System and method for mobility in multihop networks

Abstract

A network controller (NC) (105) that reduces the overhead exchanges for mobility events in a communications network is disclosed. Such a communications network is constituted by a wireless multihop communications network comprising a multihop chain (MH) (130) that wirelessly connects in series wireless communications entities (WCE) (110, 115) for relaying and the network controller as a first entity. Within the wireless multihop communications network a mobile node (MN) (125) wirelessly communicates with the wireless communications entity (115) located at the end of the multihop chain (130). In a communications network, the network controller (105) manages the multihop chain (130), and upon determining that the communications path has to be changed by a mobility event (ME) (141), it establishes a wireless communication between the mobile node (125) and a wireless communications entity (120) by expanding (132) the multihop chain (130).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.