Patent ID: 6982960
Filing Date: 2006-01-03
Classification: H04L,H04W,Y02D

Abstract:
1. A method of maintaining a physical topology of a network, having a plurality of network nodes, and a logical topology representative of the physical topology, comprising: a first network node receiving a first update message from a second network node of the plurality of network nodes within one hop of the first network node; and if the second network node is not in a range list of the first network node and therefore a new neighbor of the first network node, updating the range list of the first network node to include the second network node; wherein updating the range list of the first network node to include the second network node comprises: the first network node transmitting a first reply message to the second network node; the second network node receiving the first reply message from the first network node and adding the first network node to the range list of the second network node; the second network node transmitting a first confirmation message to the first network node containing network topology information about the second network node; and the first network node receiving the first confirmation message from the second network node and adding the second network node to the range list of first network node wherein in response to the second network node receiving the first reply message and prior to the second network node transmitting the first confirmation message, further comprising: determining if a depth of the first network node from the root node is less than a minimum depth of an existing parent node of the second network node; if the depth of the first network node from the root node is less than the minimum depth of the existing parent node of the second network node, further comprising: determining if logical addressing is used in the network; if logical addressing is not used further comprising: if logical addressing is used, further comprising: if the depth of the first network node from the root node is not less than the minimum depth of the parent node of the second network node, the second network node transmitting the confirmation message.