New dynamic beam-forming protocol for wireless packet data networks

Multi-beam array antennas are being deployed in wireless cellular networks to implement space division multiple access (SDMA), using various forms of antenna sectorization, as a means to increasing the capacity of these networks. In this paper we propose a dynamic beam-forming strategy which provides superior SDMA performance. Specifically, we propose successive splitting of an original wide angle beam so as to spatially separate a number of initially interfering transmitters. This is shown to result in very drastic reductions in delays and computational loads while incurring no throughput penalties compared to standard random access protocols.