Frequency hopping wireless communication system and communication equipment

A wireless communication system comprising:

• a master base station and a plurality of slave base stations, each of said master and slave base stations forming a cell and communicating with wireless terminals located within the cell in a predetermined communication sequence according to a frame format of a wireless communication frame generated thereby as hopping a carrier frequency of the wireless communication frame synchronously with said wireless terminals in a predetermined hopping sequence,
• wherein said master base station includes means for providing a hop timing of said carrier frequency to said slave base stations, and each of said slave base stations having means for hopping said carrier frequency in response to said hop timing provided by said master base station,
• wherein each of said slave base stations includes means for determining an individual switching timing based on said hop timing informed by said master base station, so that said master and slave base stations hop said carrier frequencies with a predetermined phase difference with respect to each other, and
• wherein each of said slave base stations includes means for generating said wireless communication frame on said individual switching timing in synchronization with the hopping of said carrier frequency.

A wireless communication system comprising a master base station and a plurality of slave base stations, each of said master and slave base stations forming a cell and communicating with wireless terminals located within the cell as hopping a carrier frequency of a wireless communication frame synchronously with said wireless terminal in a predetermined hopping sequence, wherein:

• each of said master and slave base stations comprises;
• means for generating wireless communication frames periodically, each of which defines a control field for use in transmission of control information and a plurality of fragment fields for use in transmission of data by wireless terminals given a transmission right, said control field being divided into a group of first request slots for use in transmission of first request information for indicating a registration request from a wireless terminal newly associated with the cell formed by the base station and a group of second request slots for use in transmission of a second request information for indicating a request of said transmission right from said wireless terminals located in said cell;
• and
• means for assigning said fragment fields of each of said wireless communication frames to a plurality of wireless terminals which requested said transmission right through said second request slots of the wireless communication frame.

A wireless terminal for communicating with a piece of communication equipment through a base station in a predetermined sequence according to a frame format of a wireless communication frame generated by said base station while hopping a carrier frequency of the wireless communication frame synchronously with said base station, comprising:

• memory means for storing information defining carrier frequencies grouped into a plurality of hopping sequences, each of which corresponds to a hopping sequence identifier;
• means for selecting a next carrier frequency, to be hopped from a current carrier frequency used in a current wireless communication frame, from among a group of carrier frequencies in a specific hopping sequence read out from said memory means according to a hopping sequence identifier which has been received at a control information field of each of said wireless communication frames;
• and
• means for switching the current carrier frequency to said next carrier frequency at a predetermined timing determined depending upon a length of the wireless communication frame, periodically.

A wireless terminal for communicating with another communication equipment through a base station in a predetermined sequence according to a frame format of wireless communication frames generated by said base station, comprising:

• memory mean for storing information defining carrier frequencies grouped into a plurality of hopping sequences each of which is related a hopping sequence identifier;
• means for selecting a next carrier frequency to be hopped from a current carrier frequency used in a current wireless communication frame, among a group of carrier frequencies in a specific hopping sequence read out from said memory means in accordance with a hopping sequence identifier which has received at a control information field of each of said wireless communication frames;
• means for switching the current carrier frequency to said next carrier frequency at a predetermined timing determined depending upon a length of the wireless communication frame;
• means for issuing a registering request at an arbitrary timing within a predetermined number of first request slots defined at a predetermined location of one of said wireless communication frames;
• means for issuing a data transmission request at a specified timing corresponding to specific one of a plurality of second request slots defined at a predetermined location of subsequent one of said wireless communication frames, said specific one of second request slots having been assigned to the wireless terminal by said base station in response to said registration request;
• and
• means for transmitting data at a timing of a specific fragment slot of said subsequent one of sid wireless communication frames, said specific fragment slot having been designated by said base station in response to said data transmission request among a plurality of fragment slots defined at a predetermined location of the wireless communication frame.

A wireless terminal for communication with another communication equipment through a base station in a predetermined sequence according to a frame format of wireless communication frames generated by said base station, comprising:

• memory means for storing information defining carrier frequency grouped into a plurality of hopping sequences each of which is related a hopping sequence identifier;
• means for selecting a next carrier frequency to be hopped from a current carrier frequency used in a current wireless communication frame, among a group of carrier frequencies in a specific hopping sequence read out from said memory means in accordance with a hopping sequence identifier which has received at a control information field of each of said wireless communication frames;
• means for switching the current carrier frequency to said next carrier frequency at a predetermined timing determined depending upon a length of the wireless communication frame;
• means for communicating with said base stations to get a transmission right for at least one of data slots defined in each of said wireless communication frames;
• means for compressing data to be transmitted;
• means for enciphering the data compressed by said compressing means;
• means for converting the data enciphered by said enciphering means into a plurality of data packets each having a predetermined length;
• and
• means for transmitting one of said data packets at a timing of a specified data slot for which the transmission right has been obtained.