Itron Gmbh

Itron Global Sarl

Mehdi Mani

Daniel Popa

Michael T Garrison Stuber

Hartman Van Wyk

Viet-Hung Nguyen

Bastien Mainaud

Kenneth Charles Rigdon

Elliott Adam Nelson

Keith W Barnes

Jorjeta Gueorguieva Jetcheva

Yacine Khaled

Iskander Banaouas

Nikesh Man Shakya

A new device is deployed to an area in which a network is provided. The new device may join the network using a single handshake via a neighboring device that is a member of the network and register with a network management system managing the network. If the network is overloaded or has limited bandwidth remaining, the network may refuse to admit the new device, or if the new device is isolated, may force some devices that are members of the network to leave or migrate from the network to allow the isolated device to join the network.

Efficient device handover/migration in mesh networks

A device and method for controlling transmission power in a network device is disclosed. The method comprises transmitting, at an initial transmission power, an initial data transmission intended for at least one receiving device on a network, receiving an initial response from the at least one receiving device, the initial response including an initial received signal strength indication (RSSI), determining a power loss based on the value of the initial transmission power and the received RSSI, determining a new transmission power based on the determined power loss, and transmitting, at the new transmission power, one or more additional data transmissions intended for the at least one receiving device. The method further comprises determining whether link quality is deteriorating, and applying additional measures for optimizing transmission power based on the link quality and other factors. A solution for mitigating a loop condition is also disclosed.

Transmission power control for wireless communication devices

Disclosed are techniques to minimize the electricity consumption of battery powered devices during network communications and performance of other functions. Example techniques include efficiently discovering other mains powered and battery powered devices within communication range of the battery powered device. In another example, techniques enable a battery powered device to serve as a relay for one or more other battery powered devices. In another example, techniques ensure that transmissions to and/or from battery powered devices are delivered efficiently and with low latency. In yet another example, techniques determine whether and under what conditions a battery powered device should migrate from one network to another. In the event of migration, example techniques minimize battery consumption associated with the migration.

Relay functionality of battery powered devices

Authentication using DHCP services in mesh networks

Network discovery by battery powered devices

Transmission timing for battery powered devices

In a network environment, a node may measure and/or recognize network activity or congestion and send feedback to downstream nodes (i.e., higher rank nodes) in response. During periods of lower network activity, lower congestion and/or lower network load, the feedback may direct an upstream flow of packets to be transmitted at a quality of service (QoS) level that allows consumption of more bandwidth than is indicated by a QoS level associated with a service level agreement (SLA) of the upstream flow of packets. During periods of higher network activity, congestion and/or network load, the feedback may limit the upstream flow of packets to the QoS level associated with the SLA of the upstream flow of packets. Accordingly, an upstream node (e.g., a root node) may use feedback to regulate bandwidth used by one or more downstream nodes and/or flows of packets, in part using network activity, congestion and/or bandwidth availability.

Bandwidth management in an advanced metering infrastructure

In a wireless and/or power line communication (PLC) network environment, techniques for multicast of data and management of multicast groups assist in regulating bandwidth consumption and provision of desired multicast data. Nodes indicate interest in multicast groups by transmission of reports upstream. Report transmission may be suppressed to balance bandwidth with need for multicast data. Multicast data packets may be retransmitted downstream to fulfill requests indicated by the reports at a rate and/or frequency based on multicast packet duplication or redundancy. Information, such as broken links or 'leave' packets, may indicate that one or more downstream nodes should be removed from a forwarding state. However such removal may impact other nodes. A query may be transmitted downstream, to determine if retransmission/forwarding of multicast retransmissions should continue. Query transmission may be based on a balance between query bandwidth consumption and the needs of downstream nodes.

Efficient multicast in a smart grid

Growing community of inventors

Paris, France

Mehdi Mani