METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENGAGING IN A SERVICE OR ACTIVITY USING AN AD-HOC MESH NETWORK

• US 20100304759A1
• Filed: 05/29/2009
• Published: 12/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Leppanen, Kari J., Kasslin, Mika, Tirronen, Mikko, Virtanen, Sami, Turunen, Markku T.
• Granted Patent: US 9,055,105 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.2
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0421 Anonymous communication, i.e. the party's identifiers are hidden from the other party or parties, e.g. using an anonymizer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/32 Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/325 in the network layer [OSI layer 3], e.g. X.25 H04L69/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/023 Limited or focused flooding to selected areas of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

An approach is provided for discovering a location-based service over an ad-hoc mesh network. A location-based service is discovered sending an anonymous flooding message including a query over the ad-hoc mesh network. A wireless node replies to the flooding message over the ad-hoc mesh network with a pointer to the discovered location-based service.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

discovering a location-based service by sending an anonymous flooding message including a query over an ad-hoc mesh network; and

receiving a reply from a neighboring wireless node over the ad-hoc mesh network,

wherein the reply includes a pointer to the discovered location-based service.

2. A method of claim 1, wherein the location-based service is location indication data.

3. A method of claim 1, wherein the location-based service is an indication of a local event.

4. A method of claim 1, wherein the location-based service is an indication of local information matching the query.

5. A method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the flooding message to include one or more anonymized community identifiers,

wherein the one or more anonymized community identifier specify the respective communities to which the flooding message is directed.

6. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code,

the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following,

discovering a location-based service by sending an anonymous flooding message including a query over an ad-hoc mesh network, and

receiving a reply from a neighboring wireless node over the ad-hoc mesh network,

wherein the reply includes a pointer to the discovered location-based service.

7. An apparatus of claim 6, wherein the location-based service is location indication data.

8. An apparatus of claim 6, wherein the location-based service is an indication of a local event.

9. An apparatus of claim 6, wherein the location-based service is an indication of local information matching the query.

10. An apparatus of claim 6, wherein the apparatus is further caused to:

generate the flooding message to include one or more anonymized community identifiers,

wherein the one or more anonymized community identifier specify the respective communities to which the flooding message is directed.

11. An apparatus of claim 6, wherein the apparatus is a mobile phone further comprising:

user interface circuitry and user interface software configured to facilitate user control of at least some functions of the mobile phone through use of a display and configured to respond to user input; and

a display and display circuitry configured to display at least a portion of a user interface of the mobile phone, the display and display circuitry configured to facilitate user control of at least some functions of the mobile phone.

12. An apparatus of claim 6, wherein the mobile phone includes a radio for device-to-device communication over the ad-hoc mesh network.

13. A method comprising:

receiving a flooding message including a query for discovering a location-based service over an ad-hoc mesh network; and

initiating transmission of a reply to the flooding message,

wherein the reply includes a pointer to the discovered location-based service.

14. A method of claim 13, further comprising:

filtering the flooding message by comparing a set of anonymized community identifiers stored in a replying wireless node against one or more anonymized community identifiers included in the flooding message,

wherein a replying wireless node in the ad-hoc network contains a set of anonymized community identifiers corresponding respectively to each community to which the wireless node belongs.

15. A method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining whether a wireless node contains or has access to information relevant to the discovered location-based service; and

initiating transmission of the reply based on the determination,

wherein personal information in the reply is anonymized.

16. A method of claim 13, wherein the location-based service is location indication data, an indication of a location event, an indication of local information matching the query, or a combination thereof

17. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code,

the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following,

receive a flooding message including a query for discovering a location-based service over an ad-hoc mesh network, and

initiate transmission a reply to the flooding message,

wherein the reply includes a pointer to the discovered location-based service.

18. An apparatus of claim 17, wherein the apparatus is further caused to:

filter the flooding message by comparing a set of anonymized community identifiers stored in a replying wireless node against one or more anonymized community identifiers included in the flooding message,

wherein a replying wireless node in the ad-hoc network contains a set of anonymized community identifiers corresponding respectively to each community to which the wireless node belongs.

19. An apparatus of claim 17, wherein the apparatus is further caused to:

determine whether a wireless node contains or has access to information relevant to the discovered location-based service; and

initiate transmission of the reply based on the determination.

20. An apparatus of claim 17, wherein the location-based service is location indication data, an indication of a location event, an indication of local information matching the query, or a combination thereof.