Efficient multicast in a smart grid
US8804724B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 9, 2012 |
| Grant date | Aug 12, 2014 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 9, 2032 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L12/1863
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
In a wireless and/or power line communication (PLC) network environment, techniques for multicast of data and management of multicast groups assist in regulating bandwidth consumption and provision of desired multicast data. Nodes indicate interest in multicast groups by transmission of reports upstream. Report transmission may be suppressed to balance bandwidth with need for multicast data. Multicast data packets may be retransmitted downstream to fulfill requests indicated by the reports at a rate and/or frequency based on multicast packet duplication or redundancy. Information, such as broken links or “leave” packets, may indicate that one or more downstream nodes should be removed from a forwarding state. However such removal may impact other nodes. A query may be transmitted downstream, to determine if retransmission/forwarding of multicast retransmissions should continue. Query transmission may be based on a balance between query bandwidth consumption and the needs of downstream nodes.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.