Patent ID: 7392092

Claim:
A system for communicating with an implantable medical device, the system comprising: a diversity antenna system including a plurality of antennas configured to transmit an outgoing signal to the implantable medical device and to receive an incoming signal from the implantable medical device; a transceiver adapted to transmit outgoing data frames by modulating the outgoing signal and to receive incoming data frames by demodulating the incoming signal; an antenna interface circuit coupled between the diversity antenna system and the transceiver, the antenna interface circuit including a switch circuit adapted to connect an antenna of the diversity antenna system to the transceiver according to an antenna selection signal; and an antenna control circuit adapted to produce the antenna selection signal, the antenna control circuit including: an incoming signal monitoring timer adapted to generate incoming signal monitoring signals based on a predetermined communication protocol; an incoming signal monitoring circuit coupled to the incoming signal monitoring timer, the incoming signal monitoring circuit adapted to produce an indication of quality of the incoming signal by detecting at least one measure of quality of the incoming signal in response to each of the incoming signal monitoring signals; and an antenna selector coupled to the incoming signal monitoring circuit and the switch circuit, the antenna selector adapted to adjust the antenna selection signal based on the indication of quality of the incoming signal.