Sounding and steering protocols for wireless communications

An apparatus comprising:

• transceiver electronics configured to transmit and receive signals;
• and
• processor electronics communicatively coupled with the transceiver electronics, the processor electronics configured to:
• transmit a sounding packet to one or more wireless communication devices to determine characteristics of spatial wireless channels, wherein the sounding packet is based on a spatial mapping matrix,
• receive, in response to the sounding packet, one or more feedback packets from the one or more wireless communication devices, wherein the one or more feedback packets are indicative of one or more feedback matrices, the one or more feedback matrices being derived from wireless channel estimations that are based on received versions of the sounding packet,
• generate spatially steered data packets based on multiple data streams and one or more steering matrices, the one or more steering matrices being based on the spatial mapping matrix and the one or more feedback matrices, and
• transmit a frame that includes the spatially steered data packets to the one or more wireless communications devices, wherein the spatially steered data packets concurrently provide the data streams respectively within the frame to the one or more wireless communication devices via different spatial wireless channels.

An apparatus comprising:

• transceiver electronics configured to transmit and receive signals with wireless communication devices;
• and
• processor electronics communicatively coupled with the transceiver electronics, the processor electronics configured to:
• transmit a sounding announcement indicating an identity of one of the wireless communication devices that is expected to initially send feedback in response to one or more sounding packets,
• transmit the one or more sounding packet to the wireless communication devices to determine characteristics of spatial wireless channels, wherein the one or more sounding packets are based on a spatial mapping matrix,
• receive, in response to the sounding packet, feedback packets from the wireless communication devices, wherein the feedback packets are indicative of feedback matrices, the feedback matrices being derived from wireless channel estimations that are based on received versions of the sounding packet,
• generate spatially steered data packets based on multiple data streams and steering matrices, the steering matrices being based on the spatial mapping matrix and the feedback matrices, and
• transmit a frame that includes the spatially steered data packets to the wireless communications devices, wherein the spatially steered data packets concurrently provide the data streams respectively within the frame to the wireless communication devices via different spatial wireless channels.