Patent ID: 7372816

Claim:
An apparatus for managing a communications network comprising a plurality of nodes, said apparatus comprising: means for representing each node within said network according to its respective geographic position; means for defining a window comprising a start-node, an end-node and a plurality of intervening nodes, each of said start-node, end-node and intervening nodes having at least one communication link to a respective adjacent node; and means for calculating, using said nodes included within said window, a shortest communication path between said start-node and said end-node, wherein said window includes a predefined percentage of the total geographic area occupied by said network and is selected from the group of shapes consisting of: a rectangle defined by a line segment beginning at said start-node and ending at said end-node, said line segment traversing a distance (D) and a rectilinear area about said line segment, said rectilinear area comprising those nodes approximately within a perpendicular distance (δ) of said start-node, said end-node, or said line segment between said start-node and said end-node, a circle having a mid-point equidistant from said start-node and said end-node, said circle having a diameter greater than the distance between said start-node and said end-node; and an ellipse defined by the equation d 1 +d 2 =D+2δ, where d 1 is the distance from the start-node SN to the boundary of the ellipse, d 2 is the distance from the end-node E n to the boundary of the ellipse, D is the distance between the start-node and the end-node, and δ is a control parameter.