device into the destination address, and assigning a unique scheduling ID to the scheduling identifier.

[0018] As a further improvement of the present application, the frame control comprises a frame type, a sub-type, and a self-sending identifier bit. The specific steps of sending the buffered data to the WiFi hardware unit by the terminal device matched with the transmission frame according to the transmission frame comprise: each terminal device identifies whether the self-sending identifier bit of the transmission frame is 1, if yes, it analyzes whether the destination address of the transmission frame matches the MAC address of itself, if not, it remains silent, if yes, the corresponding terminal device extracts the scheduling field and the scheduling ID, and starts a local timer, when the local timer reaches the start time, the terminal device sends the buffered data to the WiFi hardware unit in combination with the scheduling ID.

[0019] As a further improvement of the present application, the specific steps of the WiFi hardware unit for confirming whether the buffered data of the terminal device is sent completely comprise: the WiFi hardware unit matches whether the scheduling ID sent by the terminal device is the same as the scheduling ID of the transmission frame, if yes, it is considered that the buffered data of the terminal device is sent completely, if not, it waits for a duration corresponding to the time slice length, if it does not receive the same scheduling ID of the terminal device after waiting, it is considered that the buffered data of the terminal device is not sent completely.

[0020] As a further improvement of the present application, the state information comprises a to-be-sent data queue length. The specific steps of updating the state information of the corresponding terminal device by the STA state management module include: the STA state management module updates the to-be-sent data queue length corresponding to the terminal device to 0.

[0021] The beneficial effects of the present application are: 1. The scheduling delay is reduced by more than 80%, and the real-time performance is significantly improved: the present application adopts an "immediate triggering" transmission frame sending mechanism, and does not need to rely on the fixed period of the Beacon frame. The needs of low-delay scenes such as industrial control and intelligent security are met.

[0022] 2. The scheduling capacity is improved by 4 times, and the scalability is excellent: the transmission frame is only 16 bytes, and the scheduling capacity is only limited by the number of terminal devices associated with the WiFi hardware unit (up to 32), which is 4 times higher than the existing technology of 8 scheduling capacities. In the scenario of 32 terminal devices, through "communication priority in order", the scheduling period of all terminal devices is ≤32ms (32 terminal devices x 1ms sending interval), which is much lower than the existing technology of 200ms+period, and there is no scheduling information overflow problem.

[0023] 3. The channel overhead is reduced by 60%, and the effective bandwidth is improved: the transmission frame sending time is 128us, and the total channel overhead of each round of scheduling in the scenario of 32 terminal devices is 32x128us=4.096ms, accounting for 12.8% of the scheduling period (32ms). In actual testing, the channel overhead of the present application is reduced by 60% compared with the existing technology, and the effective bandwidth is increased from 8.5Mbps to 9.4Mbps when 10 terminal devices are concurrent, which is increased by 10.6%.

[0024] 4. The success rate of emergency data transmission is improved to 99.5%: the present application sets an "emergency scheduling" mechanism, if the to-be-sent data queue length of a terminal device increases by more than a preset emergency scheduling byte within a preset emergency time, the transmission frame of the terminal device is sent preferentially without waiting for the free competition period; and the "directivity" of the transmission frame ensures that other terminal devices remain silent within the time slice, avoiding collision. In actual testing, 10 terminal devices send emergency data at the same time, the success rate of the present application is 99.5%, the collision rate of the existing technology in the free competition period is 35%, and the success rate is only 65%, which completely solves the problem of invalid emergency data transmission.

[0025] 5. Strong compatibility and low deployment cost: the scheduling logic is completely implemented on the WiFi hardware unit side, only the chip firmware of the MAC layer of the WiFi hardware unit needs to be modified, the terminal device does not need to be modified, and only the standard CTS frame extension field needs to be parsed to execute the scheduling instruction, which is compatible with WiFi4 standard. Compared with the scheme that needs to be modified on the terminal device side, the deployment cost is reduced by more than 90%, and it can be directly used for upgrading the existing Internet of Things WiFi network. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0026] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application or the prior art, the accompanying drawings needed to be used in the embodiments or prior art description will be briefly introduced as follows. Obviously, the drawings can also provide other drawings for those ordinarily skilled in the art without any creative effort.

[0027] Figure 1 is the architecture diagram of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0028] The drawings are only used for illustrative purposes and should not be understood as a limitation on the present patent. In order to better illustrate the embodiments, some components in the drawings may be omitted, enlarged or reduced, and do not represent the actual size of the product.

[0029] For those skilled in the art, it is understandable that some well-known structures and their descriptions in the drawings may be omitted. The technical solutions of the present application will be further described below in combination with the drawings and embodiments.

[0030] Referring to Figure 1 It can be seen that a STA scheduling hardware architecture on the side of a WiFi hotspot comprises: A STA state management module is connected with a WiFi hardware unit, configured to acquire and update the state information of each terminal device in real time through the WiFi hardware unit, and send the state information to a scheduling instruction generation module; The scheduling instruction generation module is connected with the STA state management module and the WiFi hardware unit. The scheduling instruction generation module calculates the time slice length of each terminal device according to the state information, generates a transmission frame according to the time slice length, and transmits the transmission frame to the WiFi hardware unit; The WiFi hardware unit is configured to send the corresponding transmission frame to the terminal device in order according to the preset communication priority, and to confirm whether the cache data of the terminal device is sent completely. If yes, the state information of the corresponding terminal device is updated through the STA state management module. If no, the update transmission processing is performed to generate a new transmission frame; A plurality of terminal devices are configured to identify and parse the transmission frame, and the terminal device matched with the transmission frame sends the cache data to the WiFi hardware unit according to the transmission frame.

[0031] The update transmission processing specifically comprises: increasing the communication priority of the terminal device and updating the time slice length.

[0032] It should be pointed out that the transmission frame used in the present application is specifically a customized CTS Self frame.

[0033] The prior art relies on the Beacon frame fixed period (100 ms) to send scheduling instructions, and shortening the period will increase channel overhead. The application adopts an "immediate trigger" transmission frame sending mechanism, and does not need to rely on the Beacon frame fixed period. In actual tests, the average scheduling delay is 1.2 ms when 10 terminal devices are concurrent, which is reduced by 82%, and meets the needs of low-delay scenes such as industrial control and intelligent security.

[0034] The prior art scheme sets 20% of the Beacon frame interval as a "free competition period" for terminal devices to transmit emergency data, but this period still uses the CSMA / CA mechanism. When multiple terminal devices simultaneously generate emergency data, collision will be caused, and the period is only 10-20 ms, the retransmission opportunity is small, and the emergency data loss rate is high. For example, if the alarm signal sent by the intelligent smoke detector collides in this period, there is no retransmission time because the terminal device enters the scheduling time slice subsequently, which will cause the alarm signal to be unable to be uploaded in time. The application sends the transmission frame in sequence, and completely solves the problem of emergency data transmission failure.

[0035] Specifically, the sending interval of the transmission frame is 1 ms. After a new transmission frame is regenerated, the corresponding transmission frame is still sent in sequence according to the preset communication priority. Specifically, the communication priority has three levels, when the low-level terminal device transmission fails, the communication priority is upgraded to the middle level, at this time, if there is still a high-level terminal device that has not been transmitted, the high-level terminal device is preferentially transmitted.

[0036] As a further improvement of the application, the scheduling instruction generation module includes a time slice calculation submodule for calculating the time slice length of each terminal device according to the state information, and a frame encapsulation submodule for generating the transmission frame according to the time slice length; The WiFi hardware unit includes a data buffer module for storing the state information of each terminal device.

[0037] As a first embodiment of the time slice calculation submodule of the application.

[0038] The state information includes the data queue length, the communication priority and the retransmission rate; The time slice calculation submodule is used for calculating a data volume factor from the length of the to-be-sent data queue, for calculating a communication quality factor from the retransmission rate, and for performing weighted summation on the data volume factor, the communication priority and the communication quality factor to obtain the time slice length.

[0039] The calculation expression for obtaining the time slice length by weighted summation is: , wherein, is the data volume factor, indicating that 1 ms is allocated on the basis of every one hundred bytes, is the length of the to-be-sent data queue, is a communication priority, is a communication quality factor, is a retransmission rate in the last ten seconds, , , is a weight factor.

[0040] Specifically, the weight factor , , The values of the weight factor are 0.6, 0.3 and 0.1 respectively. The data volume and reliability are ensured; the value of T is limited to 1000-20000us to avoid a single terminal device occupying the channel for too long.

[0041] As a second embodiment of the time slice calculation submodule of the application.

[0042] As a further improvement of the application, the state information includes historical data queue length, historical communication priority, historical retransmission rate, historical effective data transmission volume and historical time slice length. The time slice calculation submodule has a deep learning prediction model, which is used to predict the time slice length of each terminal device according to the state information.

[0043] Advantages of the second embodiment: in the periodic data transmission scene (such as temperature and humidity sensor), the efficiency is improved by more than 15%; Disadvantages: the hotspot device needs to have certain computing power, suitable for medium and high-end WiFi hotspots.

[0044] Since the deep learning prediction model is very common in the field of artificial intelligence, the application will not be described in more detail.

[0045] As a further improvement of the application, the WiFi hardware unit includes a MAC layer protocol module and a data buffer module for storing the state information of each terminal device. According to the preset communication priority, the corresponding transmission frame is sent to the terminal device in sequence, and at the same time, if the MAC layer protocol module detects that the length of the data queue of a certain terminal device in the data buffer module increases by more than the preset emergency scheduling byte within the preset emergency time, the transmission frame of the terminal device is preferentially sent.

[0046] The prior art relies on the Beacon frame fixed period (100 ms) to send scheduling instructions, and when the terminal device generates burst data (such as smart door lock unlocking state feedback), it needs to wait for the next Beacon frame to obtain the time slice, with the shortest waiting time of 1 ms and the longest waiting time of 100 ms. For scenes with a delay requirement of less than 50 ms (such as industrial equipment control), it will cause the response of the control instruction to lag. For example, the temperature sensor of the factory motor needs to upload data within 30 ms after detecting over-temperature, and if the current Beacon frame is missed, the delay is up to 60 ms, which may cause motor overload failure. The prior art scheme sets 20% of the Beacon frame interval as a "free competition period" for terminal devices to transmit emergency data, but this period still uses the CSMA / CA mechanism. When multiple terminal devices simultaneously generate emergency data, collisions will occur, and the time period is only 10-20 ms, with few retransmission opportunities, resulting in a high loss rate of emergency data. For example, if the alarm signal sent by the intelligent smoke detector collides in this period, there is no retransmission time after entering the terminal device scheduling time slice, which will cause the alarm signal to be unable to upload in time.

[0047] The present application sets an "emergency scheduling" mechanism. If the length of the terminal device's data queue to be sent increases by more than a preset emergency scheduling byte (specifically, as a specific example of the present application, the MAC layer protocol module detects that the emergency scheduling byte suddenly increases by ≥50 bytes) within a preset emergency time, the transmission frame of the terminal device is transmitted preferentially, without waiting for the free competition period, and without judging according to the communication priority. The "directivity" of the transmission frame ensures that other terminal devices remain silent within this time slice, avoiding collisions. In actual tests, 10 terminal devices simultaneously send emergency data, with a success rate of 99.5% for the present application, a collision rate of 35% and a success rate of only 65% for the prior art free competition period, completely solving the problem of emergency data transmission failure.

[0048] As another embodiment of the present application, the transmission frames are sent in sequence.

[0049] The state information includes a communication priority, and the WiFi hardware unit includes a priority grouping module and a radio frequency transceiver module; The priority grouping module is used to divide a plurality of priority groups corresponding one-to-one to the communication priority according to the communication priority of each terminal device; Before the radio frequency transceiver module sends the corresponding transmission frame according to the preset communication priority in sequence, the radio frequency transceiver module sends a group scheduling frame to all terminal devices in the priority group, so that the terminal devices obtain the scheduling start time of the group priority group.

[0050] The advantage of this embodiment is that it reduces the number of CTS Self frames sent. In a scenario with 32 terminal devices, the group scheduling frame can replace 1 / 3 of the unicast CTS Self frames, further reducing channel overhead by 5%. The disadvantage is that the scheduling delay of terminal devices within the group increases by 0.5-1ms, making it suitable for scenarios with slightly lower latency requirements (such as smart homes).

[0051] As a further improvement of the present invention, the transmission frame includes a two-byte frame control, a two-byte scheduling field, a six-byte destination address, a two-byte scheduling identifier, and a four-byte frame check sequence. The scheduling field stores the time slice length corresponding to the terminal device; The specific steps for generating a transmission frame include: setting the value of the self-transmission flag bit in frame control to 1, filling in the corresponding time slice length in the scheduling field, filling in the MAC address of the corresponding terminal device in the destination address, and assigning a unique scheduling ID to the scheduling identifier.

[0052] Setting the self-transmission flag in frame control to 1 allows for quick identification by subsequent terminal devices. The transmission frame used in this invention is a customized CTS Self frame; therefore, the scheduling logic is entirely implemented on the WiFi hardware unit side. Only the firmware of the WiFi hardware unit's MAC layer needs modification. Terminal devices do not need to modify hardware or drivers; they only need to parse the standard CTS frame extension fields to execute scheduling instructions, ensuring compatibility with the WiFi 4 standard. Compared to solutions requiring modifications on the terminal device side, deployment costs are reduced by over 90%, and it can be directly used for upgrading existing IoT WiFi networks.

[0053] In addition to using customized CTS Self frames, customized RTS Self frames can also be used as an alternative. The frame structure is similar and the process is consistent, but the disadvantage is that the standard length of an RTS frame is 2 bytes longer than that of a CTS frame, resulting in a slight increase in channel occupancy time. The advantage is that RTS frames have better compatibility in some older terminal devices.

[0054] In existing technologies, the "optional information field" of a Beacon frame is only 64 bytes, and each terminal device's scheduling information unit occupies 8 bytes (4 bytes MAC identifier + 4 bytes time slice information). A single Beacon frame can schedule a maximum of 8 terminal devices. When the WiFi hardware unit connects to more than 8 terminal devices (such as 20 shopping guide robots in a smart mall), multiple rounds of Beacon frame scheduling are required, resulting in waiting periods for some terminal devices exceeding 200ms. Furthermore, "scheduling information overflow" can easily occur, preventing some terminal devices from being allocated time slices. Increasing the number of scheduling information units would compress the space of necessary fields such as network identifiers and encryption information in the Beacon frame, affecting basic communication. In contrast, the transmission frame of this invention is only 16 bytes, and its scheduling capacity is limited only by the number of terminal devices associated with the WiFi hardware unit (maximum 32), which is 4 times higher than the scheduling capacity of 8 units in the existing technology. In a scenario with 32 terminal devices, through "communication priority sequential transmission," the scheduling period for all terminal devices is ≤32ms (32 terminal devices × 1ms transmission interval), far lower than the 200ms+ period of the existing technology, and there is no scheduling information overflow problem.

[0055] In existing technologies, to improve scheduling accuracy, the Beacon frame transmission interval is often shortened from 100ms to 50ms. However, a Beacon frame is 128 bytes long. At a WiFi 4 transmission rate of 1Mbps, the transmission time for a single Beacon frame is 1.024ms, increasing the channel occupancy time from 1.024% to 2.048%. In a scenario with 10 terminal devices, the channel overhead increases by 15% compared to standard CSMA / CA, and the effective data transmission bandwidth is compressed from 10Mbps to below 8.5Mbps. In contrast, the transmission frame transmission time of this invention is 128μs. In a scenario with 32 terminal devices, the total channel overhead per round of scheduling is 32 × 128μs = 4.096ms, accounting for 12.8% of the scheduling cycle (32ms). In actual testing, the channel overhead of this invention is reduced by 60% compared to existing technologies, and the effective bandwidth is increased from 8.5Mbps to 9.4Mbps when 10 terminal devices are connected concurrently, an improvement of 10.6%.

[0056] As a further improvement of the present invention, frame control includes frame type, subtype, and self-transmission flag bit; The specific steps for identifying and parsing transmission frames, and for a terminal device matching the transmission frame to send cached data to the WiFi hardware unit according to the transmission frame, include: each terminal device identifies whether the self-transmission flag bit of the transmission frame is 1. If it is, it parses whether the destination address of the transmission frame matches its own MAC address. If they do not match, it remains silent. If they match, the corresponding terminal device extracts the scheduling field and scheduling ID, and starts a local timer. When the local timer reaches its start time, the terminal device sends cached data to the WiFi hardware unit in combination with the scheduling ID.

[0057] As a further improvement of the present invention, the specific steps for the WiFi hardware unit to confirm whether the cached data of the terminal device has been sent include: the WiFi hardware unit matching whether the scheduling ID sent by the terminal device is the same as the scheduling ID of the transmission frame; if they are the same, it is considered that the cached data of the terminal device has been sent; if they are different, it waits for a duration corresponding to the time slice length; if the same scheduling ID is not received from the terminal device after waiting, it is considered that the cached data of the terminal device has not been sent.

[0058] As a further improvement of the present invention, the status information includes the length of the data queue to be sent; The specific steps for updating the status information of the corresponding terminal device through the STA status management module include: the STA status management module updates the length of the data queue to be sent for the corresponding terminal device to 0.

[0059] Obviously, the above embodiments of the present invention are merely examples for clearly illustrating the present invention, and are not intended to limit the implementation of the present invention. Those skilled in the art can make other variations or modifications based on the above description. It is neither necessary nor possible to exhaustively describe all embodiments here. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, and improvements made within the spirit and principles of the present invention should be included within the scope of protection of the claims of the present invention.

Claims

1. A STA scheduling hardware architecture on a WiFi hotspot side, characterized in that, include: The STA status management module, connected to the WiFi hardware unit, is used to obtain and update the status information of each terminal device in real time through the WiFi hardware unit and send it to the scheduling instruction generation module. The scheduling instruction generation module is connected to the STA status management module and the WiFi hardware unit. The scheduling instruction generation module calculates the time slice length of each terminal device based on the status information, generates a transmission frame based on the time slice length, and transmits it to the WiFi hardware unit. The WiFi hardware unit is used to send the corresponding transmission frames to the terminal device in sequence according to the preset communication priority. It is used to confirm whether the cached data of the terminal device has been sent. If yes, the status information of the corresponding terminal device is updated through the STA status management module. If no, the update transmission process is performed to generate a new transmission frame. Multiple terminal devices are used to identify and parse transmission frames. The terminal device that matches the transmission frame sends cached data to the WiFi hardware unit according to the transmission frame.

2. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 1, characterized in that, The scheduling instruction generation module includes a time slice calculation submodule for calculating the time slice length of each terminal device based on the status information, and a frame encapsulation submodule for generating transmission frames based on the time slice length. The WiFi hardware unit includes a data cache module for storing status information of each terminal device.

3. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 2, characterized in that, Status information includes data queue length, communication priority, and retransmission rate; The time slice calculation submodule is used to calculate the data volume factor from the length of the data queue to be sent, to calculate the communication quality factor from the retransmission rate, and to perform a weighted summation of the data volume factor, communication priority, and communication quality factor to obtain the time slice length.

4. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 2, characterized in that, Status information includes historical data queue length, historical communication priority, historical retransmission rate, historical effective data transmission volume, and historical time slice length; The time slice calculation submodule has a deep learning prediction model, which is used to predict the time slice length of each terminal device based on the state information.

5. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 1, characterized in that, The WiFi hardware unit includes a MAC layer protocol module and a data cache module for storing the status information of each terminal device; While sending the corresponding transmission frames to the terminal device in sequence according to the preset communication priority, if the MAC layer protocol module detects that the length of the pending data queue of a certain terminal device in the data buffer module has increased by more bytes than the preset emergency scheduling byte within the preset emergency duration, then the transmission frame of that terminal device will be sent first.

6. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 1, characterized in that, Status information includes communication priority; the WiFi hardware unit includes a priority packet module and a radio frequency transceiver module. The priority grouping module is used to divide each terminal device into multiple priority groups that correspond one-to-one with the communication priority, according to the communication priority of each terminal device. Before the RF transceiver module sends the corresponding transmission frames in sequence according to the preset communication priority, the RF transceiver module sends a group scheduling frame to all terminal devices in the priority group so that the terminal devices can obtain the scheduling start time of the priority group.

7. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 1, characterized in that, The transmission frame includes two bytes of frame control, two bytes of scheduling field, six bytes of destination address, two bytes of scheduling identifier, and four bytes of frame check sequence. The scheduling field stores the time slice length corresponding to the terminal device; The specific steps for generating a transmission frame include: setting the value of the self-transmission flag bit in frame control to 1, filling in the corresponding time slice length in the scheduling field, filling in the MAC address of the corresponding terminal device in the destination address, and assigning a unique scheduling ID to the scheduling identifier.

8. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 7, characterized in that, Frame control includes frame type, subtype, and self-transmission flag. The specific steps for identifying and parsing transmission frames, and for a terminal device matching the transmission frame to send cached data to the WiFi hardware unit according to the transmission frame, include: each terminal device identifies whether the self-transmission flag bit of the transmission frame is 1. If it is, it parses whether the destination address of the transmission frame matches its own MAC address. If they do not match, it remains silent. If they match, the corresponding terminal device extracts the scheduling field and scheduling ID, and starts a local timer. When the local timer reaches its start time, the terminal device sends cached data to the WiFi hardware unit in combination with the scheduling ID.

9. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 1, characterized in that, The specific steps taken by the WiFi hardware unit to confirm whether the cached data of the terminal device has been sent include: the WiFi hardware unit matching the scheduling ID sent by the terminal device with the scheduling ID of the transmission frame. If they are the same, the terminal device is considered to have finished sending the cached data. If they are different, the unit waits for the duration corresponding to the time slice length. If the same scheduling ID is not received from the terminal device after waiting, the terminal device is considered not to have finished sending the cached data.

10. The STA scheduling hardware architecture on the WiFi hotspot side according to claim 1, characterized in that, Status information includes the length of the queue of data to be sent; The specific steps for updating the status information of the corresponding terminal device through the STA status management module include: the STA status management module updates the length of the data queue to be sent for the corresponding terminal device to 0.

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