Patent ID: 8588126

Claim:
A method for conducting a relayed communication in a network comprising a plurality of nodes, the plurality of nodes including a source node that transmits a signal, intermediate nodes that relay the signal, and at least one destination node that receives the signal, the method comprising: at the source node, initiating the relayed communication by transmitting the signal associated with the relayed communication on a first medium allocation; at each of the intermediate nodes that receive the signal, determining whether the signal has already been relayed by the intermediate node: if the signal has not already been relayed by the intermediate node, relaying the signal onto a next medium allocation in response to receiving the signal as transmitted on at least one previous medium allocation, if the signal has already been relayed by the intermediate node, not relaying the signal onto the next medium allocation; at the at least one destination node, receiving multiple instances of the signal from multiple of the intermediate nodes as transmitted on at least one medium allocation, where energy from the multiple instances of the signal received at the at least one destination node is constructively combined before decoding; wherein at least one of the intermediate nodes also receives multiple instances of the signal from multiple of the intermediate nodes as transmitted on the at least one medium allocation, and energy from the multiple instances of the signal received at the at least one of the intermediate nodes is constructively combined before relaying the signal; and wherein each of the plurality of nodes in the network are configured to initiate the relayed communication as the source node, relay the signal as one of the intermediate nodes, and receive the signal as a destination node.