Patent ID: 8856252

Claim:
A method comprising: discovering local information by broadcasting an anonymous propagating multi-hop flooding message over a wireless ad-hoc mesh network, wherein broadcasting the anonymous propagating multi-hop flooding message comprises transmitting to neighboring nodes in connectionless manner without a need to send any prior control signals or messages to neighboring nodes before the transmission, and without knowledge of addresses of the neighboring nodes, wherein, in a pull mode of broadcasting the anonymous propagating multi-hop flooding message, the method further comprises: distributing a query from an originating node to the neighboring nodes, creating routing information using the query alone to route a reply back to the originating node, and supplying awareness information back to the originating node as the reply using the routing information, and wherein, in a push mode of broadcasting the anonymous propagating multi-hop flooding message, the method further comprises: distributing awareness information from one neighboring node to another neighboring node without routing information.