Coordination amongst heterogeneous wireless devices

A method for coordinating communication amongst wireless communication devices in a wireless network, comprising:

• receiving, at a receive device, an incoming data signal via a wireless communication link from a transmit device, where the incoming data signal includes a preamble comprised of a sequence of energy pulses and consecutive energy pulses are separated by a gap such that the gap between energy pulses is a sequence of zeroes having a minimum length that is larger than D samples, where D is a ratio of a clock rate of the transmit device to a clock rate of the receive device;
• sampling, by the receive device, the incoming data signal to yield a plurality of data samples;
• detecting, by the receive device, edges of the energy pulses embodied in the incoming data signal;
• determining, by the receive device, duration of the gap between energy pulses using the detected edges of the energy pulses, where the duration of a single the gap encodes coordination data for the receive device;
• and
• coordinating, by the receive device, communication between the receive device and the transmit device based on the coordination data.

A method for reducing power consumption of a wireless communication device, comprising:

• reducing, by a receiver in the device, clock rate of a clock during an idle listening period of the device, the reduced clock rate being less than a full clock rate and the clock operating a receiver of the device;
• detecting, by the receiver, a preamble of a data packet received by the receiver during the idle listening period, the preamble is comprised of a sequence of energy pulses, where energy pulses are separated by a gap and duration of a single the gap indicates an address of an intended device, each energy pulse in the sequence of pulses has a length and the length of each energy pulse is at least D samples, where D is a ratio of a clock rate of a transmitter to a clock rate of the receiver;
• determining, by the receiver, whether the data packet is intended for the device, the determination being based on the duration of the gap;
• restoring, by the receiver, clock rate of the clock to the full clock rate when the duration of the gap correlates to the address of the device;
• and
• continuing to operate the clock at the reduced clock rate when the duration of the gap does not correlate to the address of the device.