Patent ID: 8036207

Claim:
A method of communicating in an ad-hoc network, the method comprising: broadcasting a DUPROUTE packet to one or more neighbor nodes to determine an existence of one or more alternate routes between a first node and a destination node, wherein the DUPROUTE packet comprises a TimeToLive field, and wherein the one or more neighbor nodes are configured to decrement the TimeToLive field and forward the DUPROUTE packet to additional neighbor nodes if the destination node is not an immediate neighbor of the one or more neighbor nodes; selecting, solely at a first node, a first candidate route between the first node and a second node based on at least one performance criterion, wherein the first candidate route includes a plurality of links corresponding to at least one intermediate node located between the first node and the second node on the first candidate route, and wherein at least one link of the plurality of links is not included in an existing route between the first node and the second node; discontinuing use of the existing route at the first node; and commencing use of the selected first candidate route at the first node in place of the existing route, wherein use of the plurality of links of the selected first candidate route is initialized via nodes of the existing route; and maintaining use of the selected first candidate route until a second candidate route is selected such that data may be transmitted over the maintained first candidate route until the selected second candidate route is commenced.