Best way to handle dropped packets between two wireless devices

[mik3ca]

I have several microcontrollers units connected together wirelessly with HM-TRP radio modules at 56K baud. One unit is master, and remaining are slaves.

What I want to do is have them all communicate efficiently at high speed.

Master will send out relevant stats to each slave in turn but doesn't need an acknowledgement on this because these stats will be repeatedly sent out

Each slave has its own stats that can be sent to the master but here's where the issue lies...

It's important the master receives these stats so at first I thought of having the master send out an acknowledgement bit indicating it received the data after it has received the data with the correct sequence number in it as determined by master. Problem with this is that if there's a transmission error then there will be data delays and that slave can't really do anything else but send the same data over and over until the master receives it.

Another idea I have is mixing part of the above with data gambling. By this, I mean have the slave send its data back to the master several times in a row. Yes this slows down the network somewhat but if the data is received 100% at least 1 out of n times, then its probably the way to go?

So what's the best way to handle packet loss in my situation?

 

[dknguyen]

Is this for your laser tag system? I suppose you you could just ignore missed packets as long as they don't happen too often...I mean...who's gonna notice?

Why can't the slave do anything until the master acknowledges?

I would think the bigger problem is how to detect if there is a transmission error.

 

[mik3ca]

I mean...who's gonna notice?

The serious players. LOL. I'd rather make 100% of my future customers happy than only 50% of them.

Why can't the slave do anything until the master acknowledges?

The master needs live shot updates from the slaves (aka vests) to tally scores in real time. If I had each vest internally tally its scores until the game ends and power is removed (likely because of a dying battery) before game ends then the points the player accumulated will be gone.

I would think the bigger problem is how to detect if there is a transmission error.

Much of that is already figured out. Every packet has a calculated checksum included as well as the sender and receiver address. Think UDP.