Patent ID: 8335164

Claim:
A method for calculating a routing metric for a wireless network comprising a plurality of nodes, said method comprising: at a node of said plurality of nodes, retrieving parameters of said wireless network, wherein said parameters include protocol overhead and a test packet size; selecting a form of a first weight factor based on channel load and selecting a parameter of said first weight factor; selecting a form of a second weight factor based on packet error rate and selecting a parameter of said second weight factor; retrieving estimated channel bit rate; measuring a channel busy time, wherein said channel busy time is any time when any other node of said plurality of nodes within an interference range performs transmission, said transmission being detected by physical carrier sensing or virtual carrier sensing; estimating said channel load, wherein said estimated channel load is said channel busy time divided by a measurement period; estimating said packet error rate of the channel; and calculating said routing metric based on said wireless network parameters, said first weight factor, said second weight factor, said estimated channel bit rate, said estimated channel load and said estimated packet error rate, wherein said routing metric is calculated by each node of said plurality of nodes in said wireless network, wherein said wireless network is a wireless mesh routing network.