Patent ID: 9544081
Date: 2017-01-10
CPC Classifications: H04J,H04W

Claim:
1. A method comprising: dividing a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) structure into a plurality of first time slots and a plurality of second time slots, the first and second time slots allocated to communications using first and second protocols associated with an industrial process control system, respectively; routing, by a protocol routing layer, each of a plurality of data packets to a first protocol stack associated with the first protocol or a second protocol stack associated with the second protocol; transmitting, by a physical layer, a first subset of the data packets to at least one first wireless device using the first protocol during the first time slots and not during the second time slots; and transmitting, by the physical layer, a second subset of the data packets to at least one second wireless device using the second protocol during the second time slots and not during the first time slots; wherein the TDMA structure comprises a superframe having multiple frames, each frame including multiple time slots, each frame containing only one of the first time slots or the second time slots.