Method, Apparatus and System For Establishing a Direct Route Between Agents of a Sender Node and a Receiver Node

• US 20080186964A1
• Filed: 06/19/2006
• Published: 08/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Agrawal, Rajeev, Kalyanasundaram, Suresh, Bedekar, Anand S., Gopikanth, Venkat, Ram Ov, Vishnu
• Granted Patent: US 8,144,687 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/24 Connectivity information management, e.g. connectivity discovery or connectivity update
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/082 for traffic bypassing of mobility servers, e.g. location registers, home PLMNs or home agents
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]

Abstract

In the present technique of a communication system (100), an address of a forwarding agent (114) linked to a receiver node (112) is detected to provide a discovered address. The discovered address is then used to establish a direct route with the forwarding agent of the receiver node for subsequent communications between a sender node (104) and the receiver node.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting an address of a forwarding agent linked to a receiver node to provide a discovered address; and

establishing a direct route with the forwarding agent of the receiver node using the discovered address for subsequent communications between a sender node and the receiver node.

2. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

determining whether communication with the forwarding agent should be terminated based on a predefined condition;

terminating the direct route with the forwarding agent when communication with the forwarding agent should be terminated based on the predefined condition.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein detecting the address of the forwarding agent further comprises:

sending a discovery packet having a route tracking option to the receiver node.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the discovery packet is an Internet Control Message Protocol Echo packet having an Internet Protocol record route option using an address of the sender node as a source address and an address of the receiver node as a destination address and wherein the method further comprises detecting an Internet Protocol address of the forwarding agent from an Internet Control Message Protocol Echo Replay packet having a plurality of addresses tracked by the Internet Protocol record route option.

5. The method according to claim 1, prior to establishing a direct route with the forwarding agent of the receiver node using the discovered address, wherein the method further comprises:

sending a notification message to the forwarding agent to indicate the use of the direct route;

determining whether a response has been received directly from the forwarding agent;

establishing the direct route with the forwarding agent when a response has been received directly from the forwarding agent.

6. An apparatus comprising:

an address detection circuit that detects an address of a forwarding agent linked to a receiver node to provide a discovered address; and

a communication agent circuit that establishes a direct route with the forwarding agent of the receiver node using the discovered address for subsequent communications between the sender node and receiver node.

7. The apparatus as defined in claim 6, wherein the address detection circuit further sends a discovery packet having a route tracking option to the receiver node.

9. The apparatus as defined in claim 6, wherein the communication agent circuit further determines whether the direct route should be terminated based on a predefined condition and terminates the direct route when the direct route should be terminated based on the predefined condition.

10. The apparatus as defined in claim 6, wherein the communication agent circuit further confirms that the forwarding agent of the receiver node is able to communicate on the direct route.

8. The apparatus as defined in claim 127 wherein the discovery packet is an Internet Control Message Protocol Echo packet having an Internet Protocol record route option using an address of the sender node as a source address and an address of the receiver node as a destination address and wherein the address detection circuit detects an Internet Protocol address of the forwarding agent from an Internet Control Message Protocol Echo Reply packet having a plurality of addresses tracked by the Internet Protocol record route option.

11. A system comprising:

a plurality of nodes capable of wireless communication;

a first mobility agent linked to a sender node from the plurality of nodes requesting communication with a receiver node from the plurality of nodes, wherein the mobility agent forwards data packets for the sender node;

a second mobility agent linked to the receiver node, wherein the second mobility agent forwards data packets for the receiver node; and

wherein the first mobility agent detects an address of the second mobility agent to provide a discovered address and establishes a direct route with the second mobility agent using the discovered address for subsequent communications between the sender node and the receiver node.