Butterfly Vsli Ltd.

Texas Instruments Isreal Ltd.

Oren Eliezer

Alon Gendel

Dan Michael

An apparatus for and a method of providing a visual and/or audible indication of a numerical quantity. The quantity may be derived from any source such as an analog or digital quantity. The invention has utility in any application wherein it is desirable to visually and/or audibly display the magnitude of a quantity. An example system is described which provides a visual and/or audible indication of the received signal strength (RSSI) in an RF receiver. A visual indicator such as an LED is flashed a number of times corresponding to the magnitude of an input signal. Alternatively, or in combination, an audible indicator such as a buzzer can be beeped a number of times corresponding to the magnitude of the input signal. A digitized quantity to be indicated can be calculated by or input to a microcontroller or other processor that is suitably programmed to convert the magnitude of the digitized quantity to a number representing the number of flashes or beeps. An analog quantity can be digitized by an external A/D converter or by an A/D converter integral with the microcontroller.

Apparatus for and method of providing an indication of the magnitude of

The present invention is an apparatus and method thereof for performing frequency hopping communication with another party over a subset of hopping frequencies from available frequencies. The spectrum is arranged into a plurality of segments, with each segment corresponding to a subset of the spectrum of frequencies, preferably a contiguous subset of the spectrum. The apparatus includes a communication device for communicating with another party. The communication device receives data over a used segment from a plurality of the segments and signal strength data indicating a current reception power level for the hopping frequency from the other party. A processing unit analyzes the received data to determine an occurrence or non-occurrence of an error over the used segment and notifies the other party to modify the current transmission power level for that used segment according to the occurrence or non-occurrence of an error, via said communication means. Through such information exchange, the other party can independently control and optimize the transmission power level for each used segment, e.g., to a minimum transmission power level at which no error has occurred.

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Kfar Saba, Israel

Oren Eliezer