METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELECTING A DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

摘要

A method and a system are provided to determine and thus select the best choice for antenna to be used by a network device (110) having a plurality of directional antennas (112A-112C) for a particular sending source. The determination is made using on a metric based on the success rate of packets received at a particular directional antenna from the sending source and secondarily on a received signal strength indicator. The determination is stored and made available for processing such that a router is able to request communication through a device (134) with a destination via the second wireless communication device (114) without knowledge of the best antenna match. In a specific method the first communication device (110) broadcasts packets, via each associated directional antenna (112C), to query for the existence of the second wireless communication devices (114). The first device then receives a plurality of information packets about existence of the second wireless communication devices in response to the broadcast packets or in response to a query about third parties (134).