METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A WIRELESS HOME MESH NETWORK WITH NETWORK TOPOLOGY VISUALIZER

• US 20140321325A1
• Filed: 07/08/2014
• Published: 10/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Jing, Xiangpeng, Patil, Abhishek, Bhatnagar, Anuj, Liu, Aixin, Nguyen, Djung N.
• Granted Patent: US 9,526,061 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/254
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2807 Exchanging configuration information on appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving network analysis for automatically determining the actual topology of a network H04L41/12; hardware or software tools for network management using graphical user interfaces H04L41/22; address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2841 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0859 by keeping history of different configuration generations or by rolling back to previous configuration versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/248 Connectivity information update
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

An apparatus and method for a wireless home mesh network with a network topology visualizer is described. In one embodiment, the method may include collecting node topology information by a node of a wireless home mesh network, where the node topology information includes a list of neighbor nodes for the node. Thereafter, a communication socket is opened, and a node topology packet, including a lust of neighbor nodes, is transmitted in order to produce a global network topology map. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

collecting node topology information by a node of a wireless home mesh network, the node topology information includes a list of neighbor nodes for the node;

opening a communication socket; and

transmitting a node topology packet for producing a global network topology map, the node topology packet includes the list of neighbor nodes.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the node topology packet further comprises a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the node.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the node topology packet further comprises a name of the node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the node topology packet further comprises information that identifies capabilities of the node.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the node topology packet further comprises information that represents a node type for the node.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the node topology packet further comprises information that identifies a number of active data flows within the node.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting of the node topology packet includes transmitting the node topology to a display node that is responsible for displaying the global network topology map.

8. A method comprising:

exchanging one or more messages to discover a topology of a wireless home mesh network including plural nodes;

determining whether a node topology packet has been received from a node of the wireless home mesh network, a node topology packet including local neighbors of a mesh node sending the node topology packet;

filtering the node topology packets according to a route table of a display node, node topology packets whose entries are not present in the route table of the display node being deleted;

using each of the node topology packets to establish a file readable by a tool, node connectivity information including local neighbors of a node being compiled as node topology packets are received from each node of the network to establish a global network topology map of the network; and

presenting an interactive mesh topology map based on the global network topology map, the mesh topology map being gradually increased as further neighbors of the display node, as well as remote nodes, are added to network topology.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the method is executed by one of a mobile electronics device, a gaming console, and a digital television.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the message of the one or more messages includes a node topology packet including the local route table for one of the mobile nodes.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the message of the one or more messages includes a node name and a node address being one of an Internet Protocol Address or a Media Access Control address.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the message of the one or more messages includes a node network capability that includes quality-of-service priority for one of the mobile nodes.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the message of the one or more messages includes a node service capability that identifies if one of the mobile nodes supports video, voice or data streaming.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the message of the one or more messages includes a node power attribute that identifies a battery level for one of the mobile nodes.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the message of the one or more messages includes a node communication attribute that identifies a radio type for one of the mobile nodes.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein the message of the one or more messages includes a node type that identifies a tier level of a mobile node of the mobile nodes that provided the message.

17. The method of claim 8, comprising detecting a selection by an input device of a node on the network topology map presented on a display, and displaying additional information regarding the node responsive to the selection.

18. The method of claim 8, comprising receiving from user input a drag and drop of a node on the map from a first location on the map to a second location on the map.

19. The method of claim 8, comprising:

determining whether a detected node is detected for a first time; and

responsive to detecting a detected node for the first time, assigning coordinates to the detected node according to the discovery of a first neighbor for the detected node.

20. A method comprising:

exchanging one or more messages to discover a topology of a wireless home mesh network including plural nodes;

determining whether a node topology packet has been received from each node of the wireless home mesh network, a node topology packet including local neighbors of a mesh node sending the node topology packet;

filtering the node topology packets according to a route table of a display node, node topology packets whose entries are not present in the route table of the display node being deleted;

using each of the node topology packets to create a visualizer file readable by a mesh visualizer tool, node connectivity information including local neighbors of a node being compiled as node topology packets are received from each node of the network to establish a global network topology map of the network;

presenting an interactive mesh topology map based on the global network topology map, a display window being reset while nodes and connections are deleted according to a local list, the mesh topology map being gradually increased as further neighbors of the display node, as well as remote nodes, are added to network topology.