Sink Routing

The initial value of the hopsToSink field is computed when the clustering is performed, as the cluster acknowledgement and update packets carry the hopsToSink value.

As the value (for non-sink nodes) starts out as -1 (and any value < 0 is considered to be unknown hops to sink), initially only the sink node itself has a value that is known. When clustering begins, only one connection partner will have a known hopsToSink value, which is propagated to the other side (and incremented by one).

Please note that currently only one DeviceType::SINK is supported per network.

The value is validated through the StatusModuleTriggerActionMessages::SET_KEEP_ALIVE message of the StatusReporterModule. It uses the hops-counting mechanism of BlueRange Mesh where the special node id range after NODE_ID_HOPS_BASE (see the specification) is used.

This message is sent periodically by a sink to feed the watchdog, but is additionally used to count the hops to the sink.

When such a message is received on a node via a particular connection, the hops to the sink over this connection are computed via

where STATUS_REPORTER_MODULE_MAX_HOPS is used to initialize the receiver field of the message on the sink. It is the maximum usable value for the hops-counting mechanism.

Each hop decrements the receiver field by one, which means that any node can compute its own depth in the connection tree as seen from the sink which sent the original packet.

In case the values don’t match, an error counter (CustomErrorTypes::FATAL_INCORRECT_HOPS_TO_SINK) is incremented and the value is updated. In the simulator an exception is raised additionally (as the values should always match).