A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR USING PER-PACKET RECEIVE SIGNAL STRENGTH INDICATION AND TRANSMIT POWER LEVELS TO COMPUTE PATH LOSS FOR A LINK FOR USE IN LAYER II ROUTING IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK

摘要

A system and method for evaluating at least one communication link between a transmitting node and a receiving node in a communications network, such as a wireless ad-hoc communications network in accordance with the 802.11 standar d. The system and method perform the operation of assigning respective link quality values to the respective communication links based on a transmit pow er level (TPL) value at which the respective data packets were transmitted by t he transmitting node over the respective links, a received sensitivity (RS) val ue of the receiving node receiving the data packets, and a receive signal strength indication (RSSI) value provided by the network for each respective link. The system and method can examine a content of a data packet being sen t between the two nodes to determine the TPL, and can receive the RSSI value from a physical layer of the communications network. Accordingly, the system and method can determine which link that additional data packets are to be sent by the transmitting node to the receiving node via the communication li nk based on the link quality values. Specifically, the link having the highest link quality value is selected.