Suppression of discovery of mobile devices in a wireless network
View Patent ↗Technologies are generally described for suppressing discovery of mobile devices in a wireless ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) network, reducing the number of network transmissions by devices in the network and reducing network congestion and prolonging battery life. A mobile device may add supplementary information to introductory beacons transmitted by the device that indicate no response is necessary from other devices participating in the network except for a coordinator of the network. The mobile device may transmit a malformed introductory beacon that will be ignored by other devices in the network except for the coordinator. The coordinator of the wireless network may detect the mobile device moving through the network and transmit a suppression signal to other devices in the network causing the devices to ignore the introductory beacons transmitted by the mobile device.
1. A computer-implemented method for reducing network transmissions in a wireless network of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) devices, the method comprising:
suppressing, by a computing device, a response of a first device participating in the wireless network to an introductory beacon transmitted by a mobile device moving through the wireless network,
wherein the response of the first device to the introductory beacon transmitted by the mobile device is suppressed by receiving supplementary information added to the introductory beacon indicating that no response is necessary by devices participating in the wireless network except for a coordinating device of the wireless network.
2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein one or more devices participating in the wireless network being powered by a battery and configured to ignore introductory beacons containing the supplementary information indicating that no response is necessary.
3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the supplementary information is added by the mobile device to an unused portion of the introductory beacon as defined in a standards specification for the wireless network.
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the response of the first device to the introductory beacon transmitted by the mobile device is further suppressed by the mobile device transmitting a malformed introductory beacon that is ignored by the devices participating in the wireless network except for a coordinating device of the wireless network.
5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein the coordinating device of the wireless network is configured to respond to the malformed introductory beacon transmitted by the mobile device causing the mobile device to initiate an introduction transmission directly with the coordinating device.
6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the malformed introductory beacon transmitted by the mobile device comprises a router cost table update transmission defined in a standards specification for the wireless network.
7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the response of the first device to the introductory beacon transmitted by the mobile device is further suppressed by a coordinating device of the wireless network detecting the mobile device moving through the wireless network and transmitting a suppression signal to the first device, and wherein the first device is configured to, upon receiving the suppression signal from the coordinating device, ignore the introductory beacon transmitted by the mobile device.
8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the suppression signal transmitted by the coordinating device is a routing table update transmission defined in a standards specification for the wireless network having a high cost associated with the mobile device.
9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 , wherein the coordinating device is further configured to, upon detecting the mobile device moving through the wireless network, multicast information regarding the mobile device to another coordinating device of the wireless network.
10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the wireless network comprises a ZIGBEE network.
11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a mobile computing device participating in a wireless network, cause the mobile computing device to add supplementary information to an introductory beacon transmitted by the mobile computing device indicating that no response is necessary by devices participating in the wireless network except for a coordinating device of the wireless network, wherein at least one of the devices participating in the wireless network is configured to ignore the introductory beacon containing the supplementary information.
12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the supplementary information is added by the mobile computing device to an unused portion of the introductory beacon as defined in a standards specification for the wireless network.
13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the wireless network is a wireless personal-area network (WPAN).
14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the devices participating in the wireless network comprise ZIGBEE devices.