Patent ID: 8139554

Claim:
A method for communicating using a mesh network, comprising: selecting a frame length of a frame used for communicating a packet between a first node and a second node of a wireless mesh network, wherein the frame comprises a plurality of time slots, and wherein a transmitter node transmits a packet to a receiver node during one of the plurality of time slots of the frame, and wherein the frame length is selected based at least in part on a predetermined limit time for communicating the packet between the first node and the second node; determining a route from the first node to the second node including one or more intermediate nodes that receive and transmit the packet; and selecting node to node communications within the frame along the route such that a communication latency time is below the predetermined limit time for a predetermined percentage of communications between the first node and the second node, wherein the communication latency time is achieved using a predetermined number of retries of a communication between two nodes that are part of a communication route between the first node and the second node, wherein the predetermined number of retries is based at least in part on the predetermined percentage of communications between the first node and the second node, wherein a retry slot comprises a time slot subsequent to a time slot assigned to the one node to node communication, wherein a first node to node communication is made using a first communication channel and a retry of the first node to node communication is made using a second communication channel, wherein the frame includes a set of retries for each hop along the route between the first node and the second node, wherein the set of retries for each hop is based at least in part on a reliability of communication between the first node and the second node, and wherein each retry uses a communication channel different from a communication channel used in a preceding retry or preceding communication.