Antenna steering scheduler for mobile station in wireless local area network
AssigneeIPR Licensing, Inc.
InventorsLawrence Foore, Kenneth Gainey
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods of scheduling optimization of communications used with Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) equipment that employs steerable directional antennas. The methods may use and are compatible with Media Access Control (MAC) layers of IEEE 802.11 group of standards. The methods do not depend on any particular PHY layer standard.
Claims9
A method for controlling a directional antenna used by a wireless data network subscriber station having a virtual carrier sense state and a physical carrier sense state, the antenna operable in an omni-directional mode and in a directional mode, comprising the steps of:
- determining the virtual carrier sense state;
- determining the physical carrier sense state;
- comparing the virtual carrier sense state and the physical carrier sense state;
- and
- if the virtual carrier sense state and the physical carrier sense state do not concur, then operating the antenna in the omni-directional mode.
A wireless data network subscriber station having a subscriber station identifier, a virtual carrier sense state, and a physical carrier sense state comprising:
- an antenna operable in an omni-directional mode and in an optimization steering mode, and
- a computation device, the computation device processing a received frame and operating the antenna in the optimization steering mode if the virtual carrier sense state and the physical carrier sense state concur, a source identifier is a preferred source identifier, and a destination identifier is not the subscriber station identifier.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.