MaxMesh: Mesh Backhaul Routing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016308755-A1
Application number	US-201615132229-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Apr 18, 2016
Priority date	Apr 17, 2015
Publication date	Oct 20, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system is disclosed, comprising: a centralized routing node configured to: identify a set of congested links based on the link utilization statistics, each congested link having at least one traffic flow that may be active, each traffic flow having at least one traffic source and a path set comprising a set of nodes and links that may be used by the traffic flow as packets travel from the at least one traffic source to one or more destinations; identify a set of non-congested links based on the link utilization statistics, each non-congested link sharing at least one traffic source with a traffic flow of a congested link in the set of congested links; identify a path fork in a path set between a source and a destination of a particular traffic flow associated with a particular congested link in the set of congested links; and compute a new utilization level for the particular congested link that would result from moving the particular traffic flow from the particular congested link to a particular non-congested link in the set of non-congested links.

First claim

1 . A system, comprising:
a centralized routing node configured to:
receive link utilization statistics from a mesh network node;
identify a set of congested links based on the link utilization statistics, each congested link having at least one traffic flow that is active, each traffic flow having at least one traffic source and a path set comprising a set of nodes and links that is used by the traffic flow as packets travel from the at least one traffic source to one or more destinations;
identify a set of non-congested links based on the link utilization statistics, each non-congested link sharing at least one traffic source with a traffic flow of a congested link in the set of congested links;
identify a path fork in a path set between a source and a destination of a particular traffic flow associated with a particular congested link in the set of congested links;
compute a new utilization level for the particular congested link that would result from moving the particular traffic flow from the particular congested link to a particular non-congested link in the set of non-congested links; and
send a new route to the mesh network node to move the particular traffic flow from the particular congested link to the particular non-congested link.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the centralized routing node is further configured to compute a new utilization level for the particular non-congested link that would result from moving the particular traffic flow from the particular congested link to the particular non-congested link.

3 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of mesh network nodes each with eNodeB functionality and Wi-Fi mesh networking functionality.

4 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of in-vehicle mobile mesh network nodes.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the centralized routing node is further configured to limit a rate of route changes propagated to the mesh network node to within a maximum threshold.

6 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of mesh network nodes utilizing a mesh network protocol for providing mesh network routes with lower priority than routes received from the centralized routing node.

7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the mesh network protocol is the Babel protocol using an expected transmission count (ETX) metric.

8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the plurality of mesh network nodes is configured to fail over to the lower priority mesh network routes when a link failure occurs on a route received from the centralized routing node.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the centralized routing node is configured to compute default routes by iterating over: a set of mesh nodes, a set of mesh node interfaces, a set of congested links, a set of non-congested links, or a set of path forks for a particular traffic flow path.

10 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the link utilization statistics include at least one of a channel clear count, an antenna cycle count, an inter-frame spacing, a packet count, a link modulation and coding scheme, and a measured link data rate.

11 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the centralized routing node is configured to identify the set of congested links based on: a preconfigured traffic estimate; a network routing table connection tracking method; a packet count derived from a particular network interface on a mesh node; or statistics derived from a Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) module.

12 . A method, comprising:
initializing a mesh network node with an Internet Protocol (IP) address; identifying a first mesh network route from the mesh network node to another node using a mesh routing protocol; sending, from the mesh network node to a coordinating node, link characterizing information for the mesh network route; receiving, from the coordinating node, a second mesh network route; installing, at the mesh network node, the mesh network route as a default route; and responding to a network failure by uninstalling the second mesh network route and reverting to the first mesh network route.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the mesh network node has eNodeB functionality and Wi-Fi mesh networking functionality.

14 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising utilizing a mesh network protocol for providing mesh network routes with lower priority than routes received from the coordinating node.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the mesh network protocol is the Babel protocol using an expected transmission count (ETX) metric.

Assignees

• Parallel Wireless Inc

Inventors

• Garg Sumit

Classifications

• H04L45/22

  Alternate routing · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04L47/122

  by diverting traffic away from congested entities · CPC title

• H04L45/28 Primary

  using route fault recovery · CPC title

• H04L47/24 Primary

  Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS · CPC title