Wireless Terminal Keep-Alive Mechanism for NAT Connection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional 'keep-alive' mechanisms for network address translation (NAT) devices in portable devices, such as smartphones, consume extra power and reduce battery life due to unnecessary data flow when these devices are in sleep mode, as they attempt to maintain connections to prevent counter timeouts.
Innovation Solution
A wireless terminal design that includes a first storage for packets and a communication unit, which remains powered in sleep mode to periodically transmit minimal data packets to an access point, keeping the connection alive with the NAT device and minimizing power consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional keep-alive mechanism is used to maintain NAT connection, then connection reliability is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements periodic transmission of keep-alive packets at configured intervals to maintain NAT binding entries. The terminal device sends packets periodically rather than continuously, reducing power consumption while ensuring connection reliability by resetting the NAT timeout counter at regular intervals.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically adjusts the keep-alive packet transmission interval based on network conditions and battery status. When battery level is high, shorter intervals are used for better connection reliability. When battery level is low, longer intervals are used to reduce power consumption, thus changing the timing parameter adaptively.
2Reliability
If terminal remains fully powered to maintain connection, then communication availability is improved, but battery life decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The terminal device enters sleep mode between periodic keep-alive packet transmissions, significantly reducing power consumption during idle periods. The communication unit is activated only at scheduled intervals to send minimal keep-alive packets, then returns to low-power state, extending battery life while maintaining communication availability.
Solution Approach 2:
The terminal pre-configures keep-alive packet parameters including transmission intervals and packet content before entering sleep mode. This preliminary setup ensures that when the terminal wakes up, it can immediately transmit the pre-prepared keep-alive packet without requiring full system initialization, thus maintaining communication availability while minimizing active time.
3Stability of the object's composition
If keep-alive packets are transmitted frequently, then connection stability is improved, but data flow overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent adjusts the keep-alive packet transmission interval parameter based on connection stability requirements and battery status. Longer intervals reduce data flow overhead but may impact connection stability, while shorter intervals improve stability but increase overhead. The system adapts this parameter dynamically to balance both concerns.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts only the essential keep-alive functionality from the full communication protocol stack. Instead of transmitting complete data packets with headers and payloads, the system sends minimal keep-alive packets containing only necessary connection-maintenance information, thus reducing data flow overhead while maintaining connection stability.
Data Source
AI summary
A terminal includes a first storage, which is kept turned on in a sleep mode, and is utilized to store a first packet transmitted with a server, a second storage which is utilized to store data required for the terminal in a wake-up mode, a central processing unit which is utilized to generated a second packet according the first packet and send the first packet to a access point in the sleep mode, and a communication unit which is connected to the access point and is utilized to transmit the second packet according to control of the central processing unit.