System and method for sharing a common communication channel between multiple systems of implantable medical devices

For a system comprised of a master device having a unique identification code and one or more associated slave devices that communicate with said master device during periodic and temporally contiguous frame periods determined by each said master device and having occupied temporal portions of said frame period comprised of transmission communication periods dedicated to each master device and to each slave device and wherein each said frame period has a start and an end that spans an entire temporal bandwidth of a common communication channel, an enhanced communication processing system to enable a plurality of said systems to cooperatively coexist on said common communication channel, said enhanced communication processing system comprising:

• at least one fixed beacon message generator having a unique beacon marker code portion for adding a fixed beacon message portion offset a fixed amount from said start of said frame period to communications from said master device during each frame period;
• at least one wandering beacon generator having a unique beacon marker code portion for adding a wandering beacon message portion offset a predetermined but variable amount from said start of said frame period to communications from said master device during each frame period;
• a plurality of correlators for identifying said beacon message portions according to said unique beacon marker codes;
• a remote frame location processor coupled to said correlators for determining the relative temporal displacement of the frame period of each other detected master device according to the relative temporal offsets of one or more of said beacon messages to each said master device;
• a new temporal placement processor for determining whether at least one said systems may interfere with communications of another one said systems and accordingly calculating a new temporal placement for the frame period of a selected one of said system accordingly to said received beacon messages and said unique identification codes;
• and
• a relocation processor for causing said selected one of said systems comprised of a master device and one or more associated slave devices to temporally displace the start of its frame period to allow said occupied temporal portions of said selected one of said systems to be temporally interleaved with other occupied temporal portions of said systems on said common communication channel when said new temporal placement processor determines a potential for communication interference between two or more of said systems.