Medium access control in industrial and automotive wireless with combined wired and wireless sensor networks

A method of operating a local area network, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a central transceiver, a resource allocation request from a first priority network sensor unit in a first reserved timeslot in a guaranteed reservation period, the first reserved timeslot different from a second reserved timeslot in the guaranteed reservation period assigned to a second priority network sensor unit;
• transmitting a reservation bit map including an allocation of a first shared timeslot in response to the resource allocation request;
• and
• receiving data in the allocated first shared timeslot from the first priority network sensor unit.

A communication unit for a sensor network, the communication unit comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a wireless transceiver coupled to the processor, the communication unit configured to
• receive a resource allocation request in a first reserved timeslot in a guaranteed reservation period from a first priority network sensor unit, the first reserved timeslot different from a second reserved timeslot in the guaranteed reservation period assigned to a second priority network sensor unit,
• transmit a reservation bit map including an allocation of a first shared timeslot in response to the resource allocation request, and
• receive data in the allocated first shared timeslot from the first priority network sensor unit.