Patent ID: 7912931

Claim:
A method for increasing the fault tolerance in a network, said method comprising acts of: associating a plurality of nodes with a sub-network, each of said plurality of nodes capable of sending and receiving data; adding a plurality of cross layer communication agent capable nodes, herein referred to as CCA-capable nodes, to said sub-network, said plurality of CCA-capable nodes capable of receiving data from and sending data to said plurality of nodes; and determining which one of the plurality of CCA-capable nodes to assign as a gateway CCA, whereby said gateway CCA is used by each one of said plurality of nodes within said sub-network to communicate with the rest of the network; wherein the act of determining the assignment of the gateway CCA further comprises acts of: designating one of the plurality of CCA-capable nodes to be a gateway CCA; broadcasting a message from each CCA-capable node to the plurality of nodes every T 1 seconds; wherein T 1 is a predetermined time period; and selecting a new gateway CCA based upon the message from each CCA-capable node; and wherein the act of selecting further comprises acts of: determining a current time at which the message from each CCA-capable node was received; retrieving a gateway time TLAST at which a message from a gateway CCA was received; wherein TLAST is determined as a time when the message from the gateway CCA was received last; designating each CCA-capable node as a Responding CCA-capable node when TLAST<(current time−2(T 1 )) is true for the CCA-capable node; and selecting and assigning the new gateway CCA from the Responding CCA-capable nodes.