Patent ID: 8812127

Claim:
A system, comprising: an implantable medical device (IMD); a external user interface device wirelessly coupled to the IMD; and a radio frequency link quality assessment (LQA) device adapted to receive a radio frequency communication between the implantable medical device and the external user interface device, the radio frequency LQA device including: an antenna; a communication circuit electrically connected to the antenna, the communication circuit adapted to receive wireless communication between the implantable medical device and the external user interface device; a processor electrically connected to the communication circuit, the processor adapted to execute embedded instructions to evaluate at least one of signal strength and noise strength of available wireless communication channels potentially used to communicate between the IMD and the external user interface device, wherein the evaluation includes, for each channel analyzed as a target channel, using the noise level for the target channel and interference potential for corresponding adjacent channels to the target channel as inputs to a function to provide a value for a LQA for the target channel; and a memory electrically connected to the processor, wherein the memory is adapted to store the embedded instructions, measurements of individual channels, the signal and noise levels and results of evaluation, and wherein the processor is further adapted to: determine an interference potential on channels adjacent to the available channels, and evaluate each of the plurality of channels using noise levels for a target channel and interference potential for at least two channels adjacent the target channel.