Patent ID: 8457047

Claim:
A method of preventing overlap of multiple personal area networks (PANs) in a ZigBee network, the method performed by a first node included in a first PAN of the ZigBee network, the method comprising: verifying whether overlap of the multiple PANs occurs by determining whether a communication status of communication performed over the first PAN satisfies a predetermined communication standard; when the overlap of the multiple PANs is verified, identifying beacon information of a neighbor node that causes the overlap of the multiple PANs by: transmitting a beacon request message to the neighbor node by gradually changing a strength level of the RF transmission wave, and receiving a beacon response message from the neighbor node in response to the transmitting the beacon request message, wherein the beacon response message comprises the beacon information of the neighbor node; adjusting a communication radius of the first node based on the beacon information of the neighbor node received in the beacon response message; and connecting the first node to a second node, when the second node that is a node in the first PAN is a closest node to the first node among nodes in the communication radius of the first node, wherein the adjusting of the communication radius comprises determining a strength level of an RF transmission wave to be capable of preventing the overlap of the multiple PANs based on the beacon information, and wherein the predetermined communication standard is a standard related to a transmission/reception rate or a transmission/reception error generation rate of each node over the first PAN.