The performance and ease of management of wireless communications environments is improved by a mechanism that enables access points (APs) to perform automatic channel selection. A wireless network can therefore include multiple APs, each of which will automatically choose a channel such that channel usage is optimized. Furthermore, APs can perform automatic power adjustment so that multiple APs can operate on the same channel while minimizing interference with each other. Wireless stations are load balanced across APs so that user bandwidth is optimized. A movement detection scheme provides seamless roaming of stations between APs.

A ZigBee management system includes an auto configuration server (ACS) that manages customer premises equipment (CPE) through CWMP messaging and a CPE proxy that is coupled to the ACS to provide a protocol translation between the CWMP messaging and ZigBee device object (ZDO) messaging for a ZigBee device. The ZigBee management system also includes a hybrid ZigBee coordinator that is coupled to the CPE proxy and has a ZigBee protocol stack having a ZigBee MAC layer as an initial layer, a non-ZigBee physical layer that is coupled to the ZigBee protocol stack and communicates the ZDO messaging over a non-standard ZigBee interface with the CPE proxy, and a ZigBee physical layer that is coupled to the ZigBee protocol stack and the non-ZigBee physical layer and transceives the ZDO messaging for the ZigBee device over a standard ZigBee interface. A method of managing a ZigBee network is also provided.

An apparatus which transfers information transmitted from a master node or addressed to the master node, comprises a generation unit that generates an assessment value representing logical proximity to the master node; a transmit unit that sends/receives the assessment value to/from other apparatuses; and a communication unit that, when this apparatus is an apparatus that is logically closest to the master node within a communication range, transmit information having the master node as a transmission source to other apparatuses or receive information addressed to the master node from the other apparatuses; otherwise, transmit information addressed to the master node to the logically closest apparatus or receive information having the master node as a transmission source from the logically closest apparatus.

A monitoring system for monitoring the temperature and vibration of equipment, comprising a central digital computer, a MESH communication network, wherein the network feeds signals to the central digital computer, a plurality of heating elements for heating the equipment, temperature/vibration sensors adapted to measure the temperature of the equipment, wherein each sensor is adapted to provide a signal representing the temperature/vibration of the piece of equipment to which the sensor is associated, to the network, wherein each temperature/vibration sensor can also be used to control the electric heaters, a temperature sensor that monitors the ambient temperature of the facility, and current transducers associated with the heaters, to monitor the energy use and current loss of the heaters, wherein the central computer uses the data it receives from the other elements of the monitoring system to determine when the equipment is not at the correct temperature/vibration and diagnoses the reason why.

In one embodiment, a method comprises determining a movable network device is moving along a repeatable sequence of access point devices in a deterministic network; and establishing a deterministic track along the repeatable sequence of access point devices, the deterministic track comprising insertion slots allocated for insertion of a data packet, by the movable network device, into the deterministic track via any one of the respective access point devices.

A data processing method is executed by a first data processing apparatus, and includes setting based on a size of data that is for executing a predetermined function, a first division number for dividing the data; producing groups of a second division number, each including N (a positive integer) elements by dividing the first division number; assigning a plurality of data processing apparatuses each capable of communicating with the first data processing apparatus, to the groups of the second division number; and assigning sub-data formed by dividing the data by the first division number, to the groups of the second division number.

Methods and systems are disclosed herein that may help to provide location-aware caching and/or location-specific service profiles in an aerial-vehicle network. An exemplary method may be carried out by an aerial vehicle that is at a location associated with the first geographic area in an aerial-vehicle network that includes a plurality of defined geographic areas, and may involve: (a) determining that a location-aware cache of an aerial vehicle should be updated with user-data associated with the first geographic area; and (b) in response to determining that the location-aware cache should be updated: (i) sending a location-aware cache-update request; (ii) receiving, as a response to the location-aware cache-update request, user-data that corresponds to the first geographic area; and (iii) storing the user-data that corresponds to the first geographic area in a location-aware cache of the aerial vehicle.

In order to enable reducing a possibility of being unable to connect to an AP in which a failure of a network connection occurs and also lessening a decline in a communication rate, a wireless communication method includes: detecting occurrence of a failure of a network connection in a first wireless communication device, when detecting the occurrence of the failure, determining whether or not to make a first wireless connection to the first wireless communication device, when making the determination to make the first wireless connection, making the first wireless connection to the first wireless communication device, and relaying a first communication between the first wireless communication device and a network.

A communication method and a system are provided that make it possible to transfer information between groups. The communication method is a communication method in a wireless communication network including a plurality of nodes that can form a peer-to-peer group, wherein an owner node operating as an access point in one group selects one or a plurality of client nodes within this group as delivery nodes, the delivery node disconnects from the group and connects to another group that is present in vicinity, and information is transferred between the delivery node and an owner node of the another group.

A method for communication between a telecommunications network and a secondary communication device via or using a primary communication device includes: performing a discovery operation regarding the secondary communication device, the discovery operation being initiated either by the primary communication device, by the secondary communication device, or by the telecommunications network; and transmitting at least one control information, being related to the secondary communication device or being related to the result of the discovery operation, between, on the one hand, the telecommunications network, and, on the other hand, the primary communication device and/or the secondary communication device.