Explicit and Implicit Hybrid Beamforming Channel Sounding

An apparatus comprising:

• a transceiver unit configured to transmit and receive signals via a plurality of antennas in order to wirelessly communicate with wireless client devices;
• and
• a processor configured to compute updates to steering matrix information used for beamforming one or more signal streams to a particular wireless client device based on a combination of a first channel sounding technique that involves an exchange of dedicated channel sounding related signals to determine channel conditions with respect to the particular wireless client device and a second channel sounding technique in which channel conditions are implicitly discovered from any signals transmitted by and received from the particular wireless client device.

One or more computer readable storage media encoded with software comprising computer executable instructions and when the software is executed operable to:

• compute updates to steering matrix information used for beamforming one or more signal streams from a first wireless communication device to a particular second wireless communication device based on a combination of a first channel sounding technique that involves an exchange of dedicated channel sounding related signals to determine channel conditions between the first wireless communication device and the particular second wireless communication device and a second channel sounding technique in which channel conditions are implicitly discovered from any signals transmitted by the particular second wireless communication device to the first wireless communication device.