Patent 10075961 was granted and assigned to British Telecommunications Public Limited Company on September, 2018 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An adaptive channel selection method is disclosed, performed by an autonomous communications node for selecting one of a plurality of possible channels in an unlicensed spectrum band. The method comprises: (a) for each channel: (i) determining a first interference measure UiS for the channel based on received energy from one or more other nodes j using said channel; (ii) causing the or each other node j using said channel to transmit an echo signal and receiving the echo signal(s) at the first communications node; (iii) determining from the or each echo signal a second interference measure UiA; (iv) determining a third interference measure Ui based on a combination of the first and second interference measures; and (b) selecting a channel whose third interference measure meets a predetermined condition.