Patent ID: 8270923

Claim:
A method of operating a second device equipped with a plurality of receive antennas for facilitating a wireless peer-to-peer connection with a first device, comprising: receiving a first transmission request signal from the first device over a shared frequency spectrum, the first transmission request signal indicating that the first device intends to transmit a traffic signal to the second device; monitoring the shared frequency spectrum to receive a second transmission request signal, the second transmission request signal being transmitted by a third device and indicating that the third device intends to transmit a traffic signal to a fourth device; determining whether to transmit a request response signal to the first device, the request response signal indicating that the second device is ready to receive the traffic signal from the first device, as a function of a received power of the first and second transmission request signals; transmitting the request response signal to the first device if it is determined to transmit the request response signal; receiving a first pilot signal from the first device over the shared frequency spectrum, the first pilot signal being received in each of the plurality of receive antennas; determining a plurality of receive beamforming coefficients as a function of the received first pilot signals in each of the plurality of receive antennas, each of the plurality of receive beamforming coefficients corresponding to one receive antenna; calculating a signal-to-interference ratio of the first pilot signal by combining the first pilot signal received from the plurality of receive antennas using the determined plurality of receive beamforming coefficients; and sending a rate report signal to the first device, the rate report including control information determined by the signal-to-interference ratio of the first pilot signal.