Method and Apparatus for a Wireless Home Mesh Network with Network Topology Visualizer

• US 20110280156A1
• Filed: 07/26/2011
• Published: 11/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Abhishek Patil, Aixin Liu, Anuj Bhatnagar, Djung N. Nguyen, Xiangpeng Jing
• Original Assignee: Abhishek Patil, Aixin Liu, Anuj Bhatnagar, Djung N. Nguyen, Xiangpeng Jing
• Inventors: Liu, Aixin, Patil, Abhishek, Nguyen, Djung N., Jing, Xiangpeng, Bhatnagar, Anuj
• Granted Patent: US 8,824,336 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 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. An apparatus comprising:

a wireless communications interface;

network topology discovery logic to enable an exchange of one or more proprietary messages to discover a topology of a wireless home mesh network including mobile nodes and stationary nodes; and

topology display logic to dynamically re-draw a network topology map of the wireless home mesh network according to a local route table of each node, contents of the local route table for one of the mobile nodes being received from a proprietary message of one or more proprietary messages.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the apparatus comprises one of a mobile electronics device, a gaming console, and a digital television.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising:

a user interface to (ii) display the network topology map of the wireless home mesh network, (ii) detect a mouse click of a node within the network topology map, and (iii) display additional information regarding the node.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the proprietary message of the one or more proprietary messages is a node topology packet including the local route table for one of the mobile nodes.

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

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

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

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

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

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