Method for discovering and maintaining routes in smart meter networks
AssigneeMitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.
InventorsJianlin Guo, Ghulam M Bhatti, Philip Orlik, Jinyun Zhang
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Abstract
A set of routes are discovered in a network including concentrators, smart meters and an imaginary node. Each concentrator node, a source, broadcasts a route request (RREQ) packet to the imaginary destination node. Intermediate nodes store a route as a node list (NL) in the RREQ packet and as a route table (RT) in the node. Then, each smart meter node can select a primary route and a secondary route from the smart meter node to any concentrator from the route table.
Claims12
A method for discovering a set of routes in a network, wherein the network is a smart meter wireless network that includes a set of smart meter nodes and a set of concentrator nodes, comprising the steps of:
- specifying an imaginary node in the network, wherein the imaginary node does not actually exist physically in the network, and cannot be reached by any node including the concentrator node during route discovery;
- broadcasting, by each concentrator node, a route request (RREQ) packet, wherein the RREQ indicates that the concentrator node is a source node for the RREQ packet, and the imaginary node is a destination node for the RREQ packet, wherein the RREQ packet includes a node list (NL), wherein the NL includes identifications of the smart meter nodes that received the RREQ packet;
- receiving the RREQ packet in each smart meter node, assigning a route ID to the route in the NL, and storing the NL in the RREQ packet in a routing table (RT);
- rebroadcasting the RREQ at least once by each smart meter node;
- receiving the rebroadcast RREQ packet in each smart meter node, and storing the NL in the rebroadcast RREQ packet in the RT;
- and
- selecting, in each smart meter node, a primary route and a secondary route from the smart meter node to each concentrator from the route table stored in the smart meter node.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.