Abstract: A system (100) to reduce congestion in an access control wireless mesh network, the system (100) comprising: a plurality of nodes (102) such that each node of the plurality of nodes (102) is coupled to one or more neighbouring nodes, and configured to store a mapping between a plurality of credentials associated with each neighbouring node of the one or more neighbouring nodes; and control circuitry (104) that is coupled to the plurality of nodes (102), and configured to: transmit a read request to each node of the plurality of nodes (102); receive, in response to the read request, from each node of the plurality of nodes (102), the plurality of credentials associated with the one or more neighboring nodes; generate a node mapping based on the received plurality of credentials; and generate a routing path for each node of the plurality of nodes (102) based on the node mapping.

Abstract: A system (100) for storing and validating credentials comprising: access devices (104) wirelessly coupled to one another, wherein the access devices (104) comprises memories (122) such that the memories (122) are configured to store user credential information derived from a unique user identifier associated with each user registered to the access device; a server (108) coupled to the access devices (104), and configured to: store a mapping between base keys and unique serial numbers associated with Near Field Communication (NFC) tags (106); and provide each base key to each access device when each access device is registered with the system (100), wherein an access is granted to a NFC tag based on (i) an identification and fetching of the user credential information from a memory of an access device based on the unique user identifier and (ii) an authentication of a base key associated with the NFC tag.