Patent ID: 8971200
Filing Date: 2015-03-03
Classification: H04B,H04L,H04W,Y02D

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: determining a strength of received signals on communication links from neighbor nodes in a mesh network, the received signals including multiple different communication technologies, wherein the multiple different communication technologies include multiple different radio frequency (RF) communication technologies having different RF modulation schemes; selecting a subset of the communication links based in part on the strength of the received signals; exercising the subset of the communication links by sending data and receiving response data via each of the subset of the communication links; analyzing the response data; evaluating a link quality as a function of an available data rate of each of the subset of the communication links based in part on the analyzing; determining a figure of merit (FOM) based at least in part on a combination of the link quality and the available data rate for each link in the subset of the communication links; employing a routing protocol to select a communication link from the subset of the communication links for routing a data packet to a neighbor node based in part on the FOM associated with the selected communication link and an identified communications technology; and transmitting the data packet to the neighbor node using the identified communication technology and the available data rate of the selected communication link.