Patent ID: 7738455

Claim:
A method of acknowledged communication in a network, the method comprising: transmitting a message to at least one node of the network, wherein the message is transmitted to the at least one node of the network in each of a plurality of broadcast rounds that overlap one another according to a broadcast schedule; receiving the message by the at least one node; and transmitting an acknowledgement of the message from the at least one node, wherein the acknowledgement is transmitted by the at least one node in each of a plurality of collection rounds that overlap one another according to a collection schedule; wherein: each of the broadcast rounds is defined by a respective single scheduled instance of propagation of the message from a source node to the at least one node; each of the collection rounds is defined by a respective single scheduled instance of propagation of the acknowledgement from the at least one node to the source node; each of the broadcast rounds corresponds to a time period extending from an initial respective transmission of the message from the source node to a time by which all of the at least one node of the network are expected to have received the message based on the respective transmission; and the overlaps are in time, such that: for each pair of consecutive ones of the plurality of broadcast rounds, at least a portion of one of the pair of broadcast rounds is conducted at a same time as at least a portion of another of the pair of broadcast rounds; for each pair of consecutive ones of the plurality of collection rounds, at least a portion of one of the pair of collection rounds is conducted at a same time as at least a portion of another of the pair of collection rounds; and the broadcast schedule and the collection schedule are determined prior to the transmission of the message and prior to the collection of the acknowledgement.