Mobile Node Group Formation via Synchronized Beacon Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Mobile network devices face high energy consumption and latency issues during group discovery and maintenance due to complex and time-consuming protocols, especially when forming and maintaining connections with neighboring nodes in dynamic environments.
Innovation Solution
A group formation and management mechanism that determines beacon listening and broadcasting durations based on an energy budget, synchronizing receive and transmit states to reduce energy consumption and optimize beacon transmissions and receptions, allowing nodes to efficiently discover and join existing groups.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If complex neighbor discovery and group maintenance protocols are used, then group discovery and maintenance are achieved, but energy consumption increases and latency increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines neighbor discovery and group maintenance into a single advertising beacon protocol. Instead of using separate protocols for discovery and maintenance, the system uses one unified protocol where nodes periodically transmit advertising beacons containing their group membership information. This merging eliminates the need for multiple protocol layers and reduces overall energy consumption while maintaining reliable group discovery and maintenance.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements periodic advertising beacon transmissions at configured intervals. Nodes wake from low-power sleep mode at regular intervals to transmit and receive advertising beacons, then return to sleep mode. This periodic action pattern reduces energy consumption compared to continuous monitoring while ensuring timely group discovery and maintenance through regular status updates.
2Reliability
If complex neighbor discovery and group maintenance protocols are used, then group discovery and maintenance are achieved, but latency increases
Solution Approach 1:
By merging discovery and maintenance functions into a single advertising beacon protocol, the system eliminates the sequential execution of separate protocols. Nodes can discover neighbors and maintain group membership simultaneously through the same beacon exchange mechanism, reducing overall latency while ensuring reliable group management.
Solution Approach 2:
Nodes pre-configure their advertising beacon parameters including transmission intervals and group membership information before entering sleep mode. This preliminary preparation allows nodes to quickly wake, transmit, and return to sleep without prolonged processing delays, reducing latency while maintaining accurate group discovery and maintenance.
3Reliability
If nodes continuously monitor and transmit beacons, then group membership is maintained, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses periodic advertising beacons transmitted at configurable intervals rather than continuous monitoring. Nodes wake from low-power sleep mode at scheduled intervals to transmit and receive beacons containing group membership information, then return to sleep mode. This periodic operation maintains reliable group membership while dramatically reducing energy consumption compared to continuous operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts beacon transmission parameters including interval duration and duty cycle based on energy budget constraints. By changing these operational parameters, the system can adapt to different energy availability conditions while maintaining adequate group membership maintenance, optimizing the balance between reliability and energy consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
The subject disclosure is directed towards mobile network management by reducing energy consumption and increasing a lifetime of one or more nodes. By determining a beacon listening duration and a beacon listening period in response to an energy budget, each node may minimize or reduce latencies associated with node discovery and/or node group maintenance. The beacon listening duration and the beacon listening period is used to compute a beacon broadcasting duration and a beacon broadcasting period such that advertising beacon transmissions and advertising beacon receptions occur at substantially concurrent time slots between low power states. These advertising beacons are used to propagate and maintain group membership information amongst the one or more nodes.