Patent ID: 8750222

Claim:
A transceiver device for processing a medium access control (MAC) protocol, said transceiver device comprising: a first antenna system configured for on-body communications; a second antenna system configured for off-body communications; a transceiver configured for transmitting or receiving data payloads using the MAC protocol over a communications link with a body area network (BAN), each data payload being transmitted or received over the communications link using a corresponding one of the first and second antenna systems allocated to the data payload; and a controller configured to: allocate the first antenna system to the transceiver for an interval of time occupied by a data payload configured for on-body communications; allocate the second antenna system to the transceiver for an interval of time occupied by a data payload configured for off-body communications; and allocate a first time slot of a superframe for only on-body communications and a second time slot of the superframe for only off-body communications by specifically designating the first and second time slots for only on-body and off-body communications, respectively, in a beacon of the superframe.