RANGE EXTENSION BETWEEN TWO WIRELESS DEVICES

摘要

A mechanism is provided to extend the range of wireless devices beyond the range limitthat results from timing restrictions imposed by the IEEE 802.11 standard. Themechanism, which operates at the upper level of the 802.11 MAC, determines whetherthe wireless devices are far apart or not far apart. When the wireless devicesare determined to be far apart, the standard retransmission protocol at the lowerlevel of the 802.11 MAC is disabled and a custom ACK packet is utilized. Deliveryof a transmitted packet is confirmed if the custom ACK packet is received withina maximum delay period that takes into account the longer propagation delay betweenwireless devices that are far apart.