Patent ID: 8325627
Filing Date: 2012-12-04
Classification: H04L,H04W,Y02D

Abstract:
1. A method of adaptively scheduling communications in a wireless mesh network including a plurality of network nodes in a process control environment, the method comprising: generating, by a centralized network manager, a network routing scheme based on a topology of the wireless mesh network; generating, by the centralized network manager, a communication schedule for each node included in the wireless mesh network, including: automatically updating, by the centralized network manager, the communication schedule in response to detecting a changed transmission requirement of one of the plurality of network nodes, wherein the changed transmission requirement is not associated with the one of the plurality of network nodes joining the network, by defining a new superframe as a repeating cycle of a multiplicity of consecutively scheduled communication timeslots, the new superframe made up of a particular consecutively scheduled number of the communication timeslots, the particular consecutively scheduled number being based on the changed transmission requirement of the one of the plurality of network nodes, and updating the communication schedule using the new superframe to perform communications to or from the one of the plurality of network nodes, wherein the changed transmission requirement corresponds to a change in an update rate of a particular node included in the plurality of network nodes, the update rate corresponding to a rate of publishing of process control data generated by the particular network node and corresponding to a process control function in the process control environment.