Patent ID: 9182248
Filing Date: 2015-11-10
Classification: G01D,H04B

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for a power line communication network, comprising: a power line transmitter/receiver; a processor coupled to the power line transmitter/receiver; and memory accessible to the processor; wherein the processor is configured to store a routing table in the memory for routing packets in an upward direction towards a data concentrator (DC) and wherein no routing table is provided for routing packets in a downward direction away from the DC; wherein, instead of using a routing table to route packets in the downward direction, the processor is configured to employ source routing in the downward direction; wherein the processor is configured to receive a broadcasted ping request from the DC, to receive ping responses from other nodes that received the broadcasted ping request, and, based on the received responses, if any, construct a neighbors table indicating which of said other nodes are communicatively coupled to the apparatus.