Patent ID: 8184605

Claim:
An Internet-oriented mobile ad-hoc network, comprising: a plurality of nodes; wherein the nodes are communicatively accessible through any number of intermediate nodes, are capable of maintaining connectivity with each other when a gateway node is unavailable and are able to communicate upstream with any number of intermediate nodes; each of the nodes including transceivers, at least one node Ni further including an upstream routing table (URT), a peer table (PT), a downstream neighborhood table (DNT) and a downstream routing table (DRT), the at least one node being configured to use the associated tables to make routing decisions, and the at least one node configured to act as a relay for other nodes that cannot directly access a gateway node; wherein the at least one node Ni is configured to survive in an isolated condition; wherein the URT of the at least one node Ni is updated independently by the node Ni and lists each upstream neighboring node that is closer by one hop, to a particular gateway node than is the node Ni, together with the hop count from the upstream neighboring node to the particular gateway; wherein the PT of the node Ni is updated independently by the node Ni and lists each peer node, defined as a neighboring node that has equal distance, as measured by hop count, to a particular gateway node as the node Ni, together with an associated hop count to the particular gateway node; wherein the DNT of the node Ni is updated independently by the node Ni and lists each neighboring downstream node that is one hope count further away from a particular gateway node than the node Ni, together with the hop count of the downstream neighboring node to the particular gateway node; wherein the DRT of the node Ni is updated independently by the node Ni and lists each downstream node Nk, as defined by a node that can communicate with the node Ni and is further away from the node Ni, as measured by hop counts of the nodes Ni and Nk to a particular gateway node, together with the hop count of the downstream node Nk to the node Ni; wherein the at least one node Ni periodically broadcasts a trigger message that comprises a node identification and hop count corresponding to a particular node to inform neighboring nodes that the particular node is present; wherein the at least one node Ni independently and periodically receives and processes control signals from neighboring nodes; and wherein the at least one node Ni updates the tables within itself and the at least one node Ni communicates changes to neighboring nodes.