Patent ID: 8861398

Claim:
A method for discovering multiple routes in a multi-hop network including a set of source nodes and a set of destination nodes such that each source node discovers the multiple routes to all the destination nodes to transmit data from the source node using one of the discovered routes to a particular destination node, comprising the steps of: broadcasting, by each source node, a route request (RREQ) packet to initiate discovering the multiple routes to the set of destination nodes, wherein the RREQ packet includes routing information and a cost field; receiving, in neighboring intermediate nodes of the source node, one or more copies of the RREQ packet; updating, in the neighboring source nodes, the routing information and cost field; broadcasting, by the neighboring intermediate nodes in response to receiving the one or more copies of the RREQ packet, at least one copy of the RREQ packets to other neighboring intermediate nodes until one or more copies of the RREQ packet are received by the destination nodes; constructing, in each destination node, a route reply (RREP) packet, for every received RREQ packet, wherein the RREP packet includes routing information and a cost field; broadcasting, by each destination node to the neighboring, the RREP packet; receiving, in neighboring intermediate nodes of the destination node, one or more copies of the RREP packet; updating, in the neighboring intermediate nodes, the routing information and cost field; and broadcasting, by the neighboring intermediate nodes in response to receiving the one or more copies of the RREP packet, at least one copy of the RREP packets to other neighboring intermediate nodes until the one or more copies of the RREP packet are received by each source node so that each source node can select one of the multiple routes to send data to the one of the destination nodes based on die routing information and the cost field in one of the RREP packets.