Method of loose source routing over disparate network types in a packet communication network
US5570084A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 28, 1994 |
| Grant date | Oct 29, 1996 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 28, 2014 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04W40/02
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
In a packet communication system, loose source routing is employed to permit communication over networks of disparate types, including geographic and path-unaware types. No information resides on a wired access point (WAP). All of the intelligence of the system resides in Name Servers, which provide opaque addresses that end nodes (radios) in a wireless cloud can use to send packets to other end nodes (radios) in other wireless clouds. (A cloud is the set of radios serviced by a particular WAP.) According to the invention, the method employs an ordered list called a path and the network address of a packet consists of such an ordered list of addresses with a "marker" that flags the current destination of the packet and a "direction bit" that tells which direction on the list the next destination is. Each address in the path is type-length-value (TLV) encoded. The address has preferably a 4 bit "type" field, followed by a 4 bit "length" field (indicating length in words) of the value, and then the actual "value" of the address. Each address describes a "place" that the packet must "visit." These "places" may be areas which a packet must traverse, and not necessarily actual node addr…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.