Patent ID: 8331265

Claim:
A method of performing a beamforming training between heterogeneous wireless devices in a wireless network, the method comprising: securing a fixed-time period in a superframe to perform beamforming training, the fixed-time period comprising an initiator base training window and a responder base training window; determining a first number of slots of the fixed time-period used for transmit sector sweeping based on at least one of a number of transmit sectors of an antenna configuration and a number of receive sectors of the antenna configuration; determining a second number of slots of the fixed time-period used for receive sector sweeping based on at least one of the number of transmit sectors of the antenna configuration and the number of receive sectors of the antenna configuration; assigning the first number of slots to the initiator base training window; assigning the second number of slots to the responder base training window; transmitting a first plurality of training packets to a wireless device in a plurality of the transmit sectors in a plurality of the first number of slots, the wireless device to receive the first plurality of training packets and estimate a best transmit sector, wherein the best transmit sector comprises the sector associated with a first training packet of the first plurality of training packets received with a highest link quality; receiving data indicative of the best transmit sector from the wireless device; receiving a second plurality of training packets from the wireless device in a plurality of the receive sectors in at least one of the second number of slots; and estimating a best receive sector, wherein the best receive sector comprises the sector associated with a second training packet of the second plurality of training packets received with a highest link quality so as to complete the beamforming training.