Patent ID: 8805363

Claim:
A smart antenna system for communicating wireless signals between a mobile device and a plurality of fixed base stations using one or more channels and one or more beams, said smart antenna system comprising a control subsystem, a radio transceiver and an antenna subsystem coupled to each other to perform scanning of one or more combinations of base stations, channels and beams using one or more test links established with one or more of said fixed base stations, said one or more test links using at least some of the channels and the beams; compute one or more performance measures using the data obtained during the scanning, the one or more performance measures based on at least one of signal to noise ratio (SNR), signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR), bit error rate (BER), packet error rate (PER), throughput, and jitter; select a first combination of base station, channel and beam based on the computed one or more performance measures; establish a first operating link for transmitting a wireless signal to the currently selected base station using the currently selected channel and beam; and after establishing said first operating link, perform continued scanning using one or more test links established with one of the currently selected base station and channel, and one or more beams different from the currently selected beam, and one or more combinations of base stations, channels and beams, said continued scanning being performed in one of a periodic and aperiodic mode; and wherein before performing said continued scanning, said control subsystem inserts a downtime, and said continued scanning is performed during said downtime.