Patent ID: 8605623

Claim:
A method to determine a topology of a network, comprising: interconnecting a master node and at least one slave node by unidirectional data connections, wherein the master node is operable to connect to a first immediately succeeding slave node via one of the unidirectional data connections, and to make available data for reading by said first immediately succeeding slave node via the one unidirectional data connection; reading data from an immediately preceding node by a slave node, said slave node including a first port adapted for connecting to the immediately preceding node via a unidirectional data connection for reading the data and a second port adapted for connecting to a second immediately succeeding node via another unidirectional data connection, and re-reading the data from an immediately preceding node if the topology of nodes within the network has been previously determined and an input signal to the node indicates that a network configuration has changed; adapting, by said slave node, the data in dependence on an identity of said second port; and making available the adapted data for reading by said second immediately succeeding node via the second port, such that the adapted data discloses to a succeeding node in the network a path from a preceding node in the network up to and including the slave node.