Patent ID: 7177295

Claim:
A method for locating a route in an ad-hoc network, comprising: providing a network comprising a plurality of network communication nodes; dynamically defining a routing zone for each network communication node; determining a number of border nodes within the routing zone; if a destination node is within the routing zone, then establishing a communications link between a source node and the destination node using route information established using proactive routing protocol (PRP); if the destination node is outside the routing zone, then bordercasting a route request to each of the border nodes and transmitting the route request from the border nodes to the destination node using a reactive routing protocol (RRP) based on changing dynamics of the ad-hoc network; receiving a route reply from the destination node at one or more of the border nodes via a network layer or an application layer, the route reply comprising a hop count and a quality of service (QoS) metric for each hop count; using the hop count and QoS metric for each hop count in the route reply to calculate a cumulative QoS metric for each route through the one or more of the border nodes; and selecting at least one route from the source node to the destination node having the lowest cumulative QoS metric.