Patent ID: 7933224

Claim:
A method for approximating a network of terminals, comprising: receiving a graph comprising nodes and edges connecting at least some of the nodes, the nodes comprising terminals and non-terminal nodes, each of the non-terminal nodes being associated with a weight; initializing each of the terminals to a value; incrementing the values of the terminals by a given amount until the values of the terminals reach a sufficient amount to acquire at least one of the non-terminal nodes that connects at least two of the terminals based on the weight of the at least one of the non-terminal nodes; upon the values of the terminals reaching the sufficient amount, acquiring the at least one of the non-terminal nodes and the edges connecting the at least one of the non-terminal nodes to the at least two of the terminals to form a connected component in the network of terminals; determining whether all of the terminals are connected; upon determining that all of the terminals are connected, removing any redundant nodes from the acquired non-terminal nodes in the network of terminals; and upon the removing any redundant nodes, returning the network of terminals.