Configuration of failure and acquire timeouts to facilitate recovery from failures in hierarchical mesh networks
AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.
InventorNeal Castagnoli
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods, apparatuses and systems directed to providing an efficient failure recovery mechanism in hierarchical wireless mesh networks. In one implementation, the present invention mitigates the effect of synchronization loss between a parent and child node on the hierarchical wireless mesh network. In one implementation, the present invention employs a configuration scheme whereby the parent node failure timeouts are greater than the time to acquire a parent node to mitigate the effect of synchronization loss on downstream nodes in the hierarchical mesh network.
Claims25
A method for mitigating synchronization loss between a parent and child node in a hierarchical wireless mesh network, the method comprising
- monitoring, in a maintenance state, for a scheduling message from a parent routing node to maintain synchronization with the parent routing node;
- upon failure to receive a scheduling message from the parent routing node within a failure time interval, entering a synchronization state for an acquire time interval to attempt to re-acquire the parent routing node;
- entering the maintenance state if the parent routing node is re-acquired;
- and
- wherein the acquire time interval is less than the failure time interval.
A wireless routing node for use in a hierarchical wireless mesh network, comprising
- a wireless network interface for communicating with a parent routing node;
- one or more processors;
- a memory;
- a routing node application, stored in the memory, comprising instructions operable to cause the one or more processors and the wireless network interface to
- execute a maintenance state comprising monitoring for a scheduling message from a parent routing node to maintain synchronization with the parent routing node;
- upon failure to receive a scheduling message from the parent routing node within a failure time interval, enter a synchronization state for an acquire time interval to attempt to re-acquire the parent routing node;
- enter the maintenance state if the parent routing node is re-acquired;
- wherein the acquire time interval is less than the failure time interval.
A wireless routing node for use in a hierarchical wireless mesh network, comprising
- means for wirelessly communicating with a parent routing node;
- means for executing a maintenance state comprising monitoring for a slot scheduling message from a parent routing node to maintain synchronization with the parent routing node;
- synchronization means for synchronizing with a selected routing node to attempt to acquire, during an acquire time interval, the routing node as a parent routing node;
- means for triggering the synchronization means upon detection of synchronization loss with a parent routing node after a failure time interval,
- wherein the acquire time interval is less than the failure time interval.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.