Patent ID: 7295533

Claim:
A method for determining a location of a node N i in a communications network, the communications network having a plurality of nodes, the method comprising the steps of: initializing each node of the plurality of nodes with an initial location, the node N i and a node N j being part of the plurality of nodes, and the node N i having a vicinity V i and the node N j having a vicinity V j , updating, in response to the node N i receiving a communication of the vicinity V j , the vicinity V i as a function of the vicinity V j and a distance R, where R is the distance between the node N i and node N j ; and broadcasting the updated vicinity V j to the plurality of nodes as the location of the node N i in the communications network, wherein the function for updating the vicinity V i is defined as an intersection of (i) a first set of points associated with the vicinity V i ; with (ii) a second set of points associated with the vicinity V j and any point within the distance R of any point in the vicinity V j .