Hierarchical Bitmask Compression for Sparse Message Fields
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing data compression methods for bitmasks in communication systems are inefficient, leading to network congestion and resource wastage due to the overhead of bitmasks, which negatively impact communication speed and resource consumption.
Innovation Solution
A hierarchical approach for compressing and decompressing bitmasks using a representative tree structure, minimizing the number of bits required to represent strings of zeros and inverting bitmasks to convert dense bitmasks to sparse ones, along with optimizing compression and decompression algorithms to efficiently transmit and reconstruct messages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If bitmasks are used to decrease the size of messages, then message size is reduced, but the overhead of bitmasks increases the size of each compressed message
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the bitmask into multiple levels of hierarchy. Instead of transmitting a single large bitmask, it segments the bitmask into parent levels and child levels, where each level represents a portion of the data fields. This segmentation allows the system to transmit only the necessary portions of the bitmask, reducing the overall overhead while maintaining the ability to indicate presence or absence of fields throughout the entire message structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a hierarchical dimension to the bitmask structure by organizing it into multiple levels (parent levels and child levels) rather than using a flat single-level bitmask. This dimensional change allows for more efficient representation by grouping related fields and indicating their presence/absence at different hierarchical levels, thereby reducing the total number of bits required compared to a conventional flat bitmask approach.
2Loss of information
If all information of a transmission is passed through the network, then complete data is transmitted, but network resources are continuously consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and transmits only the essential information needed to reconstruct the message structure by using hierarchical bitmasks to indicate the presence or absence of fields. Instead of transmitting all message data through the network, the system extracts the structural metadata (bitmask hierarchy) that enables the receiver to reconstruct the complete message from the transmitted payload, thereby significantly reducing network resource consumption while preserving data completeness.
Solution Approach 2:
The hierarchical bitmask structure acts as an intermediary that enables efficient transmission. The bitmask hierarchy serves as a mediator between the transmitted data and the complete message reconstruction, allowing the system to send compressed representations that the receiver can expand back into full messages using the hierarchical structure information, thus reducing network traffic while maintaining data integrity.
3Loss of information
If bitmasks are appended to each message, then field presence can be indicated, but communication speed is negatively affected
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the bitmask into a hierarchical structure with parent and child levels, the patent reduces the total number of bits that need to be processed and transmitted for each message. This segmentation allows for more compact representation of field presence information, especially when many fields are absent or grouped together, thereby improving communication speed while maintaining accurate field presence indication.
4Device complexity
If the size of bitmasks is not compressed, then implementation is simpler, but network congestion occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a segmented hierarchical bitmask structure that divides the traditional flat bitmask into multiple levels. This segmentation enables more efficient use of network bandwidth by reducing the total bitmask size transmitted, thereby preventing network congestion while maintaining a relatively simple implementation through systematic organization of parent and child level relationships.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are systems and methods for communicating with a sender machine and a receiver machine, and analyzing a bitmask associated with a message to be sent from the sender machine to the receiver machine, such that the bitmask comprises one or more presence bits and one or more absence bits, such that the presence bits indicate that an associated field of the message are included in the message and the absence bits indicate that an associated field of the message are omitted in the message. The systems and methods also dynamically determine compression instructions to compress the bitmask, and provide the compression instructions to the sender machine, wherein the compression instructions reduce size of the bitmask associated with the message to be sent to the receiver machine.