Patent ID: 8199635

Claim:
A sensor network comprising: a first command center; a first access node coupled to the command center and comprising a wireless transceiver; a plurality of nodes individually comprising a wireless transceiver and a directional antenna, wherein each of the plurality of nodes is successively located in a downlink direction relative to the first access node, and is configured to wirelessly communicate via the directional antenna with at least one node of a first neighbor group in a downlink direction and at least one node of a second neighbor group in an uplink direction; and a sensor device individually coupled to at least one of the plurality of nodes and configured to provide sensor data for the first command center; wherein for each given node of the plurality of nodes, the first neighbor group of the given node comprises two nodes of the plurality of nodes and which are located in the uplink direction relative to the given node, and the second neighbor group of the given node comprises two nodes of the plurality of nodes and which are located in the downlink direction relative to the given node; and wherein each node of the plurality of nodes is configured to selectively communicate sensor data provided by a non-adjacent downlink node, of the two nodes located in the downlink direction, to either a non-adjacent uplink node or an adjacent uplink node of the two nodes located in the uplink direction based upon operation criteria.