MULTI-CHANNEL MESH NODES EMPLOYING STACKED RESPONSES

• US 20100061350A1
• Filed: 09/09/2008
• Published: 03/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Itron Networked Solutions, Inc. (Itron, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Silver Spring Networks, Inc. (Itron, Inc.)
• Inventors: Flammer, George III
• Granted Patent: US 9,025,584 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/338
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7143 Arrangements for generation of hop patterns
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1628 List acknowledgements, i.e. the acknowledgement message consisting of a list of identifiers, e.g. of sequence numbers H04L1/1614 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0093 Point-to-multipoint
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/66 Layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/7453 using hashing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2466 using signalling traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/6275 based on priority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5053 Lease time; Renewal aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/021 in wireless networks with changing topologies, e.g. ad-hoc networks self-organizing networks H04W84/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0263 involving mapping traffic to individual bearers or channels, e.g. traffic flow template [TFT]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

Rather than using a large number of transceivers (transmitter/receiver pairs) operating in parallel, Access Points with multiple channels are used to aggregate, or stack, transmitted response communications, e.g., transmitting multiple acknowledgements (ACKs) in a single packet to one or more sources of received packets. The method includes sending on a plurality of channels, by each of a plurality of respective first nodes, a communication to a second node, receiving on the plurality of channels, by the second node, the communication from each of the plurality of first nodes and sending, by the second node, a transmission that contains a response to each communication that was successfully received from each of the plurality of first nodes. The response to each of the plurality of first nodes is part of a single message sent by the second node.

Claims

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

sending on a plurality of channels, by each of a plurality of respective first nodes, a communication to a second node;

receiving on the plurality of channels, by the second node, the communication from each of the plurality of first nodes;

sending, by the second node, a transmission that contains a response to each communication that was successfully received from each of the plurality of first nodes, wherein the response to each of the plurality of first nodes is part of a single message sent by the second node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication from each of the plurality of first nodes to the second node comprises data packets comprising identification headers of the source and the destination.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each response from the second node to the plurality of first nodes comprises an acknowledgement.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the message sent by the second node comprises identifiers that respectively correspond to each of the plurality of first nodes whose communication was successfully received by the second node.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein each identifier comprises an eight-byte MAC address.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein each identifier comprises an address shorter than an eight-byte MAC address.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the identifiers are arranged in the message in an order that is based on an order that the communications from the first nodes were received.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the identifiers are arranged in the message in an order that is based on a numerical value of each identifier.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the identifiers are arranged in the message in accordance with a priority that is based on content associated with the communication from each of the plurality of first nodes.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein the identifiers are arranged in the message in accordance with a priority that is based on the sender of the communication from each of the plurality of first nodes.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein each response from the second node to the plurality of first nodes is ordered in the transmission based on a pre-allocated address shorter than a MAC address corresponding to each of the plurality of first nodes that sent a successfully received packet.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the pre-allocated address is a pre-determined byte of the MAC address corresponding to each of the plurality of first nodes that sent a successfully received packet.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the pre-allocated address is a hash of the MAC address corresponding to each of the plurality of first nodes that sent a successfully received packet.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein each response from the second node to the plurality of first nodes is ordered in the transmission based on a priority associated with a received packet.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein each response from the second node to the plurality of first nodes is ordered in the transmission based on a priority associated with content of the received packet.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein each response from the second node to the plurality of first nodes is ordered in the transmission based on a priority associated with the node from which the received packet was received.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein each response from the second node to the plurality of first nodes is ordered in the transmission based on information about a frequency hopping pattern in the network.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication comprises a request sent by at least one of the first nodes and wherein the response comprises a command instructing the at least one first node to send the request to another node.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the response is included in a data packet in a Type-Length-Value (TLV) format.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the command is included in a data packet in a Type-Length-Value (TLV) format.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the request is for an update on the executable code image of a node.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein the request is for node routing table information.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein the request is for security alert information.

24. The method of claim 18, wherein the request is for timing information.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the communication by each of the plurality of first nodes and sending the transmission by the second node occurs during a pre-determined time slot.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein sending the communication by each of the plurality of first nodes occurs during a first portion of the pre-determined time slot.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein there is at least some temporal overlap of communications during the sending on a plurality of channels by each of the plurality of first nodes.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein sending the transmission by the second node occurs during a second portion of the pre-determined time slot.

29. The method of claim 25, wherein information about the pre-determined time slot is sent to the first nodes in beacon packets.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the beacon packet comprises at least one of timing synchronization information, timing sequence information and channel information.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the first nodes are divided into at least two groups, and wherein in a first group, first nodes adjacent to the second node communicate directly with the second node while, in a second group, first nodes adjacent to the second node communicate with other first nodes, and wherein once the first group has completed communicating with the second node, then in the second group, first nodes adjacent to the second node communicate directly with the second node while, in the first group, first nodes adjacent to the second node communicate with other first nodes.

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

monitoring, by a first node, a pre-determined channel at a pre-determined time;

determining, by the first node, whether data has been received on the pre-determined channel at the pre-determined time;

determining, by the first node, whether to forward received data to a single channel or multi-channel receiving node in the event data has been received;

transmitting, by the first node, the received data to the multi-channel receiving node in the event of the determination that the data is to be sent to the multi-channel receiving node;

monitoring, by the first node, a pre-determined response channel once the data has been transmitted to the multi-channel receiving node;

determining, by the first node, by monitoring the pre-determined response channel, whether the first node has received a response for the transmitted data, the response being transmitted by the multi-channel receiving node; and

re-transmitting, by the first node, the data to the multi-channel receiving node in the event the first node determines it has not received a response from the multi-channel receiving node.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein at least one of the pre-determined channel, the pre-determined time and the pre-determined response channel is provided to the first node by a beacon packet.