Patent ID: 7412241

Claim:
A method for locating optimal routes between source and destination nodes in an ad-hoc multi-hopping peer-to-peer wireless communications network, the method comprising: estimating reliability of links between nodes in the network using a prediction mechanism and a variable-weight filter to identify an optimal route including some of the nodes between the source and destination nodes, such that the variable-weight filter adjusts a predicted value based on the traffic conditions being experienced by the nodes whose link qualities are being estimated; and selecting a route between the source and destination nodes comprising the nodes having the most preferable link qualities as determined in the estimating step, wherein the estimating step estimates link reliability based on the following equation: LR ( t 0 )=(1−λ Δt/ΔT )· X ( t 0 )+λ Δt/ΔT ·LR ( t −1 ) where LR(t 0 ) is the current link reliability LR(t −1 ) is the previous link reliability λ Δt/ΔT is the current forgetting factor Δt=t 0 −t −1 is the current inter-arrival time ΔT is the reference time unit X(t 0 ) is the current filter input (based on prediction).