US Patent 7936709 Distributed beacon enabled wireless networks

In a wireless network that includes multiple nodes, each periodic announcement cycle of a communication schedule is partitioned into a set of time slots, including a set of management time slots, a set of beacon time slots, and a set of superframe time slots. Management frames are broadcast during the management slot to specify beacons. Beacons are transmitted during the beacon slots to specify when to transmit the superframes during the superframe time slots.