Adaptive data link protocol

• Main Authors: GOLDSTEIN, BARRY CLIFFORD, CHEN, MON-SONG, ZUMBO, DOMINICK ANTHONY, MELEIS, HANFY EL SAYED
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 11.07.1990
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

A communication system provides high speed transmission of data over a link, such as a fiber optic link, between a first terminal and a second terminal. The architecture and protocol permits the use of dedicated hardware such as state machines constructed of programmable array logic units, to synchronize the transmission and reception of data packets and the retransmission of designated ones of these packets in the event of a faulty transmission. Packets to be transmitted and received are stored in an array of frames in sub-windows of a memory storage window in each of the terminals, the frame number being equal to the sequence number of the data packet. By embedding sequence and status bits in each packet within control words and bits appended to each packet, the state machine in each terminal can readily track the progress of each packet so as to request acknowledgement of error-free receipt, to send an acknowledgement, to request a retransmission of a packet designated by its serial number, and to distinguish a retransmitted packet from an original packet transmitted with error.