Transport discovery in wireless multi-transport environments

In order to utilize multiple transports, devices must discover common mechanisms for communication, a procedure we call multi-transport discovery. The multi-transport discovery algorithm presented in this paper is a four-phase procedure (transport probing, transport querying, address-to-device mapping, and transport accessibility) that can discover common transports within a multi-transport environment. Transport probing uses a transport-dependent device discovery mechanism to discover an initial link. Transport querying communicates over the probed link to query additional transports. Address-to-device mapping correctly correlates each transport to a remote device. Finally, transport accessibility periodically ascertains link availability during an application session.