Patent ID: 8036224

Claim:
In an arrangement with a plurality of nodes making up a multiple hop wireless communication network for routing data packets over transmission paths, a method for efficient routing in said multiple hop wireless communication network, said method comprising: providing link status information to a link status monitor by acquiring link status quality between nodes in the network, the link status information being provided by one or both of an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layer 2 and an OSI layer 1, wherein the link status information includes parameters that describe a time varying nature of radio channels of links between the nodes; the link status monitor updating a routing element with said link status information; the routing element predicting future link qualities of links in a chain between a source node and a destination node based on the updated link status information; the routing element determining at least two possible routes with essentially similar link quality status for a data packet based on the predicted future link qualities of the links in the chain; and the routing element routing said data packet via the at least two determined routes, wherein the link status information of a link between two nodes comprise at least one long time range parameter and at least one short time range parameter, in which a long time range covers several traffic frames and a short time range covers several transmitted symbols or bits, wherein low and high values for the long time range parameter respectively indicate relatively poor and good link qualities, wherein when the long time range parameter value is high, a low value for the short time range parameter indicates that the link is experiencing relatively bursty errors for a duration of time, and a high value for the short time range parameter indicates that the link is experiencing steady and random errors for the duration of time, wherein when the long time range parameter value is low, the low value for the short time-range parameter indicates that the link is relatively bursty and in good condition for the duration of time, and the high value for the short time range parameter indicates that the link is steady and in good condition for the duration of time, wherein the step of predicting the future link qualities of links in the chain between the source node and the destination node comprises any one or more of: predicting that a new route will arise when the short time range parameter is low and the long time range parameters goes from low to high; predicting that a current route will fade out when the short time range parameter is low and the long time range parameters goes from high to low; predicting that the new route will grow relatively slowly when the short time range parameter is high and the long time range parameters goes from low to high; and predicting that the current rout will disappear relatively slowly when the short time range parameter is high and the long time range parameters goes from high to low.