Patent ID: 8068016

Claim:
A method for broadcasting witness information related to a vehicular environment using a multi-hop broadcast network of nodes, and wherein the nodes include a source node and a set of relay nodes in a plurality of zones, wherein each node includes a transceiver and a processor for performing steps of the method, and wherein the vehicular environment includes a plurality of vehicles, and wherein each vehicle is equipped with one of the nodes, comprising the steps of: sensing an event at a location in the vehicular environment by the source node; broadcasting, in response sensing the event, an alert message including the location of the event by the source node; receiving the alert message in the set of relay nodes in the plurality of zones; rebroadcasting the alert message by selected relay nodes selected by the distance to the event, and further comprising: receiving the alert message and broadcasting witness messages by the selected relay nodes in response to receiving the alert message, wherein each witness message includes witness information related to the event, wherein the witness information depends on angles between the selected relay nodes and the source node with respect to a direction of travel of the vehicles, and vehicle identification number of the selected relay nodes.