Adaptive beamforming systems and methods for communication systems

A method of operating a base station including multiple antennas weighted by corresponding weighting elements, comprising:

• receiving a quantized antenna weight increment vector from a receiving station;
• re-orthogonalizing said quantized antenna weight increment vector;
• and
• calculating an antenna weight vector by adding an increment to a previous antenna weight vector proportional to said re-orthogonalized quantized antenna weight increment vector.

A method of operating a receiving station, comprising:

• measuring a downlink channel correlation matrix for multiple antennas of a base station from pilot signals;
• computing an antenna weight increment vector normal to a previous antenna weight vector rendering positive a directional derivative of total received power from said multiple antennas of said base station;
• quantizing said antenna weight increment vector component by component to produce a quantized antenna weight increment vector;
• and
• sending said quantized antenna weight increment vector to said base station.

A wireless communication system, comprising:

• a receiving station, including:
• a detector configured to measure a downlink channel correlation matrix for multiple antennas of a base station from pilot signals, compute an antenna weight increment vector normal to a previous antenna weight vector rendering positive a directional derivative of total received power from multiple antennas of said base station, and quantize said antenna weight increment vector component by component to produce a quantized antenna weight increment vector, and
• a transmitter configured to send said quantized antenna weight increment vector to said base station;
• and
• a base station including multiple antennas weighted by corresponding weighting elements, including:
• a beamformer selector configured to re-orthogonalize said quantized antenna weight increment vector, and
• a weight vector modifier configured to calculate an antenna weight vector by adding an increment to said previous antenna weight vector proportional to said re-orthogonalized quantized antenna weight increment vector.