NETWORK UTILITIES IN WIRELESS MESH COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS

• US 20090003243A1
• Filed: 07/03/2008
• Published: 01/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Itron Networked Solutions, Inc. (Itron, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Silver Spring Networks, Inc. (Itron, Inc.)
• Inventors: van Greunen, Jana, Hughes, Sterling, San Filippo, William E. III, Vaswani, Raj, Flammer, George III
• Granted Patent: US 8,189,577 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/255
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/246 Connectivity information discovery
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Methods and systems for providing a network and routing protocol for utility services are disclosed. A method includes discovering a utility network. Neighboring nodes are discovered and the node listens for advertised routes for networks from the neighbors. The node is then registered with one or more utility networks, receiving a unique address for each network registration. Each upstream node can independently make forwarding decisions on both upstream and downstream packets, i.e., choose the next hop according to the best information available to it. The node can sense transient link problems, outage problems and traffic characteristics. Information is used to find the best route out of and within each network. Each network node maintains multi-egress, multi-ingress network routing options both for itself and the node(s) associated with it. The node is capable of several route maintenance functions utilizing the basic routing protocol and algorithms.

Claims

1. A method of managing configuration of a network, comprising:

sending, by a node, a routing registration to a gateway, the routing registration comprising a hash corresponding to the node'"'"'s configuration; and

determining whether the hash matches a hash stored on the gateway, and in the event the hash does not match the hash stored on the gateway, sending, by the gateway, a new configuration to the node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein values comprising the hash are determined by a SHA-1 hash function.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the hash comprises an identification of variables and the variables.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the node is part of a frequency-hopping spread spectrum based wireless utility network

5. A method of time synchronization in a network, comprising:

requesting, by a requesting node, time from a gateway;

responding, by the gateway, with a response packet comprising a value corresponding to the current time;

adding a value corresponding to a transmission delay to the response packet at each hop;

receiving, by the requesting node, the response packet; and

determining, by the requesting node, the current time.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the requesting node determines the current time by adding the value corresponding to the current time in the response packet and the value corresponding to the transmission delay for each hop.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein each response packet is flagged to indicate that each response packet should be examined at each hop.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the requesting of time from the gateway is carried out by sending a request as a standalone IP packet.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the requesting of time from the gateway is carried out by sending a request with a network registration packet.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the requesting of time from the gateway is carried out by sending a request inserted in a data-link interface TLV (type-length-value).

11. The method of claim 5, wherein the requested time information sent by the gateway is included in the response packet in TLV format.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the requesting node and the gateway are part of a frequency-hopping spread-spectrum based wireless utility network

13. A method of routing in a network, comprising:

receiving, by a node, a source-routed packet from an IP source;

determining whether the packet'"'"'s destination IP address is not configured as the node'"'"'s IP address, and in the event the packet'"'"'s destination IP address is not configured as the node'"'"'s IP address, automatically updating routing information between the node and the IP source,

wherein automatically updating routing information between the node and the IP source comprises adding a reverse route from the node to the IP source to the node'"'"'s routing information.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein automatically updating routing information between the node and the IP source comprises amending the node'"'"'s multihome table.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the updated routing information between the node and the IP source allows the node to route packets via one or more IP sources in the network.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the node and the IP source are part of a frequency-hopping spread spectrum based wireless utility network

17. A method of routing in a network, comprising:

storing, by a first node, routing information to a downstream node upon receiving a packet from the downstream node;

receiving, by the first node, a source routed packet destined for the downstream node, the source routed packet comprising a source route; and

determining, by the first node, whether it is able to send the source routed packet to the downstream node along the source route, and in the event the first node determines it is unable to send the source routed packet to the downstream node along the source route, sending the source routed packet to the downstream node using the stored routing information.

18. A method of power management in a network, comprising:

determining whether a node is in a high-density area of other nodes; and

automatically reducing the node'"'"'s power in the event the determination is that the node is in a high-density area.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein a high-density area is determined to exist if the total number of nodes culled by a source node as identified in the source node'"'"'s transmit messages, and the total number of nodes culled by another node based on messages received by the source node, amounting to a combined total of culled messages, exceeds a predetermined value.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the predetermined value is 100.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the node'"'"'s power is reduced to a new randomly selected power level.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the randomly selected power level is in a range from about a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 35 units on a scale of 0 to 65 units, wherein the 0 to 65 unit scale corresponds to a range of 7 db.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the randomly selected power level is in a range from about 1 to 10 units on a scale of 0 to 65 units, wherein the 0 to 65 unit scale corresponds to a range of 7 db, when the combined total of culled messages is greater than 200.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein in the event of additional power reductions, the power reduction is terminated when there are no more than 2 nodes operating at maximum power out of 100 nodes.

25. The method of claim 18, wherein a node may increase power by about 5 units on a scale of 0 to 65 units, wherein the 0 to 65 unit scale corresponds to a range of 7 db, when the node determines that there are fewer than 50 nodes in the node'"'"'s neighbor list (nodeq).

26. A method of communicating in a network, comprising:

sending, by a network node that has rebooted, status information to a gateway;

compiling, at the gateway, the status information; and

sending, from the gateway, a message comprising the status information to a server.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the message sent from the gateway comprises a SNMP trap.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the network is a frequency-hopping spread spectrum based wireless utility network.