WIT910
2. RADIO OPERATION
2.1 Synchronization and Registration
As discussed above, frequency hopping radios periodically change the frequency at
which they transmit. In order for the other radios in the network to receive the
transmission, they must be listening to the frequency over which the current transmission
is being sent. To do this, all the radios in the net must be synchronized and must be set to
the same hopping pattern.
In point-to-point or point-to-multipoint arrangements, one radio module is designated as
the base station. All other radios are designated remotes. One of the responsibilities of
the base station is to transmit a synchronization signal to the remotes to allow them to
synchronize with the base station. Since the remotes know the hopping pattern, once they
are synchronized with the base station, they know which frequency to hop to and when.
Every time the base station hops to a different frequency, it immediately transmits a
synchronizing signal.
When a remote is powered on, it rapidly scans the frequency band for the synchronizing
signal. Since the base station is transmitting over 54 frequencies and the remote is
scanning 54 frequencies, it can take several seconds for a remote to synch up with the
base station.
Once a remote has synchronized with the base station, it must request registration from
the base station. The registration process identifies to the base station the remotes from
which transmissions will be received and not discarded. Registration also allows tracking
of remotes entering and leaving the network. The base station builds a table of serial
numbers of registered remotes. To improve efficiency, the 24-bit remote serial number is
assigned a 6-bit “handle” number. Two of these are reserved for system use, thus each
base station can register 62 separate remotes. This handle is how user applications will
know the remotes. Note that if a remote leaves the coverage area and then re-enters, it
may be assigned a different handle.
To detect if a remote has gone offline or out of range, the registration must be “renewed”
once every 256 hops. Registration is completely automatic and requires no user
application intervention. When the remote is registered, it will receive several network
parameters from the base. This allows the base to automatically update these network
parameters in the remotes over the air. Once a parameter has been changed in the base, it
is automatically changed in the remotes. The parameters automatically changed are
hop
duration
and the
duty cycle
.
At the beginning of each hop, the base station transmits a synchronizing signal. After the
synchronizing signal has been sent, the base will transmit any data in its buffer unless
data transmit delay
has been set. The
data transmit delay
parameter allows for the
transmission of groups of continuous data in transparent mode (protocol mode
00H
). The
amount of data that the base station can transmit per hop is determined by the
base slot
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WIT910 Integration guide (R) 05/14/15
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