Message Exchange Frames with Selective Acknowledgment Bits

The patent segments the acknowledgment mechanism into individual bit fields within frames, where each bit corresponds to a specific data field's reception status. This segmentation allows receivers to provide precise feedback about which data fields were received successfully, enabling senders to retransmit only the necessary portions rather than entire messages, thus improving reliability while maintaining simplicity in constrained devices

The patent implements a feedback mechanism where receivers send acknowledgment frames containing bit fields that indicate which data fields were received successfully. This feedback loop enables the sender to identify and retransmit only the specific data fields that failed to arrive, improving message delivery reliability without requiring complex retransmission protocols or buffering mechanisms in resource-constrained devices

The patent applies partial action by implementing selective acknowledgment, where the receiver sends acknowledgment bits only for data fields that were successfully received, rather than acknowledging every frame. This partial acknowledgment approach reduces the amount of feedback traffic and energy consumption while still providing sufficient reliability information for the sender to perform targeted retransmissions of only failed data fields

The patent changes the parameter of acknowledgment granularity from frame-level to data-field-level by incorporating bit fields within frames that indicate reception status of individual data fields. This parameter change enables more efficient resource utilization by allowing selective retransmission at the data field level, reducing overall energy consumption and bandwidth usage compared to traditional frame-level acknowledgment mechanisms