COMMUNICATION APPARATUS AND COMMUNICATION METHOD

• US 20110063980A1
• Filed: 09/14/2010
• Published: 03/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: KONDO, Taiji
• Granted Patent: US 8,509,088 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/238
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/122 by minimising distances, e.g. by selecting a route with minimum of number of hops
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/128 for finding disjoint paths
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A communication apparatus includes an acquiring unit that acquires wireless cost for each path to other communication apparatuses in an ad hoc network to which the communication apparatus belongs; an accumulating unit that accumulates wireless cost for each path, acquired at different times by the acquiring unit; a determining unit that determines a priority level for each path, based on time correlations among the paths in terms of the wireless cost accumulated by the accumulating unit; and a communicating unit that communicates with the other communication apparatuses by preferentially using a path of a relatively high priority level.

Claims

1. A communication apparatus comprising:

an acquiring unit that acquires wireless cost for each path to other communication apparatuses in an ad hoc network to which the communication apparatus belongs;

an accumulating unit that accumulates wireless cost for each path, acquired at different times by the acquiring unit;

a determining unit that determines a priority level for each path, based on time correlations among the paths in terms of the wireless cost accumulated by the accumulating unit; and

a communicating unit that communicates with the other communication apparatuses by preferentially using a path of a relatively high priority level.

2. The communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the determining unit determines, among paths whose priority level has not been determined, a path having the lowest time correlation with a path whose priority level has been determined, to have the highest priority level next to a priority level that has been determined.

3. The communication apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the determining unit calculates a time average of the wireless cost for each path and determines a path whose calculated time average is smallest to have a priority level that is highest.

4. The communication apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the determining unit determines a path whose wireless cost is lowest and acquired last by the acquiring unit to have a priority level that is highest.

5. The communication apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the determining unit determines a priority level for each path, each time the wireless cost for each path is acquired by the acquiring unit.

6. A communication method comprising:

acquiring wireless cost for each path to other communication apparatuses in an ad hoc network to which a given communication apparatus belongs;

accumulating wireless cost for each path, acquired at different times at the acquiring;

determining a priority level for each path, based on time correlations among the paths in terms of the wireless cost accumulated at the accumulating; and

communicating with the other communication apparatuses by preferentially using a path of a relatively high priority level.