Time slot allocation method and related apparatus

Abstract

A time slot allocation method is applied to a wireless communication system which communicates in time periods T and includes a plurality of data sending ends and a data receiving end, and the method includes: receiving an activation request sent by at least one non-active data sending end in a competitive time slot area; wherein the state of the data sending end includes active and non-active, the time period T includes a plurality of time slot areas, the plurality of time slot areas include exclusive time slot areas and competitive time slot areas, the exclusive time slot areas include a plurality of sub-areas, and the sub-areas are configured for the active data sending end to send data to the data receiving end; and each of the data sending ends corresponding to the activation request is allocated a sub-area of the exclusive time slot area currently in an idle state, and is switched to active.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This disclosure relates to the field of wireless communication technology, and more specifically, to a time slot allocation method and related apparatus. Background Technology

[0002] In wireless communication systems, multiple user terminals share limited wireless transmission resources, necessitating the design of reasonable multiple access and resource allocation mechanisms, such as reserving fixed resources or contention-based access. Wireless microphone systems are a typical application of wireless communication systems in the audio field, commonly used in scenarios such as conferences, live broadcasts, interviews, teaching, and stage performances. They consist of multiple transmitters and one receiver, requiring real-time, low-latency transmission of multiple audio streams, thus placing high demands on resource allocation and access.

[0003] In existing wireless microphone systems, fixed resources are typically reserved for each transmitter to ensure continuous and low-latency voice transmission. However, not all transmitters speak continuously, and long-term exclusive use of resources leads to low utilization and limits the number of transmitters that can be supported. If a contention-based access method is adopted, simultaneous triggering of speech by multiple transmitters can easily cause conflicts, affecting the integrity of voice initiation and system latency performance. Therefore, improving the access efficiency of inactive transmitters and the overall resource utilization while ensuring stable low-latency transmission from active transmitters has become an important issue in the design of wireless microphone systems. Summary of the Invention

[0004] In view of the shortcomings of the prior art described above, the purpose of this disclosure is to provide a time slot allocation method to solve at least one aspect of the aforementioned problems and defects in the prior art.

[0005] According to one aspect of this disclosure, a time slot allocation method is provided, applied to a wireless communication system that communicates over a time period T and includes multiple data transmitters and a data receiver. The method includes: receiving an activation request from at least one inactive data transmitter within a contention time slot region; wherein the state of the data transmitter includes an active state and an inactive state, the time period T includes multiple time slot intervals, the multiple time slot intervals include an exclusive time slot region and a contention time slot region, the exclusive time slot region includes multiple sub-intervals, the sub-intervals are configured for the active data transmitter to transmit data to the data receiver; allocating a sub-interval of the exclusive time slot region currently in an idle state to each data transmitter corresponding to the activation request, and switching it to an active state.

[0006] Optionally, before allocating a sub-interval of the exclusive time slot area that is currently in an idle state to each of the data sending ends corresponding to the activation request, and switching it to an active state, the method further includes: performing conflict detection on the received activation request.

[0007] Optionally, the method further includes: when a conflict is detected among multiple activation requests, sending a conflict handling instruction to multiple inactive data sending ends corresponding to the multiple conflicting activation requests.

[0008] Optionally, the conflict handling instruction is configured to instruct multiple inactive data transmitters corresponding to the multiple activation requests that have conflicted to perform any one or more of the following: resend the activation request after random backoff, reselect the contention time slot, or resend the activation request in the specified retry time slot.

[0009] Optionally, the method further includes: when all the sub-intervals of the exclusive time slot are occupied, selecting the active data transmitter that meets the first switching condition, releasing the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot it occupies, and switching it to an inactive state.

[0010] Optionally, the state of the data transmitter may also include an intermediate state, and the method may further include: when the active state data transmitter meets the second switching condition, switching the active state data transmitter to the intermediate state, and retaining the sub-interval of the corresponding exclusive time slot for a preset holding time.

[0011] Optionally, the method further includes: determining whether the intermediate state data transmitter can continue to retain the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot it occupies after the preset retention time, based on whether the activation condition is met by the intermediate state data transmitter within the preset retention time.

[0012] Optionally, when the intermediate state data transmitter meets the activation condition within the preset holding time, the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot occupied by the intermediate state data transmitter is retained after the preset holding time ends.

[0013] Optionally, when the intermediate state data transmitter does not meet the activation condition within the preset holding time, the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot corresponding to the intermediate state data transmitter is released after the preset holding time ends, and it is switched to the inactive state.

[0014] Optionally, the method further includes: after switching the data sending end to an active state, receiving the current data to be sent from the data sending end and at least a portion of the data to be sent that was continuously cached during the inactive period of the data sending end within the most recent time period T1.

[0015] Optionally, the wireless communication system is a wireless microphone system, the data transmitter is a microphone transmitter, the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot is configured such that the microphone transmitter in the active state sends audio data to the data receiver, and the microphone transmitter in the contention time slot is configured such that the microphone transmitter in the inactive state sends the activation request.

[0016] According to another aspect of this disclosure, a time slot allocation device is provided, applied to a wireless communication system that communicates over a time period T and includes multiple data transmitters and a data receiver. The time slot allocation device includes: a request receiving module, which receives an activation request from at least one inactive data transmitter within a contention time slot region; wherein the state of the data transmitter includes an active state and an inactive state, the time period T includes multiple time slot intervals, the multiple time slot intervals include an exclusive time slot region and a contention time slot region, the exclusive time slot region includes multiple sub-intervals, and the sub-intervals are configured for the active data transmitter to transmit data to the data receiver; and the time slot allocation module allocates one sub-interval of the exclusive time slot region currently in an idle state to each data transmitter corresponding to the activation request, and switches it to an active state.

[0017] According to another aspect of this disclosure, a computer device is provided, the computer device including a memory and a processor, the memory storing at least one computer program, the at least one computer program being loaded and executed by the processor to implement the time slot allocation method as described above.

[0018] According to another aspect of this disclosure, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, wherein at least one computer program is stored therein, which, when executed by a processor, is capable of implementing the time slot allocation method as described above.

[0019] As described above, this disclosure improves the efficiency of transmission resource utilization and reduces the waste of idle transmission resources by receiving activation requests within the contention time slot and allocating idle transmission resources to inactive data senders in response to activation requests. Attached Figure Description

[0020] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of this disclosure or the prior art, the accompanying drawings used in the description of the embodiments of this disclosure or the prior art will be briefly introduced below. It should be understood that these drawings only depict several embodiments of the content of this disclosure and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope of this disclosure.

[0021] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the structure of a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown.

[0022] Figure 2 A flowchart of a time slot allocation method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown.

[0023] Figure 3 A schematic diagram of the division of time period T in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown.

[0024] Figure 4 A schematic diagram of a time slot allocation device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown.

[0025] Figure 5 A schematic diagram of a computer device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown. Detailed Implementation

[0026] The technical solutions of the embodiments of this disclosure will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some, not all, of the embodiments of this disclosure. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of this disclosure without creative effort are within the scope of protection of this disclosure.

[0027] In the description of the embodiments of this application, it should be understood that the terms "first" and "second" are used for descriptive purposes only and should not be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly specifying the number of indicated technical features. Therefore, features defined with "first" and "second" may explicitly or implicitly include one or more of the stated features. In the description of the embodiments of this application, "multiple" means two or more, unless otherwise explicitly specified.

[0028] refer to Figure 1 , Figure 1 A schematic diagram of a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown. In related technologies, such as... Figure 1 As shown, in wireless communication systems, multiple user terminals typically need to share limited wireless transmission resources. For example, Figure 1 When data transmitters 1, 2, and 3 communicate with the data receiver, they may occupy the same communication channel frequency. Therefore, a reasonable multiple access and resource allocation mechanism is usually required, such as reserving fixed resources or contention-based access. Wireless microphone systems are a typical application of wireless communication systems in the audio field. They transmit voice data, requiring real-time, low-latency transmission, which places high demands on the allocation of transmission resources and access methods during communication.

[0029] In existing wireless microphone systems, reserving fixed resources for each data transmitter ensures continuous voice transmission and low latency. However, since multiple transmitters do not speak continuously, long-term exclusive use of resources leads to low utilization, limiting the number of transmitters the system can support. If a contention-based access method is used, conflicts easily occur when multiple transmitters simultaneously trigger voice data transmission, affecting voice start integrity and system latency performance. Therefore, improving the access efficiency and overall resource utilization of inactive transmitters while ensuring stable, low-latency transmission from active transmitters has become a crucial design challenge for wireless microphone systems.

[0030] To address the aforementioned issues, this disclosure provides a time slot allocation method. By receiving activation requests within a contention time slot region and allocating idle transmission resources to inactive data senders in response to activation requests, this method supports inactive data senders in requesting transmission resources on demand, thereby improving the efficiency of transmission resource utilization and reducing the waste of idle transmission resources.

[0031] refer to Figure 2 , Figure 2 A flowchart of a time slot allocation method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown, applied to a wireless communication system that communicates with a time period T and includes multiple data transmitters and one data receiver. The time slot allocation method can be applied to a time slot allocation device. The time slot allocation device can refer to a computer device with certain computing capabilities, and the computer device may have a controller and memory, etc. In some embodiments, the time slot allocation device can also refer to a program module running in the computer device. The time slot allocation method may include the following steps.

[0032] Step S110: Receive an activation request from at least one inactive data transmitter within a contention time slot region; wherein the state of the data transmitter includes an active state and an inactive state, the time period T includes multiple time slot intervals, the multiple time slot intervals include an exclusive time slot region and a contention time slot region, the exclusive time slot region includes multiple sub-intervals, and the sub-intervals are configured for the active data transmitter to send data to the data receiver;

[0033] Step S120: Allocate a sub-interval of the exclusive time slot area that is currently in an idle state to each of the data sending ends corresponding to the activation request, and switch it to an active state.

[0034] In some embodiments, the wireless communication system can be a wireless microphone system, and the data transmitter can be a microphone transmitter. Specifically, in common application scenarios of wireless microphone systems such as conferences, live broadcasts, interviews, teaching, and stage performances, multiple microphone transmitters and one data receiver are usually required to work together. The data receiver and multiple microphone transmitters can be connected via a wireless channel or through an implementation based on a Wi-Fi hardware platform or related wireless communication capabilities. For example, in addition to communicating via a wireless channel, the data receiver and microphone transmitter can also be connected to mobile phones, cameras, tablets, laptops, recording equipment, live broadcast equipment, or other terminal devices to output received audio data, mixed audio data, or control data, thereby improving the adaptability of the wireless microphone system. The connection method can be wired or wireless. The wired connection includes, for example, USB, USB Type-C, Lightning, or audio interface connections; the wireless connection includes, for example, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or other short-range wireless connection methods. The active data transmitter can be a microphone transmitter that meets at least one of the following conditions: voice activation conditions, user operation conditions, priority conditions, or receiver-specified conditions, and has received an authorization instruction from the time slot allocation device.

[0035] The voice activation conditions may include at least one of the following: the microphone transmitter detects that the input audio energy exceeds a first intensity threshold; the microphone transmitter detects that the probability of voice activity exceeds a first probability threshold; the microphone transmitter detects that the voice activity state continues for a preset number of frames; the microphone transmitter detects that the user unmutes or presses the talk button; the microphone transmitter receives an activation command sent by an external control device or receiver. For example, the first intensity threshold may be 70dB, and the first probability threshold may be 50%. The inactive data transmitter may be a microphone transmitter that meets at least one of the following conditions: no valid voice activity detected, in a mute state, no authorization command obtained, or a sub-interval of its exclusive time slot area has been released by the time slot allocation device. The microphone transmitter may include a voice activity detection module, a buffer module, a contention transmission module, an authorization receiving module, an audio transmission module, and a release control module. The voice activity detection module can be used to determine whether the voice activation condition is met; the caching module can be used to continuously cache the most recent audio data during the inactive state; the contention transmission module can be used to send an activation request in the contention time slot area; the authorization receiving module is used to receive authorization instructions; the audio transmission module is used to send the current audio data and at least part of the most recent audio data after obtaining a sub-interval of the allocated exclusive time slot area; the release control module can be used to trigger the release control process when the mute or first switching condition is met. It should be noted that the wireless microphone system is only a typical application scenario of the time slot allocation method of this disclosure, and the application scenarios of this disclosure are not limited to this. The time slot allocation method of this disclosure can be applied to various wireless communication systems that include multiple data transmitters and one data receiver. Specifically, for example, in a wireless microphone system, the activation request can carry one or more of the following information: data transmitter identifier, voice activation flag, voice activity detection result, input audio energy information, voice start time information, priority information, cached audio length information, link quality information, and battery status information. The activation request can be used to indicate that the inactive microphone transmitter currently needs to obtain audio transmission resources.

[0036] In some embodiments, before allocating a sub-interval of the currently idle exclusive time slot region to each data transmitter corresponding to the activation request and switching it to an active state, the method further includes: performing conflict detection on the received activation request. When the time slot allocation device receives only an activation request within a single contention time slot region, it can perform conflict detection on the received activation request. When no conflict is detected in the activation request, the time slot allocation device can generate and send an authorization command to the corresponding inactive microphone transmitter to instruct it to switch to the active state and allocate a sub-interval of the currently idle exclusive time slot region to it, thereby enabling data transmission. The authorization command may include one or more of the following information: sub-interval number of the exclusive time slot region, start transmission period number, resource validity period, modulation and coding parameters, audio coding parameters, retransmission parameters, indication of whether to send buffered audio, silence duration parameters, and first switching condition parameters for transmission resources.

[0037] By receiving activation requests within a contention time slot and allocating idle transmission resources to inactive data transmitters in response to the activation requests, this disclosure can support inactive data transmitters to apply for transmission resources on demand, thereby improving the efficiency of transmission resource utilization and reducing the waste of idle transmission resources.

[0038] refer to Figure 3 , Figure 3 A schematic diagram illustrating the division of time period T in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown. For example... Figure 3 As shown, the time slot allocation device can divide the time period T of a wireless communication system into multiple time slot intervals with different functions. When the data transmitter and data receiver of the wireless communication system communicate, they communicate with a fixed-length time period T. For example, the time period T can be a value in the range of several milliseconds to tens of milliseconds. The exclusive time slot interval can be used for the data transmitter to send data to the data receiver, and the contention time slot interval can be used to transmit the activation request of the inactive data transmitter that meets the activation condition, so as to switch the inactive data transmitter to the active state. The time slot allocation device can divide the exclusive time slot interval into multiple sub-intervals and allocate one sub-interval to each of the active data transmitters. For example, when... Figure 1When both data transmitter 1 and data transmitter 2 are active data transmitters, the time slot allocation device can allocate one sub-interval of the exclusive time slot area to each of them. Data transmitter 1 and data transmitter 2 can then transmit data to the data receiver from their respective allocated sub-intervals of the exclusive time slot area. Alternatively, the time slot allocation device can divide the contention time slot area into multiple sub-intervals and allocate one sub-interval of the contention time slot area to each inactive data transmitter. Similarly, when an inactive data transmitter has a data transmission requirement, it can send an activation request to the data receiver from its respective allocated sub-interval of the contention time slot area to switch to an active state. In some embodiments, at least some inactive data transmitters can send activation requests from their corresponding sub-intervals of the contention time slot area based on pre-configured contention rules, contention sequence numbers, or indication information.

[0039] In some embodiments, a single time period T may include a control information time slot region and a feedback information time slot region in addition to the exclusive time slot region and the contention time slot region. Specifically, for example in a wireless microphone system, the control information time slot region can be used to send synchronization information, clock calibration information, resource allocation information, time slot configuration parameters, or contention control parameters, and the feedback information time slot region can be used to send acknowledgment information, authorization instructions, release instructions, retry instructions, etc. Preferably, for a fixed-duration time period T, the exclusive time slot region accounts for the largest proportion of the duration of the time period T, followed by the contention time slot region, while the control information time slot region and the feedback information time slot region account for the smallest proportion of the duration.

[0040] In some embodiments, the method further includes: when a conflict is detected among multiple activation requests, sending a conflict handling instruction to multiple inactive data transmitters corresponding to the conflicting activation requests. The conflict handling instruction is configured to instruct the multiple inactive data transmitters corresponding to the conflicting activation requests to perform any one or more of the following: randomly back off and retransmit the activation request, reselect a contention time slot, or retransmit the activation request in a specified retry time slot. In some common wireless communication system applications, for example, when multiple inactive data transmitters send activation requests within a sub-interval of the same contention time slot, these activation requests overlap in time and interfere with each other, resulting in a conflict between activation requests. In some embodiments, a time slot allocation device can allocate a sub-interval of a contention time slot to each of the multiple inactive data transmitters, thereby preventing the aforementioned conflict. However, in various actual application scenarios, most data transmitters may remain inactive for a long period, so the number of inactive data transmitters may be greater than the number of sub-intervals of the contention time slot. Therefore, the possibility of activation request conflicts remains high, requiring the introduction of a conflict detection mechanism for monitoring.

[0041] Specifically, for example, in a wireless microphone system, the time slot allocation system can detect the existence of multiple conflicting activation requests through one or more of the following methods: detecting multiple overlapping preamble sequences or data packets that cannot be correctly decoded within the same contention time slot; detecting energy levels higher than a predetermined threshold but failing complete verification; detecting related peaks or synchronization characteristics corresponding to multiple different microphone transmitter identifiers; successfully detecting a preamble but subsequent data domain verification failing, and determining the existence of multiple simultaneous transmissions by combining energy distribution, related characteristics, or temporal overlap characteristics. To reduce latency, the time slot allocation device can temporarily configure one or more dedicated retry time slots in the next time period T, and instruct the conflicting microphone transmitters to retransmit their activation requests in the designated retry time slots via retry instructions in the feedback information time slots.

[0042] In some embodiments, to reduce the probability of activation request conflicts in a contention time slot and shorten the access decision time for inactive data transmitters, the time slot allocation device can assign contention sequence numbers to at least some inactive data transmitters. Each data transmitter can thus determine its relative transmission order within the same contention time slot. The time slot allocation device can set multiple micro-offset transmission starting points arranged chronologically within the contention time slot, with data transmitters having smaller contention sequence numbers corresponding to earlier micro-offset transmission starting points and data transmitters having larger contention sequence numbers corresponding to later micro-offset transmission starting points. This allows multiple inactive data transmitters sending activation requests to attempt transmission sequentially according to the micro-offset transmission starting points corresponding to their contention sequence numbers, avoiding completely simultaneous transmission and reducing the probability of conflicts.

[0043] Specifically, for example, in a wireless microphone system, the microphone transmitter can perform short-term channel listening or preamble detection before reaching its corresponding micro-offset transmission starting point. If it detects a preamble sequence, energy surge, synchronization feature, or other signal indications that can characterize valid transmission from another transmitter at a previous micro-offset transmission starting point, the microphone transmitter suppresses the current activation request transmission and waits for subsequent transmission cycles, retry slots, or receiver indications before retransmitting. If no preamble transmission is detected and the transmitter still meets the voice activation conditions, it sends an activation request at its corresponding micro-offset transmission starting point. The time interval between adjacent micro-offset transmission starting points can be set according to the short-term channel listening time, preamble detection time, transmit / receive switching time, clock error margin, and guard time, for example, it can be from 10 microseconds to 200 microseconds. The time slot allocation device can configure or update the competition sequence number of each microphone transmitter based on the microphone transmitter priority, the number of activation request failures in the most recent transmission cycles, the most recent effective voice activity time, link quality or long-term fairness requirements. It can also rotate the competition sequence number of at least some inactive microphone transmitters at a preset period to avoid the same microphone transmitter being in a lower competition order for a long time.

[0044] By introducing the aforementioned conflict detection, feedback retry, and orderly competition mechanisms, the time slot allocation method disclosed herein can effectively reduce the probability of conflict in activation requests from multiple inactive data senders and improve their access latency.

[0045] In some embodiments, the time slot allocation method further includes: when all sub-intervals of the exclusive time slot area are occupied, selecting the active data transmitter that meets the first switching condition, releasing the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot area it occupies, and switching it to an inactive state. Specifically, for example in a wireless microphone system, the first switching condition can be determined based on at least one of the following parameters: silence duration, most recent valid voice time, transmitter priority, link quality, or battery status. For example, when the silence duration of an active data transmitter exceeds a preset duration (e.g., 10 seconds), the time slot allocation device can determine that the data transmitter meets the first switching condition, and select the data transmitter to release transmission resources and switch states, thereby allocating resources to a new speaker.

[0046] In some embodiments, the states of the plurality of data transmitters further include intermediate states, and the time slot allocation method further includes: when the active data transmitter meets the second switching condition, switching the active data transmitter to the intermediate state, and retaining the sub-interval of its corresponding exclusive time slot for a preset holding time. The intermediate state can be a transitional state between an active state and an inactive state, used to temporarily retain the sub-interval of its occupied exclusive time slot when the data transmitter meets the second switching condition, and to determine whether to continue retaining the sub-interval based on whether it re-meets the activation condition within the preset holding time. Specifically, for example in a wireless microphone system, the second switching condition may include at least one of the following: the microphone transmitter detects silence; the microphone transmitter detects that the input audio energy is lower than a second intensity threshold. For example, the second intensity threshold may be 20 dB. The time slot allocation device can determine whether the intermediate data transmitter can continue to retain the sub-interval of its corresponding exclusive time slot after the preset holding time ends, based on whether the data transmitter in the intermediate state meets the activation condition within the preset holding time. Specifically, when the intermediate-state data transmitter meets the activation condition within the preset holding time, the time slot allocation device can retain the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot region corresponding to the intermediate-state data transmitter after the preset holding time ends. When the intermediate-state data transmitter does not meet the activation condition within the preset holding time, the time slot allocation device can release the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot region corresponding to the intermediate-state data transmitter after the preset holding time ends and switch it to the inactive state.

[0047] By introducing an intermediate state, this disclosure can implement a release waiting mechanism for transmission resources, thereby reducing the frequent release and repeated application of transmission resources and improving the utilization efficiency of transmission resources.

[0048] In some embodiments, the aforementioned transmission resource release mechanism based on the first switching condition and the release waiting mechanism based on the second switching condition and the intermediate state can work together. Specifically, when an active data transmitter meets the second switching condition, the time slot allocation device can switch it to the intermediate state and retain its corresponding sub-interval of the exclusive time slot for a preset holding time. When a new activation request is received and there is currently no sub-interval of the exclusive time slot in an idle state, or when a data transmitter in the intermediate state cannot meet the activation condition again within the preset holding time, the time slot allocation device can select a target data transmitter from the active or intermediate state data transmitters based on the first switching condition and release the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot it occupies.

[0049] In some embodiments, an inactive data transmitter can continuously cache data to be transmitted within a recent time period T1 during its inactive state, and upon receiving an authorization instruction, transmit the current data to be transmitted and at least a portion of the data to be transmitted within the recent time period T1 to the data receiver within a sub-interval of the allocated exclusive time slot. Specifically, for example, in a wireless microphone system, an inactive microphone transmitter can continuously cache audio data within the recent time period T1 during its inactive state, instead of only starting to cache after the voice activation condition is met. The audio data within the recent time period T1 can be a segment of audio data immediately preceding the current moment; for example, T1 can be 5 milliseconds, 10 milliseconds, 20 milliseconds, 40 milliseconds, or other suitable durations. When the microphone transmitter meets the voice activation condition and receives an authorization instruction from the time slot allocation device, the microphone transmitter can transmit the current audio data and at least a portion of the audio data within the recent time period T1 to the data receiver within a sub-interval of the allocated exclusive time slot.

[0050] When applied to wireless microphone systems, by pre-buffering audio signals for a period of time, the time slot allocation method of this disclosure can better preserve the first syllable, starting word, or other transient sounds of the user's speech, thereby reducing the risk of losing the beginning of the speech, improving the integrity of the final received audio, and reducing the probability of the beginning audio being truncated due to the transmission resource request process.

[0051] refer to Figure 4 , Figure 4A schematic diagram of a time slot allocation device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown. The present disclosure also provides a time slot allocation device applied in a wireless communication system that communicates over a time period T and includes multiple data transmitters and one data receiver. The time slot allocation device includes: a request receiving module, which receives an activation request from at least one inactive data transmitter within a contention time slot region; wherein the state of the data transmitter includes an active state and an inactive state, the time period T includes multiple time slot intervals, the multiple time slot intervals include an exclusive time slot region and a contention time slot region, the exclusive time slot region includes multiple sub-intervals, the sub-intervals being configured for the active data transmitter to transmit data to the data receiver; and a time slot allocation module, which allocates one sub-interval of the currently idle exclusive time slot region to each data transmitter corresponding to the activation request and switches it to an active state. Specifically, for example in a wireless microphone system, the time slot allocation device can perform the following functions: resource configuration function, state maintenance function, request receiving function, authorization function, and release function. The resource configuration function includes configuring different time slot intervals in the time period T; the status maintenance function includes maintaining the transmission resource status of multiple microphone transmitters; the request reception function includes receiving activation requests in the contention time slot area; the authorization function includes sending authorization instructions after successfully receiving the activation request; and the release function includes performing status switching and reclaiming transmission resources when the first switching condition is met.

[0052] refer to Figure 5 , Figure 5 A schematic diagram of a computer device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown. The present disclosure also provides a computer device including a memory and a processor, the memory storing at least one computer program, the at least one computer program being loaded and executed by the processor to implement the time slot allocation method as described above.

[0053] This disclosure also provides a computer-readable storage medium storing at least one computer program, which, when executed by a processor, can implement the time slot allocation method as described above.

[0054] The foregoing description and accompanying drawings illustrate some embodiments of the subject matter of this disclosure to enable those skilled in the art to practice embodiments of the subject matter of this disclosure. Other embodiments may include structural, logical, electrical, procedural, and other variations. Therefore, although this disclosure has been described with reference to specific examples, these specific examples are intended to be exemplary only and not to limit the disclosure. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that changes, additions, or deletions can be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of this disclosure.

[0055] It is understood that the processor in this disclosure embodiment can be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capabilities. In implementation, each step of the above method embodiment can be completed by integrated logic circuits in the processor's hardware or by instructions in software form. The processor can be a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, or discrete hardware components. It can implement or execute the methods, steps, and logic block diagrams disclosed in this disclosure embodiment. The general-purpose processor can be a microprocessor or any conventional processor. The steps of the methods disclosed in this disclosure embodiment can be directly embodied in the execution of a hardware decoding processor, or executed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software modules can be located in random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory, electrically erasable programmable memory, registers, or other mature storage media in the art. The storage medium is located in memory, and the processor reads information from the memory and, in conjunction with its hardware, completes the steps of the above method.

[0056] It is understood that the memory in the embodiments of this disclosure may be volatile memory or non-volatile memory, or may include both volatile and non-volatile memory. The non-volatile memory may be read-only memory (ROM), programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), or flash memory. The volatile memory may be random access memory (RAM). It should be noted that the memory in the systems and methods described herein is intended to include, but is not limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

[0057] Those skilled in the art will recognize that the units and algorithm steps of the various examples described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware, or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are implemented in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Those skilled in the art can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementation should not be considered beyond the scope of this disclosure.

[0058] Those skilled in the art will understand that, for the sake of convenience and brevity, the specific working processes of the systems, devices, and units described above can be referred to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and will not be repeated here.

[0059] In the several embodiments provided in this disclosure, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, apparatuses, and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative; for instance, the division of units is only a logical functional division, and in actual implementation, there may be other division methods. For example, multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be ignored or not executed. Furthermore, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed may be through some interfaces; the indirect coupling or communication connection between apparatuses or units may be electrical, mechanical, or other forms.

[0060] The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separate. The components shown as units may or may not be physical units; that is, they may be located in one place or distributed across multiple network units. Some or all of the units can be selected to achieve the purpose of this embodiment according to actual needs.

[0061] In addition, the functional units in the various embodiments of this disclosure can be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit can exist physically separately, or two or more units can be integrated into one unit.

[0062] If the aforementioned functions are implemented as software functional units and sold or used as independent products, they can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solutions of this disclosure, in essence, or the parts that contribute to the prior art, or parts of the technical solutions, can be embodied in the form of software products. These computer software products are stored in a storage medium and include several instructions to cause a computer device (which may be a personal computer, server, or network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods described in the various embodiments of this disclosure. The aforementioned storage medium includes various media capable of storing program code, such as USB flash drives, portable hard drives, read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disks, or optical disks.

[0063] The above description is merely a specific embodiment of this disclosure, but the scope of protection of this disclosure is not limited thereto. Any variations or substitutions that can be easily conceived by those skilled in the art within the scope of the technology disclosed in this disclosure should be included within the scope of protection of this disclosure. Therefore, the scope of protection of this disclosure should be determined by the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A time slot allocation method, applied to a wireless communication system that communicates with a time period T and includes multiple data transmitters and one data receiver, the method comprising: Within a contention time slot region, an activation request is received from at least one inactive data transmitter; wherein, the state of the data transmitter includes an active state and an inactive state, the time period T includes multiple time slot intervals, the multiple time slot intervals include an exclusive time slot region and a contention time slot region, the exclusive time slot region includes multiple sub-intervals, and the sub-intervals are configured for the active data transmitter to send data to the data receiver. Each of the data sending terminals corresponding to the activation request is allocated a sub-interval of the exclusive time slot area that is currently in an idle state, and then switched to an active state.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, Before allocating a sub-interval of the currently idle exclusive time slot region to each of the data sending ends corresponding to the activation request, and switching it to an active state, the method further includes: Conflict detection is performed on the received activation request.

3. The method according to claim 2, characterized in that, Also includes: When multiple activation requests are detected to conflict, a conflict handling instruction is sent to the multiple inactive data sending ends corresponding to the multiple activation requests that are conflicting.

4. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that, The conflict handling instruction is configured to instruct multiple inactive data transmitters corresponding to multiple conflicting activation requests to perform any one or more of the following: resend the activation request after random backoff, reselect a contention time slot, or resend the activation request in a specified retry time slot.

5. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, Also includes: When all sub-intervals of the exclusive time slot are occupied, the active data transmitter that meets the first switching condition is selected, the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot it occupies is released, and it is switched to an inactive state.

6. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The state of the data sending end also includes an intermediate state, and the method further includes: When the active data transmitter meets the second switching condition, the active data transmitter is switched to the intermediate state, and its corresponding sub-interval of the exclusive time slot is retained for a preset holding time.

7. The method according to claim 6, characterized in that, The method further includes: Based on whether the data transmitting end in the intermediate state meets the activation condition within the preset holding time, it is determined whether the data transmitting end in the intermediate state can continue to retain the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot it occupies after the preset holding time ends.

8. The method according to claim 7, characterized in that, When the intermediate state data transmitter meets the activation condition within the preset holding time, the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot occupied by the intermediate state data transmitter is retained after the preset holding time ends.

9. The method according to claim 7, characterized in that, When the data transmitter in the intermediate state does not meet the activation condition within the preset holding time, the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot corresponding to the data transmitter in the intermediate state is released after the preset holding time ends, and it is switched to the inactive state.

10. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, Also includes: After switching the data sending end to the active state, the system receives the data currently to be sent from the data sending end and at least a portion of the data to be sent that was continuously cached during the inactive period of the data sending end within the most recent time period T1.

11. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The wireless communication system is a wireless microphone system, the data transmitter is a microphone transmitter, the sub-interval of the exclusive time slot is configured as an active state microphone transmitter sending audio data to the data receiver, and the competition time slot is configured as an inactive state microphone transmitter sending the activation request.

12. A time slot allocation device, applied in a wireless communication system that communicates with a time period T and includes multiple data transmitters and a data receiver, the time slot allocation device comprising: The request receiving module receives an activation request from at least one inactive data transmitter within a contention time slot region; wherein, the state of the data transmitter includes an active state and an inactive state, the time period T includes multiple time slot intervals, the multiple time slot intervals include an exclusive time slot region and a contention time slot region, the exclusive time slot region includes multiple sub-intervals, and the sub-intervals are configured for the active data transmitter to send data to the data receiver; The time slot allocation module allocates a sub-interval of the exclusive time slot area that is currently in an idle state to each of the data sending ends corresponding to the activation request, and switches it to an active state.

13. A computer device, characterized in that, The computer device includes a memory and a processor, wherein the memory stores at least one computer program, which is loaded and executed by the processor to implement the time slot allocation method as described in any one of claims 1 to 11.

14. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that, The computer-readable storage medium stores at least one computer program, which, when executed by a processor, is capable of implementing the time slot allocation method as described in any one of claims 1 to 11.

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