Slot segregation for supporting multiple communication protocols in an industrial wireless network

An apparatus comprising:

• a transceiver comprising a physical layer, the physical layer configured to communicate with wireless devices in different time slots of a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) structure, the TDMA structure including a plurality of first time slots and a plurality of second time slots, the first and second time slots to be respectively allocated to communications using first and second protocols associated with an industrial process control system;
• and
• a protocol routing layer configured to route each of a plurality of data packets to a first protocol stack associated with the first protocol or a second protocol stack associated with the second protocol;
• wherein the physical layer is configured to transmit a first subset of the data packets to at least one first wireless device using the first protocol during the first time slots and not during the second time slots;
• wherein the physical layer is configured to transmit a first subset of the data packets to at least one second wireless device using the second protocol during the second time slots and not during the first time slots;
• and
• wherein the TDMA structure comprises a superframe having multiple frames, each frame including multiple time slots, each frame containing only one of the first time slots or the second time slots.

A non-transitory computer readable medium embodying a computer program, the computer program comprising computer readable program code for:

• dividing a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) structure into a plurality of first time slots and a plurality of second time slots, the first and second time slots allocated to communications using first and second protocols associated with an industrial process control system, respectively;
• routing, by a protocol routing layer, each of a plurality of data packets to a first protocol stack associated with the first protocol or a second protocol stack associated with the second protocol;
• transmitting, by a physical layer, a first subset of the data packets to at least one first wireless device using the first protocol during the first time slots and not during the second time slots;
• and
• transmitting, by the physical layer, a second subset of the data packets to at least one second wireless device using the second protocol during the second time slots and not during the first time slots;
• wherein the TDMA structure comprises a superframe having multiple frames, each frame including multiple time slots, each frame containing only one of the first time slots or the second time slots.