Beaconing and frame structure for directional antenna communications
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method comprising:
- communicating in a wireless network by communicating a series of superframes;
transmitting an omnidirectional beacon in each of selected ones of the series of superframes, at least one of the omnidirectional beacons includes information to schedule both directional and omnidirectional communications in the superframe containing the at least one omnidirectional beacon; and
transmitting a directional beacon and no omnidirectional beacons in each of remaining ones of the series of superframes, information in a beacon indicating directional or omnidirectional communication,wherein in each of the superframes including the directional beacon, only directional communications are permitted in the wireless network.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
In a wireless communications network containing network devices capable of both directional and omnidirectional communications, a network controller may arrange a series of superframes into groups of multiple consecutive superframes, in which only one superframe in each group contains an omnidirectional beacon, and the remainder of the superframes in the group contain only directional beacons.
20 Citations
19 Claims
-
1. A method comprising:
-
communicating in a wireless network by communicating a series of superframes; transmitting an omnidirectional beacon in each of selected ones of the series of superframes, at least one of the omnidirectional beacons includes information to schedule both directional and omnidirectional communications in the superframe containing the at least one omnidirectional beacon; and transmitting a directional beacon and no omnidirectional beacons in each of remaining ones of the series of superframes, information in a beacon indicating directional or omnidirectional communication, wherein in each of the superframes including the directional beacon, only directional communications are permitted in the wireless network. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
-
-
7. An apparatus, comprising:
-
a wireless communications device to transmit a series of superframes in a wireless network, each superframe having a beacon portion; wherein the beacon portion of some of the superframes is to include an omnidirectional beacon, and the beacon portion of a remainder of the superframes is to include a directional beacon but no omnidirectional beacon, information in the beacon portion indicating directional or omnidirectional communication, wherein in each of the superframes including the directional beacon, only directional communications are permitted in the wireless network, and wherein at least one of the omnidirectional beacons includes information to schedule both directional and omnidirectional communications in the superframe containing said at least one omnidirectional beacon. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
-
-
14. An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory machine readable medium that contains instructions, which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising:
-
communicating in a wireless network by communicating a series of superframes; transmitting an omnidirectional beacon in each of selected ones of the series of superframes, at least one of the omnidirectional beacons includes information to schedule both directional and omnidirectional communications in the superframe containing the at least one omnidirectional beacon; and transmitting a directional beacon and no omnidirectional beacons in each of remaining ones of the series of superframes, information in a beacon indicating directional or omnidirectional communication, wherein in each of the superframes including the directional beacon, only directional communications are permitted in the wireless network. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
Specification