Method and apparatus for managing data flow through a mesh network

摘要

Traffic streams through mesh points in a mesh network are managed. Data arriving at the mesh point are aggregated in packet queues. The packet queues segregate arriving data by the data's Quality of Service (QoS) requirement. An appropriate communication channel is selected. The communication channel is accessed through a contention access schema. An M-Request-To-Send (MRTS) message is sent to potential receiving mesh points with receiving mesh points responding with an M-Clear-to-Send (MCTS) message. Data from the packet queues is transmitted to the next mesh point. A mesh point power save mode allows battery operated mesh points to sleep preserving power.

主权项

1. A method for managing traffic streams at a mesh point in a mesh network comprising:
receiving a first data packet from a first mesh point and a second data packet from a second mesh point via wireless transmissions, at least a portion of the data in the first data packet being first quality of service (QoS) type data and at least a portion of the data in the second data packet being first QoS type data; storing the first QoS type data from the first data packet and the second data packet in a packet queue associated with the first QoS type; selecting data for a transmit data packet from the packet queue associated with the first QoS type; aggregating the selected data into the transmit data packet, the aggregated transmit data packet including at least a portion of the first QoS type data from the first data packet and at least a portion of the first QoS type data from the second data packet; contending for access to a communications channel according to at least one access parameter, wherein the at least one access parameter is based on a rank of the mesh point; and transmitting the transmit data packet during a transmission opportunity duration.