Patent ID: 8355368

Claim:
A method of detour path determination for data packet re-routing in a mesh network, wherein, in order to obtain at least one detour path for at least part of a primary path PPx comprising a predefined ordered sequence of nodes with a head node I and an end node J, the method comprises: a) generating, in the mesh network comprising a plurality of N nodes, with N being an integer higher than 1, arranged according to a network topology with each node having a K-hops neighborhood knowledge of the network topology, with 1≦K<N, primary paths are predefined for routing data packets within the mesh network, each primary path comprising the predefined ordered sequence of nodes, at the head node I and sending to the node following the head node I in the predefined ordered sequence of nodes a request data packet, the request data packet comprising information enabling the request data packet to travel through the predefined ordered sequence of nodes according to a forward direction till the end node J is reached; b) generating at the end node J upon receipt of the request data packet and sending to the node preceding the end node J in the predefined ordered sequence of nodes a response data packet, the response data packet comprising information representative of the K-hops neighborhood knowledge of the network topology of node J, and information enabling the response data packet to travel back through the predefined ordered sequence of nodes till the head node I is reached according to a backward direction; and c) processing at the head node I upon receipt of the response data packet the information representative of the K-hops neighborhood knowledge of node J so as to obtain a merged knowledge of the network topology comprising the K-hops neighborhood knowledge of node I and the K-hops neighborhood knowledge of node J; the head node I then using merged knowledge of the network topology to carry out a detour path computation to determine if there is the at least one detour path for the at least part of the primary path PPx.