Patent ID: 7558818

Claim:
A method for characterizing the quality of a link in a multi-hopping wireless communication network, the method comprising: calculating a link quality indicator of a link between a first node and a second node in the multi-hopping wireless communication network by: maintaining a first link quality indicator at the first node using an assessed quality of the link; maintaining a second link quality indicator at the second node using the assessed quality of the link; converging the first link quality indicator and the second link quality indicator to calculate the link quality indicator for the link and thereby establish a symmetric view of the link quality at the first node and the second node located on each side of the link by: communicating the first link quality indicator from the first node to the second node; comparing the first link quality indicator and the second link quality indicator by the second node; maintaining the second link quality indicator at the second node when the second link quality indicator is lower than the received first link quality indicator; and adjusting the second link quality indicator at the second node when the second link quality indicator is higher than the received first link quality indicator, wherein the adjusting comprises calculating an adjusted link quality indicator as a weighted average of the second link quality indicator and the received first link quality indicator; communicating the adjusted link quality indicator from the second node to the first node; and re-adjusting at the first node, the first link quality indicator of the link using the received adjusted link quality indicator.