Patent ID: 7912002

Claim:
A system comprising: a candidate channel assessment module for obtaining at least one access class (AC)-specific channel suitability metric for each of two different channels, and for using the AC-specific channel suitability metrics to determine a channel suitability index of each of the two different channels; a channel selection module for using the channel suitability index to select one of the two different channels as a new channel; and a channel setting module for configuring a wireless transceiver to use the new channel, wherein the channel assessment module applies the following equations to generate the channel suitability index (CSI): CSI =Ψ( LQ,CF ) where Ψ indicates a function defining the relative success in transmitting a packet error free and is defined as: Ψ( LQ,CF )= LQ×CF where LQ indicates link quality and is defined as: LQ = ∑ ACI = 0 3 ⁢ ⁢ σ ACI ⁢ Ω ⁡ ( RSSI _ ACI ) where σ indicates a weight associated with a particular AC, the subscript ACI identifies AC index, RSSI indicates a mean received signal strength indicator, Ω indicates a function defining link robustness and is defined as: Ω ⁡ ( RSSI _ ACI ) = 1 - 1 2 ⁢ erfc ⁡ ( RSSI _ ACI ) where erfc(.) indicates a complementary Gaussian error function, CF indicates contention-faced and is defined as: CF = ∑ ACI = 0 3 ⁢ ⁢ τ ACI ⁢ Γ ⁡ ( N ACI , CU ACI , APER ACI ) where τ indicates a weight associated with a particular AC, CU indicates channel utilization, APER indicates average packet error rate, N indicates the number of active STAs, and Γ is a function defining relative contention faced when trying to gain access to the wireless medium and is computed as: Γ = { ( 100 - CU ACI ) + ( 100 - APER ACI ) } 2 ⁢ ⁢ N ACI .