US 12,009,859 B2
Interference suppressing for optical wireless networks
Andries Van Wageningen, Eindhoven (NL)
Assigned to SIGNIFY HOLDING B.V., Eindhoven (NL)
Appl. No. 17/633,706
Filed by SIGNIFY HOLDING B.V., Eindhoven (NL)
PCT Filed Jul. 20, 2020, PCT No. PCT/EP2020/070418
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Feb. 8, 2022,
PCT Pub. No. WO2021/028153, PCT Pub. Date Feb. 18, 2021.
Claims priority of application No. 19190969 (EP), filed on Aug. 9, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0321217 A1, Oct. 6, 2022
Int. Cl. H04B 10/114 (2013.01); H04B 10/116 (2013.01)
CPC H04B 10/1149 (2013.01) [H04B 10/116 (2013.01)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An auxiliary scheduler for reducing interference in an optical wireless communication (OWC) network having a line-of-sight character, the OWC network comprising at least two coordinators and a plurality of network devices selectively associated to and synchronized with a respective one of the coordinators, and wherein the at least two coordinators and the plurality of network devices share a same optical wireless medium of the OWC network via a time-division multiple access (TDMA) approach by dividing the wireless medium into consecutive time slots, at least part of the auxiliary scheduler co-located with a coordinator;
wherein the auxiliary scheduler is configured:
to determine a first margin representing a time-interval needed to tolerate a deviation of a local time of the coordinator from a remote timing reference due to timing synchronization uncertainty of the coordinator against the remote timing reference;
to reserve the first margin within an allocated time slot of the coordinator, which is adjacent to a neighboring time slot allocated to another coordinator than the allocated time slot;
to determine a second margin representing another time-interval needed to tolerate timing synchronization uncertainty between the coordinator and any other coordinator in the OWC network; and
to reserve the second margin within the allocated time slot of the coordinator, which is adjacent to another neighboring time slot, when information on allocation of the other neighboring time slot is unavailable at the auxiliary scheduler subsystem.