Patent ID: 7808956

Claim:
A method for adaptive control, in a base station of a time division multiple access (TDMA) communication system, of the power level of a signal transmitted from a half-duplex mobile terminal, the method comprising: receiving the transmitted signal in an inbound time slot of a communication channel; collecting data relating to bit errors in the transmitted signal; generating at least one time-varying statistic of the data; determining, from a plurality of time-varying statistics of the data comprising a moving average of the data and a standard deviation of the data, whether to send a power control command to the mobile terminal, wherein the determining comprises, generating first and second dynamic thresholds dependent upon the time-varying statistics, wherein the first dynamic threshold is equal to the moving average of the data plus a multiple of the standard deviation of the data and wherein the second dynamic threshold is equal to the moving average of the data minus a multiple of the standard deviation of the data; and sending the power control command to the mobile terminal if the first or the second dynamic threshold is crossed, wherein the power control command is embedded in an outbound time slot of the communication channel.