Patent ID: 7420944

Claim:
A method of mutually discovering relative locations of a plurality of mobile nodes to form a data communications network, the method comprising: initializing a signal transmission power level at a minimum power level; initializing an antenna scan direction in a first predetermined direction of a plurality of directions; randomly selecting, for each mobile node of the plurality of mobile nodes, to transmit or to receive an announcement packet during one scan direction; transmitting, by at least one node, an announcement packet via an antenna beam in response to randomly selecting to transmit an announcement packet, the antenna beam being directed in the predetermined direction in a first synchronized time interval; focusing, by at least one node, an antenna receiving beam to receive an announcement packet transmitted from a transmitting node in response to randomly selecting to receive an announcement packet in the first synchronized time interval; resetting the first predetermined direction of the plurality of directions and repeating the steps of transmitting an announcement packet and focusing a receiving beam in response to an announcement signal not being received by a receiving node; and repeating the steps of resetting the direction for each scan, and repeating the steps of transmitting an announcement packet and focusing a receiving beam in response to an announcement signal not being received by a receiving node until all of the plurality of directions have been scanned.