Patent ID: 7190686

Claim:
In a wireless communications network, a method for coordinating access to a shared transmission medium, said wireless communications network comprising a master node, a plurality of slave nodes, and at least one submaster node, each of said slave nodes and said submaster node controlled by said master node, wherein at least one of said plurality of slave nodes is able to communicate directly with said master node, said method comprising: upon admission of a new slave node able to communicate directly with said submaster node and out of range of said master node, recording at said master node a contact path from said master node to said new slave node, wherein said contact path includes said submaster node; at said master node, generating a schedule of wireless transmission for nodes of said wireless communication network, said schedule precluding collisions between simultaneous transmission by any pair of nodes controlled by said master node including pairs of nodes that do not hear each other's transmissions; and distributing said schedule from said master node to nodes controlled by said master node; wherein said schedule generated at said master node includes a transmission schedule for at least two levels of hierarchy comprising said submaster node, said plurality of slave nodes, and said new slave node, said transmission schedule configured such that only one only one of said hierarchy is permitted to transmit at a time.