Patent ID: 7522537

Claim:
A method for providing connectivity between an intelligent access point and one or more nodes in an ad hoc communication network, the method comprising: broadcasting a data packet including an access point advertisement from a sender node to one or more wireless routers within the ad hoc communication network; receiving the broadcasted data packet by at least one of the wireless routers; deciding by the at least one of the wireless routers whether to use the sender node as a next hop towards the intelligent access point based on routing criterion associated with the wireless routers and contents of the access point advertisement; transmitting a unicast route request from the at least one of the wireless routers to the intelligent access point after deciding to use the sender node as the next hop towards the intelligent access point; transmitting a unicast route reply from the sender node to the wireless router in response to receiving the unicast route request; storing a route entry associated with the intelligent access point in the wireless router; and periodically broadcasting a hello message from the wireless router to the one or more nodes identifying the route from the wireless router to the intelligent access point using the stored route entry.