Patent ID: 7899497

Claim:
A system for transmission parameter control, the system comprising: an antenna apparatus having a plurality of antenna elements, the plurality of antenna elements being selectable to provide a plurality of selectable element antenna configurations, each selectable element antenna configuration corresponding to a radiation pattern; a communication device configured to operate at a plurality of physical data rates, the communication device coupled to the antenna apparatus; a processor configured to execute a transmission control selection module, wherein execution of the transmission control selection module by the processor causes the selection of a current physical data rate at which the communication device converts data bits into RF signals for transmission via the antenna apparatus, wherein selection of the current physical data rate includes: selecting an unused physical data rate, transmitting a probe packet to the remote receiving node at the unused physical data rate, determining whether the remote receiving node received the probe packet, and changing a ranking of the unused physical data rate relative to the current physical data rate based on the determination whether the remote receiving node received the probe packet; and an antenna element selector device coupled to the antenna apparatus, wherein the antenna element selector device is configured to select a current selectable element antenna configuration of the antenna apparatus, whereby a packet may be transmitted to a remote receiving node at the current physical data rate using the current selectable element antenna configuration, and wherein the transmission control selection module is further configured to determine whether the remote receiving node received the packet, and to cause the antenna element selector device to change the current selectable element antenna configuration based on the determination.