Patent ID: 7792138

Claim:
A distributed/opportunistic scheduling method for acquiring a multi-user diversity gain in a wireless local area network (WLAN) including a transmitter for transmitting data and a plurality of receivers for receiving the data from the transmitter comprising the steps of: a) broadcasting, by the transmitter, a BRTS (Broadcast Request-to-Send) frame to all the receivers, and informing the receivers of a channel probing intention; b) measuring, by the receivers having received the BRTS frame, instantaneous reception signal strengths, and acquiring a probability density function of the measured instantaneous reception signal strengths from the measured instantaneous reception signal strengths and their average value; c) dividing the probability density function into a predetermined number of intervals; d) determining which one of the divided intervals includes a current reception signal strength, and calculating a backoff period according to the position of the determined interval; e) transmitting a CTS (Clear-to-Send) frame after the backoff period expires; and f) transmitting, by the transmitter, data frames to a specific receiver having firstly transmitted the CTS frame.