Method and apparatus for reducing the length of a packet storm in a wireless mesh network

Abstract

A broadcast transmission will generate a packet storm in a mesh network, which will last for a very long time and block the network for other traffic. There is a parameter in a broadcast control mechanism named radius which controls the duration of the packet storm. The invention proposes to dynamically select the smallest radius to reduce the packet storm to a minimum, by reporting the smallest possible radius parameter for the broadcast control mechanism. Each device or node of the network comprises a neighbor table for tracking which of its neighboring devices or nodes has successfully relayed the broadcast transmission. Additionally, each device or node comprises a broadcast transaction table to keep a record of any new broadcast transmission or transaction that is either initiated locally or received from a neighboring device or node. Each broadcast transmission comprises a so called radius parameter R which indicates an allowed number of hops through the mesh network before the broadcast transmission is discarded. The mechanism to report broadcast status may be realized in an exemplary embodiment of the invention by adding two new tables to track broadcasting status from neighboring devices: the child table, to which the concerned network node or network device has transmitted or relayed a broadcast transmission, and the broadcast listening table; and by adding three fields into the broadcast transaction table: the radius, report interval and report timeout; and also by adding two new parameters into broadcast message itself: report interval and report timeout.