Patent ID: 7729329

Claim:
A radio communication apparatus for performing radio communications in a communication environment having a plurality of available communication channels, the radio communication apparatus comprising: packet receiving means for receiving a packet in at least one orthogonally separated channel, the packet including a preamble part on a predetermined channel, and a data part, said preamble part including identification information describing an assignment of a communication channel on which the data part is transmitted, wherein the packet receiving means detects a hopping pattern or a spread code from the identification information, uses the hopping pattern or the spread code detected from the identification information to determine the communication channel on which the data part of the packet is transmitted, and sums, in the one orthogonally separated channel, correlation values between a preamble pattern of each symbol and a spread code in the preamble part to separate the communication channels; and communication channel setting means for setting communication channels for packet transmission of the packet and packet reception of the packet by the receiving means, wherein the communication channel setting means dynamically assigns the communication channel to the packet on a per packet basis during the packet transmission and keeps, during the packet reception, track of the communication channel that is switched on a per packet basis.