Patent ID: 8189474

Claim:
A wireless sensor network node, comprising: a preamble module adapted for defining a set of requirements for communication of a data packet by an application, the preamble module configured to define the set of requirements by establishing a preamble comprising an indication of an application type, an indication of a data packet type, a real time flag, an acknowledgement flag, a link estimate flag, a retransmission flag and a load balance flag, the premable module further configured to set or reset at least one of the acknowledgement flag, the link estimate flag, the retransmission flag and the load balance flag based on one or more of the application type, the data packet type and the real time flag; a protocol lookup module configured to identify at least one protocol component based at least in part on the application type and the data packet type; and a processor configured to process the data packet based on the at least one protocol component and deliver the processed data packet to a scheduler.