Patent ID: 8787324

Claim:
A method for scheduling and protecting quiet periods (QP) in a quiet zone in order to detect an incumbent signal in a wireless communications system that includes a plurality of wireless networks, each of the plurality of wireless networks containing at least a master device and a client device, the method comprising: transmitting a beacon by a master device of one of the plurality of wireless networks, wherein the beacon contains a first QP schedule and a reservation of a time slot for a client device of the one of the plurality of wireless networks; transmitting a request-to-quiet (RTQ) message by the client device of the one of the plurality of wireless networks during the time slot, wherein the RTQ message includes a second QP schedule; and keeping quiet by the master device and the client device of each of the plurality of wireless networks within the quiet zone during quiet periods according to information in the first and second QP schedules; wherein the incumbent signal is transmitted by a primary user device; and wherein the master and client devices are secondary user devices.