Bridge routing module

A method for intra-vehicular network communications comprising:

• receiving a packet within an intra-vehicular network;
• analyzing the packet to identify a packet content type to determine whether the packet is a mission critical packet;
• when the packet is a mission critical packet and the packet is received from a packet source, adding an indication to a header of the packet to identify the packet as a mission critical packet;
• determining a packet routing parameter based on the packet content type;
• and
• controlling ingress/egress of the packet in accordance with the packet routing parameter.

A bridge-routing module comprising:

• interface circuitry configured for communication within an intra-vehicular network and including both a wired interface and a wireless interface;
• packet ingress/egress circuitry configured to receive packets from and transmit packets to the interface circuitry;
• memory;
• and
• processing circuitry coupled to the packet ingress/egress circuitry and to the memory and configured to:
• analyze a packet to identify a packet content type to determine whether the packet is a mission critical packet;
• when the packet is a mission critical packet and the packet is received from a packet source, add an indication to a header of the packet to identify the packet as a mission critical packet;
• determine a packet routing parameter based, at least in part, on the packet content type;
• determine whether to use at least one of a wired link and a wireless link to communicate the packet to at least one of the other elements via the interface circuit;
• and
• control ingress/egress of the packet in accordance with the packet routing parameter via at least one of the wired link and the wireless link.