Patent ID: 7920512

Claim:
A method of establishing a low-power sensor network comprising: wirelessly registering at each cluster node of a plurality of cluster nodes a number of sensor nodes physically located within a respective coverage region of the respective cluster node, wherein the number of sensor nodes physically located within the respective coverage region of the respective cluster node and the respective cluster node make up a respective cluster; associating at each cluster node at least one characteristic of a respective sensor node in the respective cluster with a respective cluster-unique sensor node identifier; and wirelessly registering at a network sink node each cluster node of the plurality of cluster nodes with the network sink, including: creating at the network sink node a network map representing direct communication links between respective pairs of cluster nodes of the plurality of cluster nodes; associating at the network sink node each cluster node of the plurality of cluster nodes with a respective unique network node identifier; and associating at the network sink node each network node identifier with a respective minimum transmission hop count for a communication transmitted upstream from the respective cluster node associated with the respective network node identifier to the network sink node.