Patent ID: 8797885

Claim:
A method for transmitting data on a Media Access Control layer in a local area network within successive time frames between a plurality of first nodes comprising client nodes and a second node comprising a coordinator node for the plurality of first nodes, wherein each of the time frames includes a synchronization slot and a plurality of time slots including first slots and second slots, the method comprising: sending, in the synchronization slot of a current time frame of the successive time frames, a synchronizing message from the second node to the first nodes to synchronize the data transmission between the first nodes and the second node; and sending data from the first nodes to the second node, each of the first nodes using the first slots for an initial transmission of data from each of the first nodes to the second node; wherein the synchronizing slot of the current frame includes first acknowledgements associated with the first slots of a previous time frame preceding the current time frame, a positive first acknowledgement for a particular first slot indicating that a data transmission in the particular first slot was successful and a negative first acknowledgement indicating that the data transmission was unsuccessful, and wherein each of the first nodes uses the second slots for retransmission of data previously transmitted in one of the first slots of the previous time frame if each of the first nodes receives a negative first acknowledgement for the one of the first slots of the previous time frame in the synchronizing slot; and wherein the first slots are arranged in a sequence of successive first slots and the second slots are arranged in a sequence of successive second slots in the successive time frames, the sequence of second slots being arranged before the sequence of first slots.