Method to provide a measure of link reliability to a routing protocol in an ad hoc wireless network

• US 20040260808A1
• Filed: 06/07/2004
• Published: 12/23/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Strong Force IoT Portfolio 2016, LLC (Strong Force Intellectual Capital, LLC)
• Original Assignee: MeshNetworks, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Strutt, Guenael T.
• Granted Patent: US 7,412,241 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/14 based on stability
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/18 based on predicted events
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/18 between terminal devices

Abstract

A system and method for locating optimal routes between source and destination nodes in a communications network, in particular, a wireless ad-hoc communications network by employing a link reliability algorithm that estimates the reliability of links between nodes using a prediction mechanism and a variable-weight filter. The prediction can be based on signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio or any statistic collected at the physical layer that is deemed representative of the quality of a link, and the weighting filter adjusts the predicted value based on the traffic conditions (e.g., idle, light traffic, moderate traffic or heavy traffic) being experienced by the nodes whose link quality is being estimated.

Claims

1. A method for locating optimal routes between source and destination nodes in an ad-hoc multi-hopping peer-to-peer wireless communications network, the method comprising:

estimating reliability of links between nodes in the network using a prediction mechanism and a variable-weight filter to identify an optimal route including some of the nodes between the source and destination nodes, such that the variable-weight filter adjusts the predicted value based on the traffic conditions being experienced by the nodes whose link qualities are being estimated; and

selecting a route between the source and destination nodes comprising the nodes having the most preferable link qualities as determined in the estimating step.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

the predicted value is based on at least one of signal strength and signal-to-noise ratio.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

the source and destination nodes are mobile nodes.

3. A method as claimed in claim 3, wherein:

the traffic conditions include idle, light traffic, moderate traffic or heavy traffic.