Radio frequency local area network
First Claim
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1. An RF multi-hop data communication network comprising:
- a plurality of mobile terminal nodes;
a plurality of bridging nodes which dynamically create and revise communication pathways between any two nodes in the network;
each of the bridging nodes independently storing and maintaining local information that specifies how communication packets received should flow through that bridging node toward a destination node;
said plurality of bridging nodes, together, forming a spanning tree which specifies the communication pathways in the RF multi-hop communication network; and
each bridging node adding to each communication packet received the identity of a next node in a communication pathway to the destination node.
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Abstract
An apparatus and a method for routing data in a radio data communication system having one or more host computers, one or more intermediate base stations, and one or more RF terminals organizes the intermediate base stations into an optimal spanning-tree network to control the routing of data to and from the RF terminals and the host computer efficiently and dynamically. Communication between the host computer and the RF terminals is achieved by using the network of intermediate base stations to transmit the data.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. An RF multi-hop data communication network comprising:
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a plurality of mobile terminal nodes; a plurality of bridging nodes which dynamically create and revise communication pathways between any two nodes in the network; each of the bridging nodes independently storing and maintaining local information that specifies how communication packets received should flow through that bridging node toward a destination node; said plurality of bridging nodes, together, forming a spanning tree which specifies the communication pathways in the RF multi-hop communication network; and each bridging node adding to each communication packet received the identity of a next node in a communication pathway to the destination node. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. An RF multi-hop data communication system comprising:
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a plurality of terminal nodes; a plurality of bridging nodes; said bridging nodes comprising means for maintaining communication pathways between any two nodes in the network by repeatedly broadcasting messages identifying itself; and said terminal nodes comprising means for determining the timing between the identifying message broadcasts to be received from the bridging nodes, permitting said terminal nodes to enter a power conserving mode until subsequent identifying message broadcasts are scheduled. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10)
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11. In a multi-hop data communication network having a plurality of bridging nodes, a plurality of terminal nodes comprising:
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an RF transceiver; means for segmenting digitally encoded data to be transferred into discrete data packets; means responsive to said segmenting means for individually transmitting each discrete data packet; and means for reconstructing discrete data packets into digitally encoded data. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. An RF multi-hop data communication network comprising:
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a root node; a plurality of bridging nodes; a destination terminal node; a mobile, source terminal node which selects bridging nodes to receive RF data packet transmissions destined for said destination terminal node; said root node and each bridging node having a spanning tree, routing table that lists an address for each node that constitutes a next hop toward an upstream node; and each of said plurality of bridging nodes selecting a next hop address from its routing table in response to an RF data packet received, and transmitting the next hop address along with the RF data packet. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21)
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Specification