Importance

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Abstract

A highly fault tolerant method of radio communication piggybacked upon time division multiple access (TDMA) digital cellular radio telephone systems transmits message packet through a distributed network of transmitter/receivers, (tranceivers) mobile units, each having a unique identification (ID) number. An initiating mobile unit creates a message packet having the ID of a mobile unit intended to receive the message packet. It then broadcasts the message packet in a non-interfering fashion to local mobile units within its transmission range, at a time period which does not overlap a time slot in which it communicates with a cellular base unit. Each mobile unit which receives the message packet checks to see if there are errors and sends an acknowledgement if no errors. The mobile units determine valid message packets by determining if the message has not expired, if it has not been seen before and there were no errors in the received message packet. The mobile unit also determines if the transceiver ID in the message packet matches its own transceiver ID, and if it does, the message has been successfully transmitted to its intended mobile unit. If the message packet is valid and the mobile unit IDs do not match, the mobile unit broadcasts the message to other local mobile units until a predetermined number of acknowledgements are received, or until the message expires. The mobile units which receive the message packet repeat the process. A message is transmitted from a sending mobile unit to a receiving mobile unit without any interaction with a cellular base unit.

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First Claim