Patent ID: 8478264

Claim:
A wireless communication system of a tree structure comprising an end device that is located on a lowest level, a master device, located at a higher level than the end device, and that has a master/slave connection relationship with the end device, and a destination device that ultimately receives a message that is sent from the end device through the master device, wherein the end device comprises: a message transmitter transmitting, to the master device, a message that includes at least its own communication address as a transmission origin address, a communication address of a destination device as an address for the ultimate transmission destination, proxy communication request information as information for whether or not to perform proxy communication, and route search request information as information for whether or not to perform a route search; wherein the master device comprises: a message receiver receiving a message from the end device; a round-trip (outbound and inbound) route search executing device executing a search for a round-trip route from that device to the destination device when the route search request information included in the message received from the end device indicates that a route search is to be executed; and a proxy message transmitting and processing device storing, as proxy information when the proxy communication request information included in the message received from the end device indicates that proxy communication is to be performed, a pair of the transmission origin address and the ultimate transmission destination address that is included in the message, and also for overwriting the address of the transmission origin included in the message with its own communication address, to be a proxy message to the destination device, and then sending this proxy message to the device of the next transmission destination following the outbound route that has been searched.