Methods for operating real-time wireless networks enable robust medium access strategies for communicating nodes in the network. A given wireless channel is divided into several sub-carriers, with each node assigned to a subset of sub-carriers. A master wireless node uses different subsets of the sub-carriers to communication with two or more slave wireless nodes simultaneously. The method includes generation of preambles that are robust to interference and multipath conditions. The method also enables communication within a maximum predetermined latency bound.