Hi Folks

Can somebody explain why this function works the way it does:

uint8_t ring_buffer_avg(uint8_t lq_recv[]) { uint8_t *ptr; uint16_t count = 0, i = 0, sum = 0;

ptr = lq_recv;

while (i < TQ_GLOBAL_WINDOW_SIZE) { if (*ptr != 0) { count++; sum += *ptr; }

i++; ptr++; }

if (count == 0) return 0;

return (uint8_t)(sum / count); }

It only averages over the none zero values.

The code filling these ring buffer puts a zero in whenever an originator message is received from another neighbor. When the originator message is from this neighbor, the tq in the originator message is put in.

When a neighbor is dead, the ring slowly fills with 0's, whenever there is an originator message from one of the other neighbors. However since the 0 are ignored when calculating the average, we tend to have a cliff effect for dead neighbors. There tq_avg stays about the same for quite a while, and then plummets to 0. For faster detecting dead neighbors, it would be better if the 0 were included in the average. The tv_avg would then drop more linearly, not cliff like, so it is likely to cross below another neighbors tv_avg earlier, so re-routing around the dead node faster.

Before i change this function, i just want to understand why it is like this, and what i'm likely to break :-(

Thanks Andrew