SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ACHIEVING CONTINUOUS CONNECTIVITY TO AN ACCESS POINT OR GATEWAY IN A WIRELESS NETWORK FOLLOWING AND ON-DEMAND ROUTING PROTOCOL

摘要

A system and method enables an ad-hoc communication network to maintain connectivity between intelligent access points and nodes. The method includes: broadcasting an access point advertisement from a sender node to wireless routers; deciding by the wireless routers whether to use the sender node as a next hop towards the intelligent access point based on routing criterion associated with the wireless routers and contents of the access point advertisement; transmitting a unicast route request from the wireless routers to the intelligent access point; transmitting a unicast route reply from the sender node to the wireless router in response to receiving the unicast route request; storing a route entry associated with the intelligent access point in the wireless router; and periodically broadcasting a hello message from the wireless router to the nodes identifying the route from the wireless router to the intelligent access point using the stored route entry.