Patent ID: 7236759

Claim:
A method for operating a client station in a wireless local area network (WLAN) communication system comprising an access point, the client station comprising an antenna steering algorithm and a smart antenna responsive to the antenna steering algorithm for selecting one of a plurality of antenna beams, the method comprising: exchanging data with the access point using a first selected antenna beam; calculating a quality metric of the exchanged data for the first antenna beam, the calculating comprising determining at least one link quality metric (LQM) of the exchanged data for the first antenna beam, determining a signal quality metric (SQM) of the exchanged data for the first antenna beam, and combining the at least one LQM and the SQM for calculating the first quality metric; selecting at least one second antenna beam for exchanging data with the access point; calculating at least one second quality metric of the exchanged data for the at least one second antenna beam, the calculating comprising repeating the determining and combining for each second antenna beam; comparing the first quality metric to the at least one second quality metric; and selecting a preferred antenna beam from among the first antenna beam and the at least one second antenna beam for continuing to exchange data with the access point based upon the comparing.