Electronic device and related control method

Abstract

To provide an electronic device that improves communication quality by determining whether a vendor of a wireless communication chip in another electronic device is the same as its own vendor and supporting each other.SOLUTION: A control method includes the steps of: generating a MAC frame; performing a specific encoding operation on a specific field of the MAC frame to generate parity; using the parity to replace a portion of content of the specific field; and for transmission to another electronic device, generating a packet according to the MAC frame.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present invention relates to electronic devices having wireless communication capabilities. [Background technology]

[0002] In current electronic devices that can wirelessly communicate with each other, the wireless communication chips inside the devices may be manufactured by different vendors, and the wireless communication chips manufactured by different vendors may have different functions. In addition, when the electronic devices are in a relatively complex external environment, such as severe channel interference, the communication quality between the electronic devices is often not very good. Summary of the Invention

[0003] Therefore, one of the objectives of the present invention is to provide an electronic device for solving the problems described in the prior art, which is capable of determining whether a vendor of a wireless communication chip in another electronic device is the same as its own vendor, and improving communication quality by assisting each other.

[0004] According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method for controlling an electronic device includes the steps of generating a MAC frame, performing a specific encoding operation on a specific field of the MAC frame to generate a parity, using the parity to replace a portion of the content of the specific field, and generating a packet according to the MAC frame for transmission to another electronic device.

[0005] According to one embodiment of the present invention, an electronic device is disclosed, which includes a processing circuit and a wireless communication module, configured to perform the steps of generating a MAC frame, performing a specific encoding operation on a specific field of the MAC frame to generate a parity, replacing a portion of the content of the specific field using the parity, and generating a packet according to the MAC frame for transmission to another electronic device.

[0006] According to one embodiment of the present invention, a control method for an electronic device includes the steps of receiving a packet from another electronic device, determining whether a specific field of a MAC frame of the packet is generated by a specific encoding method, determining that a vendor of the other electronic device and a vendor of the wireless communication module in the electronic device are the same vendor if the specific field of the MAC frame is generated by the specific encoding method, and determining that the vendor of the other electronic device is different from the vendor of the wireless communication module in the electronic device if the specific field of the MAC frame is not generated by the specific encoding method.

[0007] According to one embodiment of the present invention, an electronic device is disclosed, which includes a processing circuit and a wireless communication module, the wireless communication module being configured to perform the steps of receiving a packet from another electronic device, determining whether a specific field of a MAC frame of the packet is generated by a specific encoding method, determining that a vendor of the other electronic device and a vendor of the wireless communication module in the electronic device are the same vendor if the specific field of the MAC frame is generated by the specific encoding method, and determining that the vendor of the other electronic device is different from the vendor of the wireless communication module in the electronic device if the specific field of the MAC frame is not generated by the specific encoding method.

[0008] These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0009] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 illustrates a wireless communication system according to one embodiment of the present invention. [Diagram 2] 4 is a flowchart of a method for controlling a station according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Diagram 3] FIG. 2 illustrates a MAC frame. [Figure 4]FIG. 2 illustrates generating parity and a modified duration / AID field according to one embodiment of the present invention. [Diagram 5] FIG. 2 illustrates generating parity according to one embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 6] FIG. 2 illustrates generating parity according to one embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 7] FIG. 2 illustrates generating parity according to one embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 8] 4 is a flowchart of a method for controlling a station according to an embodiment of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0010] 1 is a diagram illustrating a wireless communication system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the wireless communication system 100 includes an access point (AP) 102 and a plurality of electronic devices capable of performing wireless communication with the AP 102, and stations 110, 120, and 130 function as a plurality of electronic devices in this embodiment. In this embodiment, the stations 110, 120, and 130 may be desktop computers, notebooks, tablets, mobile phones, or other electronic devices having wireless communication capabilities. Station 110 includes at least a processing circuit 112 and a wireless communication module 114, and station 120 includes at least a processing circuit 122 and a wireless communication module 124, where each of processing circuit 112 and processing circuit 122 may be a processor within an electronic device, and where wireless communication module 114 and wireless communication module 124 may include a Media Access Control (MAC) layer circuit and a physical layer circuit.

[0011] In the embodiment shown in Fig. 1, the surrounding environments of the stations 110, 120, and 130 are different, and the distances between the stations 110, 120, and 130 and the AP 102 are also different, so the connection quality and signal transmission quality of the stations 110, 120, and 130 are also different. Therefore, the present invention provides a method for the station side to identify whether the wireless communication modules of other stations belong to the same vendor, so as to assist each other and improve the communication quality. In the following description, it is assumed that the station 120 transmits a packet, and the station 110 receives a packet from the station 120 to determine whether the wireless communication module 124 of the station 120 belongs to the same vendor as its own wireless communication module 114, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

[0012] Figure 2 is a flowchart of a control method for station 120 according to one embodiment of the present invention. In step 200, the flow starts and station 120 has established a connection with AP102. In step 202, as shown in FIG. 3, wireless communication module 124 generates information of a MAC frame 300, and the MAC frame includes a plurality of fields, and the plurality of fields are, respectively, frame control, duration / ID, address 1, address 2, address 3, sequence control, address 4, quality of service (QoS) control, high throughput (HT) control, frame body, and frame check sequence (FCS). The definitions and functions of the plurality of fields of MAC frame 300 are described in the relevant specifications of IEEE802.11, and those skilled in the art can understand the contents thereof, so they will not be repeatedly described in detail herein.

[0013] In step 204, the wireless communication module 124 performs a specific encoding operation on a specific field in the MAC frame 300 to generate parity, and uses the parity to replace part of the specific field, resulting in a modified specific field. With reference to Figures 3 and 4, in this embodiment, a duration / ID field is used as the specific field, which may be a duration or an association identity (AID), and in most cases, the duration / ID field is used to indicate the length of time that the MAC frame will occupy the channel. The duration / ID field includes 16 bits B0 through B15, and when the duration / ID field is used to represent a duration, the range represented may be a duration between 0 milliseconds (ms) and 32.767 milliseconds (ms). In addition, of the 16 bits B0 through B15 of the duration / ID field, B0 represents the least significant bit (LSB), i.e., B0 has the least influence on the duration value, and B15 represents the most significant bit (MSB), i.e., B15 has the most influence on the duration value. In addition, bits closer to B15 have a greater influence on the duration value. Similarly, bits closer to B0 have a lesser influence on the duration value.In this embodiment, the wireless communication module 124 divides the duration / ID field into a plurality of sections S1-SN, each of which includes the same or different number of bits, for example, if the wireless communication module 124 divides the duration / ID field into four sections (i.e., N=4), each of the sections S1-S4 has 4 bits. Then, the wireless communication module 124 performs an exclusive OR (XOR) operation on the first part of the sections S2, S3, ..., SN to generate a parity S1', and uses the parity S1' to replace the original second part of the sections S1, i.e., the four sections of the modified duration / ID field are S1', S2, S3, and S4, respectively.

[0014] 5, the wireless communication module 124 divides the duration / ID field into four sections S1 to S4, where section S4 includes B12 to B15, section S3 includes B8 to B11, and section S2 includes B4 to B7. Then, the wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs an XOR operation on B12, B8, and B4 to generate B0' in the parity S1', sequentially performs an XOR operation on B13, B9, and B5 to generate B1' in the parity S1', sequentially performs an XOR operation on B14, B10, and B6 to generate B2' in the parity S1', and sequentially performs an XOR operation on B15, B11, and B7 to generate B3' in the parity S1'. In this embodiment, B0' to B3' of parity S1' are used to replace B0 to B3 of interval S1, respectively.

[0015] In this embodiment, the section S1 replaced by the parity S1' in the duration / ID field includes LSBs and other bits that have a very small impact on the duration value, so that the difference between the duration represented by the modified duration / ID field and the initially set duration will be within an acceptable range, and this difference will not affect the operation of the electronic device in practical applications.

[0016] It should be noted that in this embodiment, the wireless communication module 124 will generate parity S1' to replace the interval S1 only when the content represented by the duration / ID field is a duration, i.e., if the content represented by the duration / ID field is an AID, the wireless communication module 124 will not modify the content of the duration / ID field.

[0017] In addition, since there is a certain probability that the parity S1' is equal to the interval S1, in order to enhance the robustness of the parity S1', the wireless communication module 124 can further sequentially perform XOR operations between the intervals S2, S3, ..., SN using one or more specific patterns, thereby generating the parity S1'.

[0018] Using FIG. 6 as an example, the number of bits in a particular pattern is the same as any one of intervals S1 to SN, and the particular pattern may be any combination of bits such as (1,0,0,0), (0,1,0,0), (1,1,0,0), and (0,0,1,0) shown in FIG. The wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs XOR operations on B12, B8, B4 and a first bit of the specific pattern in sequence to generate B0' in the parity S1', sequentially performs XOR operations on B13, B9, B5 and a second bit of the specific pattern in sequence to generate B1' in the parity S1', sequentially performs XOR operations on B14, B10, B6 and a third bit of the specific pattern in sequence to generate B2' in the parity S1', and sequentially performs XOR operations on B15, B11, B7 and a fourth bit of the specific pattern in sequence to generate B1' in the parity S1'. on B15, B11, B7 and a fourth bit of the specific pattern in sequence) to generate B3' in parity S1'. In this embodiment, B0' to B3' of parity S1' are used to replace B0 to B3 in section S1, respectively.

[0019] In another embodiment shown in FIG. 7, the wireless communication module 124 may divide the duration / ID field into three intervals, the first interval including B0 to B3, the second interval including B4 to B7, and the third interval including B8 to B15. The wireless communication module 124 performs an XOR operation on B8 to B15 of the third interval, B4 to B7 of the second interval, and a specific pattern to generate parity bits B0' to B3' and X1 to X4, and uses the parity bits B0' to B3' to replace the original B0 to B3 of the first interval. In addition, the parity bits X1 to X4 can be placed in remaining addresses or spare addresses of other fields of the MAC frame 300.

[0020] In step 206, the wireless communication module 124 generates a packet, such as a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), based on the MAC frame and / or other MAC frames and transmits the packet to the other electronic device, after which the flow returns to step 202 to begin preparing the contents of the next MAC frame.

[0021] 6, to further ensure the robustness of the parity, the wireless communication module 124 may use multiple different specific patterns to generate the parity S1′ for multiple different MAC frames. Specifically, the wireless communication module 124 may set four different specific patterns, which may be used sequentially and repeatedly in the MAC frames. For example, the wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs an XOR operation on the intervals S2, S3, ..., SN of the duration / ID field of a first MAC frame and a first specific pattern to generate parity S1', the wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs an XOR operation on the intervals S2, S3, ..., SN of the duration / ID field of a second MAC frame and a second specific pattern to generate parity S1', the wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs an XOR operation on the intervals S2, S3, ..., SN of the duration / ID field of a third MAC frame and a third specific pattern to generate parity S1', and The wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs XOR operations on the intervals S2, S3, ..., SN of the duration / ID field of the fourth MAC frame and the fourth specific pattern to generate parity S1', the wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs XOR operations on the intervals S2, S3, ..., SN of the duration / ID field of the fifth MAC frame and the first specific pattern to generate parity S1', the wireless communication module 124 sequentially performs XOR operations on the intervals S2, S3, ..., SN of the duration / ID field of the sixth MAC frame and the second specific pattern to generate parity S1', etc.

[0022] FIG. 8 is a flow chart of a control method of the station 110 according to an embodiment of the present invention. In step 800, the flow starts, and the station 110 has established a connection with the AP 102. In step 802, the wireless communication module 114 of the station 110 receives a packet from a surrounding electronic device through an antenna, such as a packet from the station 120, and obtains a MAC frame in the packet. In step 804, the wireless communication module 114 obtains the content of a specific field in the MAC frame. In step 806, the wireless communication module 114 determines whether the content of the specific field of the received MAC frame is generated by using a specific encoding method, and if the content is generated by using a specific encoding method, the flow proceeds to step 810, and if the content is not generated by using a specific encoding method, the flow proceeds to step 808. For example, the specific field may be the duration / ID field in FIG. 3, and the specific encoding method may be the step of generating the modified duration / ID field mentioned in FIG. 5 to FIG. 7. 5 as an example, the wireless communication module 114 may divide the duration / ID field into four sections, S1 to S4, and the wireless communication module 114 performs an XOR operation on the first part of the sections S2, S3, ..., SN to generate a calculation result, and determine whether the calculation result matches the content of the second part of the section S1. If there is a match, the match means that the content of the duration / ID field is generated by using the specific encoding method, and if there is no match, the mismatch means that the content of the duration / ID field is not generated by using the specific encoding method.6 as an example, the wireless communication module 114 may divide the duration / ID field into four sections, S1 to S4, and the wireless communication module 114 performs XOR operation on the sections S2, S3, ..., SN and a specific pattern to generate a calculation result, and determine whether the calculation result matches the content of the section S1. If there is a match, the match means that the content of the duration / ID field is generated by using a specific encoding method, and if there is no match, the mismatch means that the content of the duration / ID field is not generated by using the specific encoding method.

[0023] In step 808, the wireless communication module 114 determines that the vendor of the wireless communication module 124 of the station 120 is different than its own vendor.

[0024] In step 810, the wireless communication module 114 determines that the vendor of the wireless communication module 124 of the station 120 is the same as its own vendor. Therefore, since the same vendor has the same or similar control methods and functions, the wireless communication module 114 may perform one or more specific functions that help improve the communication quality of the station 120. For example, the wireless communication module 114 can determine the communication quality of the station 120 by detecting the strength of packets transmitted from the station 120. If the communication quality of the station 120 is not good, the wireless communication module 114 may actively enter a relay mode, thereby allowing the station 120 to wirelessly communicate with the AP 102 through the station 110. In addition, the wireless communication module 114 may also actively notify the AP 102 to change the channel setting to try to improve the communication quality between the station 120 and the AP 102.

[0025] To briefly summarize, in the wireless communication method of the present invention, the station 120 may generate a modified specific field by performing a specific encoding method on a specific field of the MAC frame and transmit the MAC frame to surrounding electronic devices, and the station 110 can determine whether the specific field of the received MAC frame is generated by the specific encoding method, determine whether the wireless communication modules of the two stations 110 and 120 are chips from the same vendor, and then improve the communication quality by a specific operation. In the present invention, since there is no need to add an additional field and there is no substantial impact on the content of the original MAC frame, it is possible to efficiently and simply determine whether the wireless communication modules of the stations are wireless communication modules from the same vendor.

[0026] Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that numerous modifications and variations of the devices and methods may be made while retaining the teachings of the present invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.

Claims

1. 1. A method for controlling an electronic device, the method comprising: generating a media access control (MAC) frame; performing a specific encoding operation on a specific field of the MAC frame to generate parity; using said parity to replace a portion of the content of said particular field; generating a packet according to the MAC frame for transmission to another electronic device; Control methods.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the particular field is a duration / identification information (duration / ID) field.

3. said step of performing said particular encoding operation on said particular field of said MAC frame to generate said parity includes: Dividing the particular field into a number of intervals; performing an operation on a first portion of the plurality of intervals to generate the parity; said step of replacing said portion of the content of said particular field using said parity further comprising: The method of claim 1 , further comprising: replacing a second portion of the plurality of intervals using the parity.

4. 4. The control method of claim 3, wherein the particular field is a duration / ID field, the first portion of the multiple intervals includes most significant bits (MSBs), and the second portion of the multiple intervals includes least significant bits (LSBs).

5. The step of performing the operation on the first portion of the plurality of intervals to generate the parity includes:

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: performing an exclusive-or (XOR) operation on the first portion of the plurality of intervals to generate the parity.

6. The step of performing the operation on the first portion of the plurality of intervals to generate the parity includes:

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: performing an exclusive-or (XOR) operation on the first portion of the plurality of intervals and a particular pattern to generate the parity.

7. An electronic device, the electronic device comprising: A processing circuit; a wireless communication module; The wireless communication module includes: generating a media access control (MAC) frame; performing a specific encoding operation on a specific field of the MAC frame to generate parity; using said parity to replace a portion of the content of said particular field; generating packets according to said MAC frame for transmission to other electronic devices. Electronic devices.

8. 1. A method for controlling an electronic device, the method comprising: receiving a packet from another electronic device; determining whether a particular field of a Media Access Control (MAC) frame of the packet is generated by a particular encoding method; determining that a vendor of the other electronic device and a vendor of a wireless communication module in the other electronic device are the same vendor if the particular field of the MAC frame is generated by the particular encoding method; and determining that the vendor of the other electronic device is different from the vendor of the wireless communication module in the electronic device if the particular field of the MAC frame is not generated by the particular encoding method. Control methods.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the particular field is a duration / identification information (duration / ID) field.

10. The step of determining whether the particular field of the MAC frame of the packet is generated by the particular encoding method comprises: Dividing the particular field into a number of intervals; performing an operation on a first portion of the plurality of intervals to generate a calculation result; and determining whether the calculation result matches a second portion of the plurality of intervals to determine whether the particular field of the MAC frame is generated by the particular encoding method.

11. The step of performing the operation on the first portion of the plurality of intervals to generate the calculation result comprises: The control method of claim 10, further comprising performing the calculation on the first portion of the plurality of intervals and a particular pattern to generate the calculation result.

12. 9. The control method of claim 8, further comprising: actively entering a relay mode when the specific field of the MAC frame is generated by the specific encoding method, to allow the other electronic devices to communicate with the access point via the electronic device.

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