Patent ID: 8169897

Claim:
A method for high rate data delivery in a multi-hop vehicular network having a plurality of vehicles and a plurality of intersections, said method comprising steps of: at each source vehicle: initiating a packet having a flow tag; assigning an identifier of a content and a current location to the flow tag; and forwarding the packet; at each destination vehicle: setting a flow request and broadcasting at a current intersection, the flow request associated with a packet requesting a next hop in the network; and on movement of the destination vehicle, setting the flow request at a new intersection; at each intersection: selecting a header vehicle at the intersection; computing a backlog indicator and a congestion indicator and listening for broadcasts with a matrix and the flow requests at the header vehicle, the matrix including an estimated delay for one or more outgoing roadways from the intersection and one or more data flow rates, the backlog indicator associated with a data flow backlog and the congestion indicator associated with congestion of data flows; determining if the matrix is present; updating the matrix in accordance with the backlog and congestion indicators if the matrix is present; initializing the matrix and estimating the estimated delay if the matrix is not present; forwarding the packet; and broadcasting the matrix from the header vehicle.