Link adaption for mobile ad hoc and mesh networks

A method of changing communication link adaption techniques in a network of radio communication nodes, comprising:

• detecting interference based on an open loop metric;
• estimating using an open loop estimator, the channel dynamics;
• determining, whether transmission parameters should be adjusted based on open loop metrics or closed loop metrics, based on the channel dynamics;
• and
• adjusting transmission parameters by using a state transition table based on the estimate;
• and
• generating by the state transition table at least one of transmit power, modulation type, forward error correction coding gain, diversity level, diversity method, diversity combing method, and frequency spreading.

A method of specifying link quality associated with a first radio communication sent by a first node, the method comprising:

• receiving by a second node the first radio communication;
• estimating by the second node the dynamics of the communications channel using at least one of the variance and mean deviation of link metric measurements;
• transmitting the metric measurements from the second node back to the first node thus comprising the closed loop metrics for the first node;
• categorizing the dynamics of the communications channel into one of at least two groups, based on the estimate of more than one link when multiple nodes are to be communicated simultaneously;
• selecting, based on the chosen group, the use of at least one of closed loop link adaption and open loop adaption of communication link parameters;
• and
• determining link quality based on the estimate and the selection, wherein the link metric measurements being comprised of at least one symbol rate error (SER), packet error rate (PER) , frame error rate (FER), signal to noise ratio (SNR), and received signal strength, wherein the link metric measurements are normalized via at least one of the following methods:
• subtraction of transmitted power for a normalization of the SNR and RSS;
• and
• a table look-up of transformation for a normalization of the SER, PER, or FER from one modulation type to another when more than one modulation type is used.