Patent · US Active

Directional topology discovery for downhole networks

US7668118B2 · kind B2 · utility

3Cited by
7References
25Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 25, 2008
Grant dateFeb 23, 2010
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 4, 2028

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L41/12
  • WIPO fieldCivil engineering
  • WIPO sectorOther fields

Abstract

An apparatus and method for discovering and monitoring a collection of nodes in a downhole network may include receiving data packets originating from several downhole nodes. These packets may be read to extract a unique identifier and hop count for each of the nodes. This information may then be used to create entries in a network topology table corresponding to each of the downhole nodes. Each entry may contain unique identifier identifying the respective node, a hop count identifying a location of the node within the downhole network, and a direction identifier. The method may further include modifying one or more entries in the topology table having a conflicting hop count and direction identifier.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.