Virtual pairing for consistent data broadcast

1. A network comprising:

a plurality of nodes; and

a plurality of links communicatively coupling each of the plurality of nodes to at least one respective adjacent node of the plurality of nodes via a first communication channel and to another respective adjacent node of the plurality of nodes via a second communication channel;

wherein at least one of the plurality of nodes is a source node configured to source data;

wherein the source node is configured to form a virtual self-checking pair with one of the respective adjacent node on the first communication channel or the respective adjacent node on the second communication channel to achieve a consistent broadcast of data on the first and second communication channels;

wherein the data to be broadcast on the first and second channels is exchanged between the source node and the respective adjacent node in the virtual self-checking pair and is only sourced by the source node.

2. The network of claim 1 , wherein the source node and the respective adjacent node are configured to determine when to form a virtual self-checking pair based on one of a transmission schedule and a message identification (ID) routing table.

3. The network of claim 2 , wherein the source node is configured to provide the data to be exchanged to the respective adjacent node prior to a scheduled timeslot in which the source node is scheduled to transmit the exchanged data.

4. The network of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of links comprises:

a first plurality of links communicatively coupling each of the plurality of nodes to a respective adjacent node on the first channel and a respective adjacent node on the second channel; and

a second plurality of links communicatively coupling each of the plurality of nodes to a respective skip node on the first channel and a respective skip node on the second channel.

5. The network of claim 1 , wherein the source node is configured to insert an initial hop count value into the data being transmitted, wherein each of the other nodes of the plurality of nodes not in the virtual self-checking pair is configured to increment the hop count value prior to forwarding the data and to prevent the hop count value from being a value less than zero.

6. The network of claim 5 , wherein each of the other nodes is configured to prevent the hop count from being a value less than zero by setting the hop count to a default value if the received value is less than zero and then incrementing the default value prior to forwarding the data.

7. The network of claim 5 , wherein each of the other nodes is configured to increase the hop count value in the data received on the first channel and to decrease the hop count value in the data received from the second channel.

8. The network of claim 5 , wherein each of the other nodes is configured to combine the incremented hop count value from the first channel with the incremented hop count value from the second channel and to compare the combined hop count value to the total number of nodes in the network;

wherein each node is configured to accept the data if the combined hop count is equal to a multiple of the total number of nodes in the network or if the combined hop count is equal to a multiple of the total number of nodes minus one.

9. The network of claim 1 , wherein when the respective adjacent node in the virtual self-checking pair receives data sourced from the source node, the respective adjacent node in the virtual self-checking pair is configured to reflect the received data on both the first and second channels.