Patent ID: 6980541

Claim:
A method of controlling a transmitter and a receiver to adjust transmitting and receiving times in a super-frame having a plurality of active time slots and one or more unused time intervals, the transmitter and the receiver both being initially assigned to a starting active time slot chosen from the plurality of active time slots, comprising: sending a first instruction from a controller to the receiver to listen for signals from the transmitter during both the starting active time slot and a target unused time interval chosen from the one or more unused time intervals, the starting active time slot and the target unused time interval being adjacent to each other; sending a first acknowledgement from the receiver to the controller that the first instruction was received and acted upon; sending a second instruction from a controller to the transmitter, after the controller receives the first acknowledgement, to transmit signals to the receiver during an ending active time slot, the ending active time slot being placed in a time period that is entirely contained within one or both of the starting active time slot and the target unused time interval; sending a second acknowledgement from the transmitter to the controller that the first instruction was received and acted upon; sending a third instruction from a controller to the receiver, after the controller receives the second acknowledgement, to listen for signals from the transmitter during only the ending active time slot; and sending a third acknowledgement from the receiver to the controller that the first instruction was received and acted upon, wherein the transmission time of the transmitter is not changed between the sending of the first instruction and the sending of the second instruction.