Patent ID: 8525642

Claim:
A method for communicating data over a wireless network in accordance with a distributed asset management protocol, comprising: operating a sending device to generate a medium access control (MAC) frame to be transmitted over the wireless network, wherein generating the MAC frame includes, setting a frame control field of the MAC frame to indicate a beacon frame transmission type, and defining a payload portion of the MAC frame to include, an identification of a device type of the sending device, an identification of a type of data included within a data portion of the payload of the beacon frame, an identification of an alternate channel to be used for subsequent communication, a specification of a beacon interval duration of the sending device, a specification of an association timeout duration for the receiving device, a specification of a response interval duration for the receiving device, a specification of a length of data included within the data portion of the payload of the beacon frame, the data portion of the payload of the beacon frame, and a specification of cyclic redundancy data associated with the payload of the beacon frame; operating the sending device to transmit the generated MAC frame over the wireless network; operating a receiving device to receive the MAC frame over the wireless network; operating the receiving device to recognize the MAC frame as the indicated frame transmission type; and operating the receiving device to process the payload portion of the MAC frame in accordance with the payload specification of the distributed asset management protocol corresponding to the indicated frame transmission type.