Patent ID: 8194571

Claim:
A method for initializing a sensor node network arranged in a hierarchical manner with a plurality of node levels and a cluster head network, comprising: establishing a temporary topology and synchronizing the sensor node network; discovering and assessing at least one link of the sensor node network; and registering a sensor node of the sensor node network with a cluster head of the cluster head network, wherein the step of establishing the temporary topology and synchronizing further includes: broadcasting a wakeup signal from a lower level node to a higher level node; transmitting an initialization packet from the lower level node to the higher level node; synchronizing the higher level node; transmitting a temporary registration packet from the higher level node to the lower level node; and repeating the steps of broadcasting the wakeup signal, transmitting the initialization packet; synchronizing, and transmitting the temporary registration packet until one of all nodes have been reached and all nodes up to a predefined level have been reached.