Patent ID: 7724713

Claim:
A method for a beaconing protocol for a device to participate in an ad hoc communications network of devices, comprising: a. dividing medium access time into a periodic sequence of at least one superframe beginning at a given start time and having a next superframe of the periodic sequence at any point in time; b. partitioning the superframe into a slotted beaconing period having a plurality of contiguous beacon slots followed by a data transfer period; c. performing at least one of starting a new ad hoc network by performing (a)-(f), occupying an idle beacon slot of the plurality of contiguous beacon slots, and sleeping until the start of the next beaconing period and then waking up and repeating (c); d. beaconing by the device at said occupied beacon slot; e. receiving data transmissions from the other devices during the data transfer period; f. transferring data to the other devices during the data transfer period.