Patent ID: 8218519

Claim:
A method of selecting a transmit pattern of a node of an ad hoc network, the method comprising: assigning randomly a reassignable current transmit ID to the node, wherein said reassignable current transmit ID is randomly assigned from a list of all transmit IDs; selecting a transmit pattern for the node based upon an association of said reassignable current transmit ID to the transmit pattern; receiving synchronization pulses, wherein each of the synchronization pulses includes at least one current transmit ID associated with at least one of other nodes and wherein the at least one current transmit ID is a most recent transmit ID associated with the at least one of the other nodes; processing the synchronization pulses to determine characteristics of the at least one of the other nodes, wherein the characteristics include the at least one current transmit ID and at least one transmit pattern of the at least one of the other nodes; storing the characteristics; determining whether said reassignable current transmit ID of the node or the transmit pattern of the node conflicts with any of the at least one current transmit ID or the at least one transmit pattern of the at least one of the other nodes; resolving said reassignable current transmit ID and the transmit pattern of the node if said reassignable current transmit ID conflicts with any of the at least one current transmit ID of the at least one of the other nodes, wherein the step of resolving further includes: reassigning randomly a new reassignable current transmit ID to the node from the list of all transmit IDs; and selecting a new transmit pattern for the node to transmit within based upon the new reassignable current transmit ID, if the step of reassigning randomly the new reassignable current transmit ID is performed.