APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REDUNDANT CONNECTIVITY AND MULTI-CHANNEL OPERATION OF WIRELESS DEVICES
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- transmitting at least one message from a wireless device in a wireless network to a plurality of access points in the wireless network; and
receiving at least one acknowledgement message at the wireless device from at least one of the access points.
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Abstract
A wireless network includes leaf nodes (such as wireless sensors or other wireless devices) and infrastructure nodes (such as access points). The leaf nodes communicate data messages to the infrastructure nodes. The infrastructure nodes communicate the data messages to gateway infrastructure nodes, which transmit the data messages over a wired network. The leaf nodes may communicate data messages to multiple infrastructure nodes in various ways. For example, the leaf nodes may transmit multiple messages, one at a time, to multiple infrastructure nodes. The leaf nodes may also broadcast a single message to multiple infrastructure nodes. In addition, the leaf nodes may communicate a single message containing a group identifier (such as a multi-cast group address) associated with multiple infrastructure nodes. In this way, communications from the leaf nodes may be more reliable. This may be particularly useful, for example, in networks such as 802.11-based networks.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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transmitting at least one message from a wireless device in a wireless network to a plurality of access points in the wireless network; and receiving at least one acknowledgement message at the wireless device from at least one of the access points. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. An apparatus comprising:
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a memory configured to store data to be transmitted; a controller configured to generate a message containing at least some of the data to be transmitted; a wireless transceiver configured to transmit the message to a plurality of access points in a wireless network; and a local power supply configured to supply power to the memory, the controller, and the wireless transceiver; wherein the wireless transceiver is further configured to receive at least one acknowledgement message from at least one of the access points. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19-20. -20. (canceled)
Specification