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

• US 20160127978A1
• Filed: 01/08/2016
• Published: 05/05/2016
• 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 10,383,030 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 via wireless signals by a node of a wireless mesh network, wherein the node including circuitry, and the node topology information includes an identification of neighbor nodes that are in the wireless mesh network; and

wirelessly transmitting node topology information that is used to produce a network topology map, wherein the node topology information includes information related to whether respective of the neighbor nodes are a mobile node or a stationary node, so that the network topology map includes a visual indication of whether a particular neighbor node is a mobile node or a stationary node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the wirelessly transmitting node topology information includes transmitting a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the node of the wireless mesh network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the wirelessly transmitting node topology information includes transmitting a name of the node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the wirelessly transmitting node topology information includes transmitting information that identifies a capability of the node.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the wirelessly transmitting node topology information includes transmitting information that represents a node type of the node.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the wirelessly transmitting node topology information includes transmitting information that identifies a number of active data flows within the node.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the wirelessly transmitting node topology information includes transmitting the node topology to a display node that is configured to display the global network topology map.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting with the circuitry a reset message to reset at least a portion of the network topology map.

9. A communication node apparatus comprising:

an interface configured to receive wireless signals; and

circuitry configured to

collect node topology information via the wireless signals transmitted in a wireless mesh network, the node topology information includes an identification of neighbor nodes that are in the wireless mesh network; and

wirelessly transmit node topology information that is used to produce a network topology map, wherein the node topology information includes information related to whether respective of the neighbor nodes are a mobile node or a stationary node, so that the network topology map includes a visual indication of whether a particular neighbor node is a mobile node or a stationary node.

10. The node apparatus of claim 9, wherein node topology information includes a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the node apparatus.

11. The node apparatus of claim 9, wherein node topology information includes a name of the node apparatus.

12. The node apparatus of claim 9, wherein node topology information includes information that identifies a capability of the node apparatus.

13. The node apparatus of claim 9, wherein node topology information includes information that represents a node type of the node apparatus.

14. The node apparatus of claim 9, wherein node topology information includes information that identifies a number of active data flows within the node apparatus.

15. The node apparatus of claim 9, wherein the circuitry is configured to transmit the node topology information to a display node that is configured to display the network topology map.

16. The node apparatus of claim 9, wherein the circuitry is further configured to transmit a reset message to reset at least a portion of the network topology map.

17. An electronic device comprising:

circuitry configured to

collect node topology information via the wireless signals transmitted in a wireless mesh network, the node topology information includes an identification of neighbor nodes that are in the wireless mesh network; and

wirelessly transmit node topology information that is used to produce a network topology map, wherein the node topology information includes information related to whether respective of the neighbor nodes are a mobile node or a stationary node, so that the network topology map includes a visual indication of whether a particular neighbor node is a mobile node or a stationary node.

18. The electronic apparatus of claim 17, wherein node topology information includes a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the node apparatus.

19. The electronic apparatus of claim 17, wherein node topology information includes a name of the node apparatus.

20. The electronic apparatus of claim 17, wherein node topology information includes information that identifies a capability of the node apparatus.