Patent ID: 8737285

Claim:
A data relay system comprising: a master station apparatus that functions as a master station in a higher-level TDMA system; a plurality of slave station apparatuses that function as slave stations in a plurality of lower-level TDMA systems; and a plurality of repeating apparatuses that relay communication between the master station apparatus and the slave station apparatuses, the repeating apparatuses functioning as slave stations in the higher-level TDMA system and functioning as respective master stations in the plurality of lower-level TDMA systems, wherein the master station apparatus allocates an operating time as a statically allocated time with respect to each of the higher-level TDMA system and the plurality of lower-level TDMA systems, sets, as a dynamically allocated time, a time obtained by excluding the statically allocated time from a predetermined allocated period, allocates the dynamically allocated time as respective operating times to the higher-level TDMA system and the plurality of lower-level TDMA systems with distribution depending on communication states between the master station apparatus and the plurality of repeating apparatuses in the higher-level TDMA system during the statically allocated time, and transmits an allocation result to the repeating apparatuses, and wherein each of the repeating apparatuses extracts, based on the allocation result received from the master station apparatus, the operating time allocated to its own apparatus and operates as the master station in the extracted operating time.