Patent ID: 7378960

Claim:
A low-rate wireless personal area network (WPAN) system for establishing communication between a control station of a cargo vessel and a plurality of containers that are loaded onto the vessel, the WPAN system comprising: a base station configured to establish and manage a pre-configured WPAN having a hybrid tree-mesh network topology, the base station being configured to communicate with the control station through a local area network on the vessel; and a plurality of electronic tracking devices each being provided with a WPAN-enabled radio receiver/transmitter and routing capabilities, each tracking device being configured to be joined to a respective container of the plurality of containers and to connect to the WPAN upon being activated, wherein the base station is configured to intermittently perform a network scan to locate each tracking device that is connected to the WPAN and dynamically reconfigure the network topology to include each tracking device that is connected to the WPAN such that the base station maintains mutual communication with each tracking device that is connected to the WPAN using the routing capabilities of the tracking devices.