ELECTRONIC METER FOR NETWORKED METER READING

摘要

An automatic meter reading (AMR) data communication network for relaying meter commodity information includes a commodity provider node, a gateway node configured to communicate with the commodity provider node, and meter nodes configured to measure commodity characteristic data and communicate with the gateway node and with other meter nodes. A source node of the meter nodes generates a data packet that includes meter commodity information to be relayed to the commodity provider node, and when a first meter node of the meter nodes receives the source data packet, the first meter node relays the source data packet to a second node. The second node can include another meter node, a repeater node, the gateway node, or the commodity provider node. In an embodiment, the first meter node determines whether the data packet specifies a relay path for relaying the source data packet to the commodity provider node.