Patent ID: 7184703

Claim:
A relay equipment for deployment in a multi-hop wireless communications system for relaying signals from a source equipment towards a destination equipment, wherein the relay equipment receives a plurality of signals transmitted from one or more source equipments and from these selects a signal to relay towards a destination equipment of the selected signal, the relay equipment further comprising a signal processor for measuring the quality of each signal the relay equipment receives on an uplink, comparing the quality measured for each uplink signal to a threshold quality for that uplink signal, forming a candidate set of uplink signals comprising those received uplink signals having a quality above the threshold, measuring the quality of each signal it receives on a downlink, comparing the quality measured for each downlink signal to a downlink threshold quality for that downlink signal, forming a candidate set of downlink signals comprising those received downlink signals having a quality above their thresholds and selecting that uplink signal of the candidate set of uplink signals having the biggest difference between its measured quality and its threshold quality whose corresponding downlink signal is a member of the candidate set of downlink signals wherein the relay equipment relays that selected uplink signal towards a destination equipment of the selected signal.