Hi Krix,
As described it sounds pretty straightforward to create that kind of network using ANT. I am assuming that each node only needs to communicate with the nodes around it, and not directly to the end hub. ANT's typical range is 10m.
How much data needs to be transmitted? ANT is a low data rate protocol, so this is worth checking. Each node transmitting 8 payload bytes @ 50 messages per second would be safe - above that you may need to use caution. Most typical ANT applications use channel periods below 10Hz.
However, assuming that's ok...
I would probably open a master channel on each node to transmit the data it has to send, and open a slave channel to receive from the device before it. There is no difficulty setting up ANT nodes as both master and slaves at the same time. Open a slave channel on the hub to receive from the last node in the chain.
Are your devices static or moving around? Do you have any power constraints? These would be the questions I would look at next to choose whether to use synchronous or asynchronous channels, and decide whether any handshaking would be needed. Presumably you will need to define a method for establishing and deconstructing the network as well. This could be as simple as 'every node connects on power up' if your network is fully defined in advance (i.e. all nodes are known).
If you'd like to find out more, I'd start here:
http://www.thisisant.com/developer/ant-basics/ant-basics/#106_tab and here:
http://www.thisisant.com/developer/ant-basics/advanced-features/
Hope that helps,
Kat
