Neighbor location discovery with directional antennas in a mesh network

A method for discovering relative neighbor locations in a mesh network, the method comprising:

• joining the mesh network by a new network node;
• broadcasting, over a control channel, a general discovery request message by the new network node;
• receiving the general discovery request message at a second network node in the mesh network;
• replying to the general discovery request message broadcasted by the new node by sending an acknowledgement message from the second network node to the new network node over the control channel;
• receiving the acknowledgement message at the new network node and creating a corresponding entry in a neighbor location table;
• broadcasting, over a data channel via the data channel's antenna, a directional general discovery request message by the new node, in a direction corresponding to a current direction of the antenna;
• receiving the directional general discovery request message at the second network node;
• holding an antenna direction constant at the second network node until a round completion message is received at the second network node from the new network node;
• replying to the directional general discovery request message broadcasted by the new node by sending a second acknowledgement message from the second network node to the new network node over the control channel;
• and
• receiving the second acknowledgement message at the new network node and updating the corresponding entry in the neighbor location table.