System and method for improving service and device discovery in a UPnP-based wireless communication network

摘要

The invention refers to system and a corresponding method for improving service and device discovery in a UPnP-based wireless communication network that avoids unnecessary broadcast messages on the MAC sublayer of the DLC layer caused by UPnP multicast messages on the IP layer by intercepting UPnP multicast messages in the network protocol stack below the IP layer. Said system, in the following referred to as "UPnP optimizer module" (304), is a component that intercepts multicast UDP packets destined to a UPnP IP multicast address and port, said multicast UDP packets containing UPnP packets as payload. After that, the UPnP optimizer module (304) executes DLC/MAC-based service discovery functions so as to perform a wireless network-specific device discovery (on the MAC sublayer) and to find UPnP-enabled devices in the wireless communication network. Once a wireless network device discovery has returned nodes that fulfill the criteria given in the search, said UPnP optimizer module (304) uses unicast DLC/MAC messages to send UPnP packets to only those nodes that are UPnP-enabled and whose device type matches the respective UPnP device type which is sought. This reduces the total number of messages sent in a wireless network significantly, since only potential candidates which might match a UPnP query (according to a mapping from UPnP device types to specific wireless network device types) will receive the search messages.