Method and system for providing reliable communication with redundancy for energy constrained wireless systems

• US 20070076731A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 04/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Original Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Inventors: Herrmann, Falk, Manjeshwar, Arati
• Granted Patent: US 8,667,116 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/408
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided to supervise a network, in which a first device supervises a network node element, and a second device partially supervises the network node element.

Claims

1. An apparatus to supervise a network, comprising:

a first device to supervise a network node element; and

a second device to partially supervise the network node element.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second device forwards an error message transmitted by the network node element to a higher level node in the network if the first device does not forward the error message.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the second device ignores non-error message from the network node element.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the second device appends the error message to a another message.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein at least one of the first device, the second device, the network node element, and the higher level are energy constrained devices.

6. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein at least one of the first devices, the second device, the network node element, and the higher level node are energy constrained wireless devices.

7. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the second device is configured to supervise another network node element.

8. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first device is configured to partially supervise another network node element.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the second device is configured to supervise another network node element and the first device is configured to partially supervise the another network node element.

10. A method of supervising a network node element, comprising:

providing a first device to supervise a network node element; and

providing a second device to partially supervise the network node element,

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

polling, by the first device, a status of the network node element; and

forwarding, by the second device, an error message transmitted by the network node element to a higher level node in the network if the first device does not forward the error message.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

ignoring, by the second device, non-error messages from the network node element.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

appending, by the second device the error message to another message.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one of the first device, the second device, the network node element, and the higher level are energy constrained devices.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one of the first devices, the second device, the network node element, and the higher level node are energy constrained wireless devices.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the second device is configured to supervise another network node element.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the first device is configured to partially supervise another network node element.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the second device is configured to supervise another network node element and the first device is configured to partially supervise the another network node element.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

aggregating, by at least one of the first device and the second device, non-error messages from the network node element and other network node elements within a subtree of the network.

20. A method of supervising a network node element, comprising:

providing a first device to supervise a network node element;

providing a second device to partially supervise the network node element;

polling, by the first device, a status of the network node element;

aggregating, by the first device, non-error messages from the network node element;

forwarding, by the second device, an error message transmitted by the network node element to a higher level node in the network if the first device does not forward the error message;

appending, by the second device, the error message to another message; and

ignoring, by the second device, non-error messages from the network node element;

wherein at least one of the first device, the second device, the network node element, and the higher level are energy constrained wireless devices.