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US 6,651,106 B1Granted
Flooding communication using an access table to establish transmission times
AssigneeHoneywell International Inc.
InventorKevin R. Driscoll
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A communication protocol and hardware is provided which allows a meshed network to reliably perform in a real-time environment. The protocol establishes that within specified regions of a mesh, a single node will transmit on that region at any given time. The transmitted message is propagated to all other nodes in the region by flooding the network. Immediately upon receiving each bit of data, a receiving node will immediately retransmit that bit, thereby increasing the speed of the flooding. Arbitration and lockout logic is provided which assures that nodes receiving data from multiple sources will be able to correctly handle and retransmit that data.
Claims18
A method for propagating data over a meshed network of nodes comprising the steps of:
- a) establishing a node as a transmitting node for a period of time;
- b) establishing the remaining nodes as receiving nodes for a period of time;
- c) transmitting a data message from the transmitting node along all links connected to the transmitting node;
- d) each receiving node
- 1) listening for an incoming message on all of its links and
- 2) selecting a message as a source, if it is the only message that arrives on any of its links, or arbitrarily selecting a message as the source, if a message arrives on more than one link;
- 3) locking out all links which are not designated as a source, blocking incoming data on locked out links for the remainder of the message;
- 4) retransmitting each bit of data on all links, immediately after each bit of data is received by the receiving node;
- and
- 5) unlocking all links when the message is completed;
- wherein the transmitting node is established by:
- a) providing each node in the mesh with an access table, the table having entries indicating which nodes may be allowed to transmit;
- b) providing a pointer within the table, the pointer indicating which nodes may transmit at a particular time;
- and
- c) allowing the pointer to sequentially step through the table entries to allow different nodes on the mesh to transmit.
12 more elements
A method for propagating data over a meshed network of nodes comprising the steps of:
- a) establishing a node as a transmitting node for a period of time;
- b) establishing the remaining nodes as receiving nodes for a period of time;
- c) transmitting a data message from the transmitting node along all links connected to the transmitting node;
- d) each receiving node
- 1) listening for an incoming message on all of its links and
- 2) selecting a message as a source, if it is the only message that arrives on any of its links, or arbitrarily selecting a message as the source, if a message arrives on more than one link;
- 3) locking out all links which are not designated as a source, blocking incoming data on locked out links for the remainder of the message;
- 4) retransmitting each bit of data on all links, immediately after each bit of data is received by the receiving node;
- and
- 5) unlocking all links when the message is completed;
- wherein the step of arbitrarily selecting a message, if a message arrives on more than one link, further includes providing each node with a circuit having arbitration and lockout logic, wherein the circuit:
- a) allows two or messages arriving simultaneously to be logically combined together to form a single, correct output;
- and
- b) ensures that at least one link provides a correct output if two or more messages arrive at a node so close in time so as to cause one or more elements to become metastable.
11 more elements
A method for propagating data over a meshed network of nodes comprising the steps of;
- a) establishing a node as a transmitting node for a period of time;
- b) establishing the remaining nodes as receiving nodes for a period of time;
- c) transmitting a data message from the transmitting node along all links connected to the transmitting node;
- d) each receiving node
- 1) listening for an incoming message on all of its links and
- 2) selecting a message as a source, if it is the only message that arrives on any of its links, or arbitrarily selecting a message as the source, if a message arrives on more than one link;
- 3) locking out all links which are not designated as a source, blocking incoming data on locked out links for the remainder of the message;
- 4) retransmitting each bit of data on all links, immediately after each bit of data is received by the receiving node;
- 5) unlocking all links when the message is completed;
- e) providing a self checking pair of nodes for every node in the mesh;
- f) comparing the data received by one node of the self checking pair against the data received by the second node of the self checking pair;
- and
- g) allowing the data to be retransmitted only if the data received by the nodes in the self checking pair matches.
10 more elements
A method for propagating data over a meshed network of nodes comprising the steps of:
- a) establishing a node as a transmitting node for a period of time;
- b) establishing the remaining nodes as receiving nodes for a period of time;
- c) transmitting a data message from the transmitting node along all links connected to the transmitting node;
- d) each receiving node
- 1) listening for an incoming message on all of its links and
- 2) selecting a message as a source, if it is the only message that arrives on any of its links, or arbitrarily selecting a message as the source, if a message arrives on more than one link;
- 3) locking out all links which are not designated as a source, blocking incoming data on locked out links for the remainder of the message;
- 4) retransmitting each bit of data on all links, immediately after each bit of data is received by the receiving node;
- 5) unlocking all links when the message is completed;
- e) providing a self checking pair of links for every link in the mesh;
- f) comparing at a node the data received from each link within a pair of links;
- and
- g) allowing a paired link's data to be retransmitted only if the data received from each half of a pair of links matches.
10 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.