Patent ID: 7599377

Claim:
A method for sending a bus protocol message through a switch fabric of a vehicle communication network, the switch fabric including a plurality of nodes joined by communication links for the transmission of data packets therebetween, the bus protocol message having at least message data, the method comprising the steps of: receiving the bus protocol message from a standard protocol bus at a node in the switch fabric, the bus protocol message requiring a response to occur during a predetermined time; generating a retry response on the standard protocol bus to permit the response to occur at a later time; generating a first data packet comprising a first message identification, a first sequence number, and a plurality of first data elements, the plurality of first data elements containing at least a first portion of the message data in the bus protocol message; generating a second data packet comprising a second message identification, a second sequence number, and a plurality of second data elements, the plurality of second data elements containing at least a second portion of the message data in the bus protocol message; transmitting the first data packet and the second data packet to a target node in the switch fabric of the vehicle communication network; receiving the first data packet and the second data packet at the target node of the vehicle communication network; assembling at least the first portion of the message data and the second portion of the message data based on the first and second message identifications and the first and second sequence numbers.