Patent ID: 8542762

Claim:
A method comprising: at a first device comprising a first plurality of antennas: receiving at the first plurality of antennas a plurality of uplink signal streams that were beamformed by a second device and transmitted to the first device; computing a plurality of downlink beamforming weight vectors from signals resulting from reception at the first plurality of uplink signal streams that were beamformed by the second device and received at the first plurality of antennas applying the plurality of downlink beamforming weight vectors to a plurality of downlink signal streams for simultaneous beamform transmission via the first plurality of antennas of the first device to the second device; and transmitting a non-beamformed downlink broadcast signal; at the second device comprising a second plurality of antennas: receiving at the second plurality of antennas the plurality of downlink signal streams that were beamformed by the first device; detecting the non-beamformed downlink broadcast signal transmitted by the first device; computing a plurality of uplink beamforming weight vectors based on the plurality of downlink signal streams beamformed by the first device and transmitted to the second device and based on the detected non-beamformed downlink broadcast signal detected by the second device; and applying the plurality of uplink beamforming weight vectors to a plurality of uplink signal streams for simultaneous beamform transmission via the second plurality of antennas of the second device to the first device; wherein the first device repeats the computing each time a new plurality of uplink signal streams are received at the first plurality of antennas of the first device from the second device to update the plurality of beamforming weight vectors used by the first device for application to the plurality of downlink signal streams to be transmitted, and wherein the second device repeats the computing each time the second device receives a new plurality of downlink signal streams from the first device to update the plurality of beamforming weight vectors used by the second device for application to the plurality of uplink signal streams to be transmitted.