Methods for adaptive error avoidance to increase re-transmission reliability in time-slotted communication links

A network node device of a communication network, the network node device comprising:

• physical PHY layer circuitry configured to transmit and receive data packets via a communication network;
• and
• processing circuitry connected to the PHY layer circuitry and configured to:
• decode received data packets according to a first communication protocol, wherein the first communication protocol includes a specified acknowledge time slot for the network node device to send an acknowledge message;
• encode the acknowledge message for sending during the specified acknowledge time slot when not detecting errors in the received data packets;
• detect that one or more of the received data packets include errors;
• detect that a next received data packet is a last retry attempt of sending the next received data packet;
• and
• decode a subsequently received data packet according to a second communication protocol when detecting that the next received data packet is the last retry attempt, wherein the second communication protocol includes receiving the subsequently received data packet within the specified acknowledge time slot of the first communication protocol.