WO2013082710A1

WO2013082710A1 - Method and communication device for assessing and maintaining quality of a wireless connection

Info

Publication number: WO2013082710A1
Application number: PCT/CA2012/001133
Authority: WO
Inventors: Samer Abielmona; Christophe Caloz; Van-Hoang Nguyen; Jean-François FRIGON
Original assignee: Polyvalor, Limited Partnership
Priority date: 2011-12-06
Filing date: 2012-12-06
Publication date: 2013-06-13

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a method and a communication device for assessing quality of a wireless connection. The method and communication device generate by a processing unit a command packet for a second communication device. The command packet comprises a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration including an antenna beam identifier.

Description

METHOD AND COMMUNICATION DEVICE FOR ASSESSING AND MAINTAINING QUALITY OF A WIRELESS CONNECTION

Field

The present relates to a method and communication device for assessing and maintaining the quality of a wireless connection and more particularly to assessing and maintaining the quality of a wireless connection using at least one directional antenna.

Background

A wireless communication may be performed between communication devices having one or multiple antennas in each communication device, and communicating using a common protocol. For an efficient and enjoyable user experience, a wireless communication needs to efficiently and reliably exchange packets of data at the highest possible data rate. However, for multiple reasons, often independent of the user, the quality of the wireless connection varies over time. This variation of quality affects elements of the user experience, such elements as the wireless link data rate, wireless range and wireless connection reliability.

Monitoring the wireless connection in real-time allows communication devices to adapt to a changing wireless environment. Achieving and maintaining an optimum wireless link requires first assessing of the wireless connection for an optimum operational configuration, important parameters being antenna beam pattern, transmission rate (including, but not limited to parameters such as modulation level, coding rate, number of spatial streams, space-time coding options, ...), power, channel frequency, transmission technology (WiFi, LTE, etc.), and access point sector, and subsequently enforcing the optimum configuration for subsequent packet data transfers to ensure the most reliable wireless connection with the highest possible data rate. There are known wireless connection monitoring methods that can be performed between two communication devices engaged in an active packet data exchange. To monitor the quality of the wireless connection, i.e. whether the wireless connection is good or bad, one of the communication devices (an initiator) sends a specific message or request to the other communication device (a recipient). The recipient receives the specific message or request, collects corresponding information, and responds to the initiator with a corresponding response message which includes the collected corresponding information or values correspondent thereof. Upon receipt of the corresponding response, the initiator may collect and measure additional relevant wireless connection parameters indicative of the quality of the wireless connection.

These monitoring methods suffer from three main disadvantages. Firstly, although the wireless communication is established between two communication devices, only one of the communication devices is engaged in monitoring the quality of the wireless connection, leaving the other communication device without any information on the quality of the wireless connection. In addition, a large amount of computational resources is required by the monitoring communication device, making these monitoring methods inefficient. Secondly, interference, which is a complicated and difficult phenomenon to predict, may have a serious impact on the quality of the wireless connection, is not effectively measured in current monitoring methods, and is usually inferred from the measured wireless connection parameters. Thus, efficiently identifying and targeting interferers so as to efficiently reducing their negative impact is challenging, leading to sub-optimal interference cancellation. Thirdly, the monitoring methods currently known are limited to omnidirectional antennas, and do not take into consideration the emergence of directional antennas in communication devices. Directional antennas that are able to adapt their direction provide a means of angular diversity. If directional antennas are to be employed at one or both ends of a wireless link there is therefore a need for a method and communication device for assessing the quality of a wireless connection for communication devices using directional antennas that are not fixed in direction

Summary

In a first aspect, the present disclosure provides a method for assessing quality of a wireless connection. The method comprises generating by a processing unit of a first communication device a command packet for a second communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier.

In another aspect, the present disclosure provides a communication device for assessing quality of a wireless connection. The communication device comprises a processing unit for generating a command packet to be transmitted to a recipient communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission between the communication device and the recipient communication device, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier.

In yet another aspect, the present disclosure provides a method for optimizing a wireless connection between two communication devices, at lest one of the communication devices including a reconfigurable antenna. The method comprises generating by a processing unit of a first communication device a command packet for a second communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier for the reconfigurable antenna. In still another aspect, the present disclosure provides a communication device for optimizing quality of a wireless connection with another communication device wherein at least one of the communication devices include a reconfigurable antenna. The communication device comprises a processing unit for generating a command packet to be transmitted to the other communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission between the communication device and the other communication device, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier for the reconfigurable antenna.

Brief description of the Figures

The present method and communication device will be described by reference to the following Figures, which are provided for exemplary purposes only, in which similar reference denote similar parts:

Figure 1 is a simplified exemplary schematic representation of wireless connections;

Figure 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating functional components of a communication device;

Figure 3 is a schematic representation of packet exchanges between two communication devices over the wireless connection;

Figure 4 is an exemplary data structure of CPs and RPs respectively;

Figure 5 is a table depicting exemplary M&M-related data sent as CPs;

Figures 6a and 6b are exemplary schematic representations of antenna beam directions in the presence of a reflective object;

Figure 7 is a graphical representation of three different radiation beams generated by an antenna unit; Figure 8 is a table showing exemplary wireless connection assessment results from M&M operations;

Figure 9 is a flowchart of an exemplary method for performing M&M operations;

Figure 10 is a timing diagram of a proposed use of CSMA/CA scheme for directional antennas;

Figure 1 1 is a schematic representation of the present method and communication device to estimate a direction of arrival;

Figure 12 is a schematic representation of a wireless network based on the OSI model;

Figure 13 is an example summative timeline of delays encountered during a wireless communication;

Figure 14 is an example of a multiple antenna module constructed from a multiplicity of directional antennas, specifically fixed or steerable leakywave antennas, configured as a wireless base station, access point, remote radio head, or wireless backhaul unit; and

Figure 15 is an arrangement of a multiplicity of fixed or steerable directional antennas, preferentially leakywave antennas, configured as a wireless basestation, access point, remote radio head or wireless backhaul unit.

Description

In the present disclosure, the concept of quality of a wireless connection is considered in the context of directional antennas. Thus the quality of the wireless connection takes into consideration the following parameters: antenna radiation pattern, data rate, and transmission power. The present assessment and maintaining of the quality of the wireless connection is accomplished by: actively sensing and monitoring the wireless connection; collecting statistics on the quality of the wireless connection by measuring wireless connection quality related parameters; using the measured wireless connection related quality parameters to identify an optimum wireless connection configuration; and applying the optimum wireless connection configuration to exchange packets of data.

The optimum wireless connection configuration may define for one or several communication devices involved in a wireless connection one or several of the following parameters: the antenna polarization, the beam angle (elevation and/or azimuth angle) and shape (profile and beamwidth), transmission rate (including modulation level, coding rate, number of spatial streams, space-time coding options, ...), antenna selection and/or weighted combining, transmitted power, channel frequency, transmission technology (WiFi, LTE, etc.), and access point sector (in the case of a communication device with multiple integrated access points). Some of those parameters can be configured at the transmitter or the receiver or both. Furthermore, in the case of a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system, several antennas, each with own configuration, can be employed at the transmitter and the receiver.

The method and communication devices described in the present description are applicable to any wireless communication system that operates anywhere in the world in any licensed or unlicensed frequency. It is applicable irrespective of the channel frequency from low frequencies (below 1 GHz) to high millimeter wave frequencies above 60 GHz. Examples of communication systems that can use the method and communication devices described in the present description include enterprise or residential IEEE 802.11xx (a,b,g,n,ac,ad) networks, cellular and metropolitan area networks (UMTS, LTE, IEEE 802.16,...), line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) wireless backhaul networks, Bluetooth, meshed networks (for example, IEEE 802.15.4), and proprietary point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication systems (for example, wireless streaming between a video camera and a television).

Turning now to FIG. 1 , a simplified exemplary schematic representation of wireless connections is illustrated. Figure 1 shows an access point 1 10 and two remote stations 120a, 20b. Those skilled in art will understand that Figure 1 is a very simplified schematic representation of nodes and components which may be involved in a wireless connection, and that many access points and remote stations are typically present in a wireless network. Furthermore, the wireless connection can be a link in other network topologies, such as a meshed network used in backhaul communications. The access point 110 can be a wireless router, a base station, a mesh communication device, thus any type of communication device capable of performing wireless connection for exchange of packets of data. The remote stations 120a, 120b can be also be any type of communication device capable of performing wireless connection for exchange of packets of data with the access point 110 using any one of the many network protocols defined in the industry such as for example IEEE 802.1 1 or 802.16, and cellular protocols such as UMTS and LTE. Proprietary communication protocols can also be used. The access point 1 10 and the remote stations 120a and 120b can be independently mobile or fixed. For example, in a WiFi network, the access point can be fixed and some remote stations can be fixed while other are mobile. In a wireless backhaul network, both the access point 1 10 and the remote stations are stationary or fixed. The situation may also arise where the access point 1 10 is stationary, and the remote stations 120a and 120b are at times stationary or at times mobile. The access point 1 10 and the remote stations 120a and 120b may comprise one or more transceivers. In addition, the access point 1 10 and the remote stations 120a and 120b may each comprise one or several antennas. The access point 110 and the remote stations 120a and 120b transmit and receive messages and exchange packets of data wirelessly by means of the wireless connections 130a, 130b. Each of the wireless connections 130a, 130b illustrates a wireless communication over one or several transceivers, over one or several channels and/or frequencies, by means of a single or multiple antennas, using any type of configuration, i.e. line-of-sight, non-line-of-sight, reflection, diffraction, and/or multi-path.

The present method and communication device further apply to single-in single- out (SISO) systems, multiple-in multiple-out (MIMO) systems, or any combination thereof. SISO systems transmit or receive a single signal at any one time. MIMO systems transmit or receive multiple signals simultaneously, thereby increasing the throughput, range, and reliability of the wireless connection. MIMO system can also use space-time block coding across several antennas to improve the reliability of the transmitted signals.

The access point 1 0 and/or the remote stations 120a and 120b comprise a reconfigurable antenna which can be dynamically controlled to generate various antenna patterns. The re-configurability of the antenna is multi-fold: operation over multiple frequencies; generation of different patterns in terms of beam shape, selection of beam angle, selection of beam polarization; supporting multiple antenna beams; and any combination thereof. In addition, the antennas on one of or both the access point and the remote station can be configured to operate omni-directionally, in a directionally static, or in a directionally dynamic manner. For example, the antenna can be configured in such a manner so as to radiate in the same direction or in different directions for each of the transceivers to which it is connected. In another instance, the antenna can be configured to radiate in the same polarization or in different polarizations for each of the transceivers. Yet in another instance, the antenna can be configured to radiate in the same direction but with different polarizations for each of the transceivers.

Reference is now made to Figure 2, which is a functional block diagram illustrating functional components of a communication device that could be, for example, a wireless router, a mobile device, a fixed communication device, a base station, a wireless access point or node, the access point 110 and/or or the remote stations 120a, 120b or part thereof. The communication device contains an antenna unit 210a, an antenna managing unit 210c, a transceiver 220a, a transceiver managing unit 220c, a processing unit 230 and a memory 240.

The antenna unit 210a comprises one or multiple antennas (not shown), and any required hardware and software to connect to enable the antenna(s) to connect to the transceiver 220a. The antenna(s) within the antenna unit is (are) reconfigurable and can be dynamically controlled to provide various radiation patterns adjustable in shape (profile, beamwidth, ...), angle in elevation and/or azimuth, polarization, center frequency of the operating channel, and transmission technology, gain or any combination thereof. Any type of reconfigurable antenna may be used, such as for example switch parasitic antennas and electronically steerable composite right/left-handed (CRLH) leaky- wave antennas (LWAs). Particular embodiments of antenna unit 210a with the LWA include using switch and/or bias voltage of varactors, to control the radiation patterns. Some of the radiation patterns can also be achieved by properly controlling several antennas. The multiple antennas of the antenna unit 210a can also be designed to operate at different frequencies and be physically separated (for example, on different sides of a geometric structure or vertically stacked on a panel).

The antenna unit 210a is connected via control lines 210b to the antenna managing unit 210c. The antenna unit 210a is further connected to the transceiver 220a through for example connecting lines 215. The transceiver 220a is also connected to the processing unit 230 through a communication link 225. The transceiver 220a can support different wireless channel frequencies and different transmission technologies.

The antenna managing unit 210c communicates with a processing unit 230 via bus lines 230c. The antenna managing unit 210c determines the radiation pattern(s) that should be radiated by the antenna(s) of the antenna unit 210a autonomously or in cooperation with other sub-units of the processing unit 230. The antenna managing unit 210c generates control signals so that the antenna(s) of the antenna unit 210a generate the necessary radiation pattern.

The transceiver 220a receives radio signals from and sends radio signals to the antenna unit 210a. The received and sent radio signals may include analog signals, digital signals, radio baseband, etc. The transceiver 220a may include one or multiple radios each capable of radio transmission, radio reception, or both radio transmission and reception.

The transceiver managing unit 220c controls the radio transmission and radio reception functionality of the radio(s) of the transceiver 220a. The transceiver managing unit 220c also communicates with the processing unit 230 through a communication link 230d for exchanging radio-related information with the processing unit 230.

The processing unit 230 controls the operation of the communication device. In addition to controlling the operation of the communication device, it may further include Open Systems Interconnection model higher layers functionalities; such as for example network functionality, transport functionality, session functionality, presentation functionality and/or application functionality.

The processing unit 230 further comprises two sub-units: a data manager unit 230a and a wireless connection manager unit 230b. The data manager unit 230a treats, processes and manages various types of data, such as for example TCP, UDP, multicasting, broadcasting, unicasting, etc. The wireless connection manager unit 230b handles all tasks related to sensing, monitoring and optimizing of the wireless connection. The tasks performed by the wireless connection manager unit 230b include but are not limited to: execution of a wireless connection metrics collection algorithm; collection of the wireless connection parameters (for example received signal strength, packet error rates, time of flight, network delay, Cyclic Redundancy Check errors, signal-to-noise ratio, channel coefficient estimations, received acknowledgements, interference, gyroscopes and multi-axis accelerometer measurements, solely or in combination); evaluation, interpretation and optimization of the wireless connection based on the collected wireless connection parameters and the wireless connection metrics collection algorithm. The wireless connection manager unit 230b may manage a single wireless connection between two communication devices or multiple wireless connections between one and several distinct multiple communication devices.

Although shown as standalone entities on Figure 2, it should be clear to those skilled in the art that the antenna managing unit 210c and the transceiver managing unit 220c could be separate entities, could be integrated respectively to the antenna unit 210a and the transceiver 220a, or integrated as separate or combined entities within the processing unit 230.

Reference is now made to Figure 3, which is a schematic representation of two types of packet exchanges between communication devices in accordance with the present method and communication device. Figure 3 represents for exemplary purposes only two communication devices in the form of an access point 310 and a remote station 320. The access point 310 and the remote station 320 exchange data packets (DP) as well as command packets (CP) and report packets (RP) over the wireless connection 330. CPs and RPs are referred jointly hereinafter as management and maintenance (M&M) packets. DPs, CPs and RPs may be exchanged bi-directionally, i.e., they could originate from and terminate at either communication device.

DPs are data packets which contain regular packets of data traffic wirelessly communicated between the two communication devices. CPs and RPs are data packets which contain data specifically related to the M&M operations of the wireless connection over which they are wirelessly communicated. CPs and RPs are required for execution of the wireless connection optimization algorithm. More specifically, CPs contain command(s) or task(s) sent from an initiating communication device (the initiator) to a target communication device (the recipient). The commands and tasks comprise measuring a predefined set of wireless connection parameters which the recipient is required to carry out in conjunction with the initiator. RPs contain reports of the measured wireless connection parameters which the recipient relays back to the initiator. Although they are shown as separate entities, it should be clear to those skilled in the art that CP and RP could be piggybacked on DP, for example as a separate field of the DP.

Reference is now made to Figure 4, which shows an exemplary data structure of CPs and RPs, respectively. CPs comprise the following data fields related to the M&M packets: packet ID 410, time schedule 415, recipient communication device ID and associated antenna beam identifier 420, wireless connection parameters to be measured 425, direction of wireless connection (uplink or downlink) 430, and interference measurement 435.

The packets are identified as CPs, as opposed to data packets, by means of the packet ID field 4 0. The schedule field 415 contains interval information at which maintenance related operations are required to take place at and/or between the initiating and recipient communication devices. One or several recipient communication device(s) is (are) identified in the target communication device field 420 which contains the recipient communication device ID and the corresponding antenna beam (radiation pattern) identifier. The antenna beam identifier is a generic term used throughout the present description to refer to a one or several antenna related parameters, corresponding to a specific antenna configuration. For an antenna unit with a directional antenna, the antenna beam identifier may correspond to one of several beams (as shown on Figure 7 discussed further) with which the antenna unit of the corresponding communication device carries out the maintenance operations. In one embodiment, CPs sent to the recipient communication devices may contain tasks specific to that communication device only. An example of tasks to be performed include configuring the receive antennas to particular radiation patterns and measuring wireless connection parameters and interference levels. In another embodiment, CPs sent to the recipient communication device may contain the tasks of all recipient communication devices with which the initiating communication device is in communication with. In yet another embodiment, CPs may be sent to a cluster of communication devices whose tasks are similar, while other communication devices receive only their specific tasks. In another embodiment, CPs may be sent over an optimum wireless connection configuration to ensure delivery. In another embodiment, CPs may be broadcast to all communication devices simultaneously using 802.11 's multi-casting capability by means of an omni-directional antenna beam. In another embodiment, CPs sent to the recipient communication device may cause the communication device to select between directional and omnidirectional beam profile or construct a pseudo omni-directional beam profile by combining the beams from a multiplicity of directional antennas operating in tandem. The wireless connection parameters field 425 identifies required measurement to be performed by the recipient communication device. Examples of wireless connection parameters include received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), channel coefficients, packet error rate (PER), number of received acknowledgments (ACKs) versus the number of transmitted packets (success ratio), and received signal strength indicator (RSSI). For mobile wireless communication devices, measurements from internal motion detectors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers can also be requested to detect motion and rotation. In one embodiment, motion or rotation of the mobile communication device will cause the antenna or antennas in said device to adapt the radiation pattern from a directional beam to an omnidirectional beam, and revert to a directional beam radiation once the device is stationary. The selection of the optimum configuration will be achieved by the method disclosed. In another embodiment, the detection of motion or rotation of the mobile communication device will be used to predict which radiation patterns are more likely to be optimal and thereby reduce the search space and the maintenance period length. Since CPs can be exchanged bi-directionally, maintenance operation can also be performed bi- directionally in either the uplink connection or downlink connection, and may be specified in the connection direction identification field 430. Finally, CPs may further comprise an interference measurement field 435.

Although shown as a specific series of fields in Figure 4, CPs could be formatted in various ways. For example, various fields could be presented in a different order. Some of the fields could be combined, or sub-divided. In addition, one CP could be generated for each wireless connection configuration to be used, or several wireless connection configurations could be included within a single CP.

RPs are packets containing data related to the measurement of some or all of the wireless connection parameters mentioned previously. In one embodiment, RPs are sent from the recipient communication devices to the initiating communication device over an optimum wireless connection configuration using a directional antenna beam to ensure successful delivery. In another embodiment, when an optimum configuration is not available, the recipient communication device may send RPs using an omni-directional antenna beam. Enclosed in RPs are the following data fields regarding M&M operations: packet ID field 440 (identified as RP), recipient communication device ID and beam field 445, measured wireless connection parameters field 450, and measured interference field 455. Similar to CPs, RPs are identified as a maintenance packet by setting the packet ID field 440 to RP. The communication device ID and beam field 445 indicates which communication device the RP originated from and the beam over which the wireless connection parameters were measured, respectively. The measured wireless connection parameters along with their values are reported in field 450.

CPs and RPs could further include many other fields not listed herein, to enable proper transport over the wireless connection, depending on the protocol used there between. Furthermore, the fields and data structure of CPs and RPs could be modified and standardized.

Reference is now concurrently made to Figures 2 and 5, where Figure 5 is a table depicting exemplary M&M-related data sent as CPs. As previously mentioned, CPs can originate from any communication device, i.e. either an access point or a remote station. CPs are generated by the wireless communication manager unit 230b at the iniatiator communication device and stored in memory 240 at the initiator communication device by means of the processing unit 230. The CPs received by the recipient communication device are handled as follows: the processing unit 230 of the recipient communication device extracts from the CPs and stores in memory 240 the interval information from the schedule field 415, the parameters to measure from the wireless connection parameters field 425, the uplink (U/L) or downlink (D/L) information from field 430, and the interference measurement information from the interference measurement field 435. The data in the received CPs is handled by the wireless connection manager unit 230b. Both the initiator and recipient communication devices share the information transmitted by means of the CPs. In addition to sharing the information transmitted by means of the CPs, the initiator and recipient communication devices may regularly or constantly update in real-time or quasi real-time one another by transmitting newly generated CPs containing the updated information. The regular or constant update of updated information synchronizes the wireless transmission related parameters between the initiator and recipient communication devices.

Each row of the table of Figure 5 corresponds to a maintenance window during which maintenance operations take place. Figure 5 illustrates a particular case of storing of CPs information in which the wireless communication device receives, extracts and stores maintenance windows to be performed and M&M information of other wireless communication devices associated with the same access point. Various embodiments may be contemplated in that respect. For example, the wireless communication device may receive all CPs transmitted by an initiator wireless communication device with which it is in wireless communication, but extract and store only CPs in which it is identified as a recipient. The table of Figure 5 illustrates an example where the initiating communication device is an access point while the recipient communication devices are remote stations. Of course, the situation could be reversed, and the initiator could be remote station while the recipient communication device would be one or several access points.

Reference is now concurrently made to Figures 2, 4, 5, 6a and 6b, where Figures 6a and 6b is an exemplary schematic representation of antenna beam directions in the presence of a reflective object. Shown in Figures 6a and 6ba is an access point 610 and a remote station 620. In this example, the access point 610 is the initiator of the CPs and the recipient is the remote station 620. Although only a single remote station is shown, the access point could be in communication with multiple remote stations, and send CPs to multiple remote stations concurrently.

To reliably exchange CPs, the access point 610 and the remote station 620 communicate via a previously established optimum wireless connection using directive beams 615 and 625 shown here by way of example only as line-of- sight. As the access point 610 and the remote station 620 are equipped with reconfigurable antenna units, their respective radiated energy patterns are directional and may be reconfigured so as to point in other directions, change frequency and/or polarization. Alternatively, the access point 610 and the remote station 620 could be equipped with omni-directional antenna(s), or a combination of directional antennas and omni-directional antenna(s). Figures 6a and 6b depict a simplified example in which direction of the radiated energy pattern is modified to improve the wireless connection in the presence of the reflective object. However, the present method and communication device are not limited to changing the radiated energy pattern direction, and Figures 6a and 6b are provided only to depict one example of the application of the present method and communication device.

Reference is now made back to Figures 3 and 4. The CPs exchanged between the access point 310 and the remote station 320 include: a schedule field 415, a recipient field 420, an initiator field, a U/L and/or D/L field 430, a wireless connection parameter(s) field 425, and an interference measurement field 435. These information are stored at the access point 310 and the remote station 320 in any format, such as the example provided in Figure 5. The schedule field 4 5 specifies the interval information at which maintenance related operations are required to take place at, and/or, between the initiating and recipient communication devices. In one embodiment, the schedule can be based on time 510, as defined by the International System of Units. In IEEE 802.11 , clocks (not shown) at the access point 310 and remote stations 320 in communication therewith are always in synchronicity due to transmission of a beacon signal (not shown) by the access point 310. In another embodiment, the schedule information of the schedule field 415 can be based on the number of successfully transmitted or received data packets.

The recipient communication device field 420 specifies firstly an identifier corresponding to the recipient communication device targeted for maintenance, such as for example the recipient communication device particular ID (such as for example an International Mobile Subscriber Identify), and secondly the recipient communication device antenna radiation pattern (beam) (referred to as the antenna beam identifier herein) to be used during the maintenance operation. The CPs could further include an initiator field, not shown on Figure 4, but exemplary provided in Figure as reference 530, which provides firstly identification of the initiator sending CPs, and secondly the initiator antenna beam to be used during the maintenance operation. The U/L or D/L field 430 specifies whether the maintenance operation is to be executed on the uplink (remote station 320 to access point 310) or downlink (access point 310 to remote station 320). The wireless connection parameters field 425 provides the type of parameters to be measured. The interference measurement field 435 indicates whether interference is to be measured or not. Although not shown specifically in either of Figures 4 and 5, the present information exchanged between and stored by the initiator and recipient could further include other known communication parameters well known in the art, such as data rate and transmission power, which are parameters which might be defined by the initiator or recipient when assessing wireless connection parameters in different wireless connection configurations.

Once the remote station 320 extracts and stores the information from the received CPs, the remote station 320 identifies the maintenance windows that must be performed. Additionally, the remote station 320 could further extract and store the information in the received CPs related to other communication devices with the maintenance windows related thereto. For example, in Figure 5, the recipient, which is the remote station 320 with communication device ID = RS4, has two maintenance windows, one at 14:00 and another at 14:08. In the first maintenance window at 14:00, the remote station 320 is required to use beam #2, while the initiator with ID = AP1 is required to use beam #2. The beams defined in Figure 5 refer to one of the many directional beams that the antenna unit enables similar to the ones shown in Figure 7, where only three beams are shown for illustration purposes.

For example, during the maintenance window at 14:00, the maintenance operation consists of: 1) sending by the remote station 320 several packets, which can consist of DP or packets with dummy data, on the uplink using beam #2; 2) receiving at the access point 310 the packets sent by the remote station using beam #2; and 3) measuring at the access point 3 0 the specified wireless connection parameters 550 (received signal strength and time-of-flight) for the received packets. The present method and communication device provides an efficient means to assess for a particular wireless communication configuration between the access point 310 and the remote station 320 a set of predetermined wireless connection parameters. Another maintenance operation takes place between the access point 310 and the remote station 320 during the maintenance window at 14:08, using a different antenna configuration as specified in Figure 5.

The quality of the wireless connection between the access point 310 and the remote station 320 may be assessed using the following approach. Once the wireless connection parameters of several wireless connections configurations are measured, each wireless connection parameter is normalized with respect to a maximum value measured from among all the wireless connection configurations. Subsequently, the normalized values are added and the wireless connection configuration with the resulting highest value is considered the optimum wireless connection, as follows:

Measured value of parameterl Measured value of parameter 2 ^ Max value for parameter 1 ⁺ Max value of parameter 2 ⁺

The following table provides an example of the application of the previous equation:

For one particular communication device, two wireless connection parameters are measured (RSSI and Time-of-flight) for two wireless connection configurations (wireless connection configuration #1 and wireless connection configuration #2). A "normalized" wireless connection quality column corresponds to a running-window sum of the "normalized" wireless connection configuration quality value, i.e., the wireless connection quality value for wireless connection configuration #1 = RSSI (normalized) + time-of-flight (normalized) = 1 + 0 = 1 , while the wireless connection quality value for wireless connection configuration#2 = RSSI (normalized) + time-of-flight = 0.5 + 0.9 = 1.4. Therefore, since wireless connection quality value for wireless connection configuration #2 is greater than the wireless connection quality value for wireless connection configuration #1 , then wireless connection configuration #2 is identified as an optimum wireless connection configuration for this communication device. In another embodiment, a weighted sum of the measured normalized wireless connection parameters may be utilized. In one instance, the wireless connection quality value can be calculated as:

LQ = A x (normalized RSSI) + B x (normalized interference), where A and B are weights assigned to the wireless connection parameters related to RSSI and interference, respectively. In the event that a high power gain is required in order to obtain a high data rate, the values assigned to the weights will respect the following rule: A > B. If low interference is required in order to obtain a high data rate, the values assigned to the weights will respect the following rule: A < B. If moderate power gain and moderate interference are required to obtain a high data rate, the values assigned to the weights will correspond to A = B. As can be appreciated by the previous examples, the assigned weights may be adjusted based on the type of data packets being exchanged (for example, video versus voice) and the status of the wireless environment (not busy vs. busy). In another embodiment, other wireless connection parameters may be used to calculate the wireless connection quality.

Reference is now made concurrently to Figures 3 and 8, where Figure 8 is a table showing exemplary wireless connection assessment results of M&M operations between the access point 310 and the remote station 320. The entries in the table of Figure 8 are for illustrative purposes only. The M&M results for all remote stations 320 associated with the access point 310 are stored in the access point memory. The calculated wireless connection quality value 820 may be between, for example, 1 and 15, with wireless connection quality values between 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15 considered bad, average, and good 810, respectively.

The beam settings for the initiator and recipient are specified in a beam setting field 830, along with corresponding measured transmit powers 850. Resulting data rates 840 for each configuration are also stored, where the PHY layer data rates and the maximum attainable real data rates for each configuration may be separately stored. Based on the results of the M&M operations performed, the access point 310 is provided with valuable information allowing selection and use of the most appropriate wireless connection configuration based on needs: the wireless connection configuration with the highest wireless connection quality value is initially chosen to exchange data packets; if unsuccessful the wireless connection configuration with the second highest wireless connection quality value is then chosen, and so on.

Referring back to Figure 5, interference measurement is one of the wireless connection parameters contributing to the assessment of the quality of the wireless connection configuration. In one embodiment, interference can be characterized by the remote station 320 by simply measuring the RSSI level of the received packets during each maintenance operation using the specified beam setting. In another embodiment, interference can be characterized by the remote station 320 and/or the access point 310 by periodically modifying its antenna beam direction (usually identified as angle) in successive increments, and recording the RSSI of the received packets for each beam direction. With this approach, all initiator and recipients have knowledge of the level and direction of interference experienced by one another. The interference characterization results may be shared between the remote stations 320 and the access point 310.

Reference is now made concurrently to Figures 2, 3, 4 and 9, where Figure 9 depicts a flowchart of an exemplary method for performing M&M operations. In step 910, an initialization operation takes place. The initialization may consist of an initial association between the two communication devices to form a wireless connection and reset of the wireless connection quality indicators to initial values, Data packets are exchanged 920 in a normal manner between the access point 3 0 and the remote station 320 until an interrupt is generated by the processing unit 230 to proceed with a scheduled maintenance window 930 as stored in memory. When transmission of data packets is interrupted, the maintenance operation is executed 940. When the maintenance operation tasks indicated in the wireless connection parameters field 425 is completed, transmission of data packets is reinitiated between the access point 310 and the remote station 320. In one embodiment, the access point 310 and the remote station 320 are using an omni-directional antenna, and a different wireless connection configuration is assessed through the maintenance. In another embodiment, DP can be interleaved between the transmission of a CP and a RP during the maintenance period.

For the 802.11 standard, measures are provided by means of carrier-sense medium access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) so that communication devices assess the wireless connections one at a time. Thus in one embodiment, in order to perform the scheduled maintenance operations, communication devices are not allowed to sense the medium (i.e. the wireless network) during the maintenance windows of other communication devices. This is possible when the communication devices are informed of the maintenance schedule of all communication devices involved with a same entity (for example an access point 610). In another embodiment, the communication device that is required to perform a maintenance operation may broadcast a clear-to-send to self (CTS) frame along with the duration of the medium reservation according to the 802.11 standard. A CTS-to-self frame is used by a communication device to reserve the medium for a transmission of a non-basic rate frame. Once other communication devices receive the CTS frame, a network allocation vector (NAV) is flagged and a count-down timer is initiated having duration equal to the reservation period. Other known methods known in the industry could as well be used, depending on the protocol used for communication between the communication devices.

In order to minimize overhead required for performing M&M operations, the frequency of the maintenance windows and the maintenance operation duration are adjustable parameters depending on the state of the wireless connection and the communication devices involved. These parameters maybe determined based on a historical analysis of the communication devices' wireless connection quality. For example, if certain communication devices have shown historically high wireless connection qualities, then the maintenance window frequency should be lower. Furthermore, beam settings which have historically resulted in low wireless connection qualities should not be included in the maintenance operation. On the other hand, communication devices which are experiencing a high level of interference or communication devices which have historically low wireless connection qualities should have a higher frequency rate of maintenance windows in order to constantly assess their wireless environment.

From a wireless network point of view, the use of directional (as opposed to omni-directional) antennas in contention-based protocols such IEEE 802.11 poses a problem called "deafness". "Deafness" occurs when the remote station 320 tries to communicate with the access point 310 having an antenna beam pointing in a direction away from the remote station 320. The access point 310 hence cannot "hear" the remote station 320, and is therefore "deaf" because of its current antenna beam direction. To overcome the problem of "deafness" when using directional antennas with the IEEE 802.11 protocol, use of the MAC layer's existing carrier-sense multiple-access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme is proposed.

Reference is now made to Figure 10, which provides a timing diagram of the CSMA/CA scheme for use with directional antennas. If the wireless connection is physically sensed as being "idle" during a Distributed Inter-Frame Space (DIFS) period, the remote station 320 waits for a back-off time, to make sure the wireless connection remains "idle". If after the back-off time the wireless connection has remained 'idle", the remote station 320 transmits in an omni- directionnal manner a Request-To-Send (RTS) packet intended for the access point 310. The RTS packet contains the destination ID of the access point 310 and a duration value of the proposed transmission. All other communication devices (other nodes on Figure 10) which are listening to the wireless network in an omni-directional manner and receive the RTS packet transmitted by the remote station 320 extract the duration value of the proposed transmission by the remote station 320 and set their respective Network Allocation Vector (NAV) accordingly. The NAV holds the duration value for which the remote station 320 expects to use the wireless network, and hence the other nodes which have received the RTS defer access to the wireless network until the end of a subsequent DIFS period. The access point 310 responds to the RTS packet received by the remote station 320 by transmitting omni-directionally a Clear-To- Aend (CTS) packet. All the other nodes which are listening to the wireless network in an omni-directional manner and receive the CTS packet, extract therefrom the duration value from the duration field and also set their NAV (network allocation vector) accordingly. With this approach, all communication devices part of the wireless network are made aware of how long the wireless network is going to be busy for so that they may defer access. The remote station 320 proceeds to transmit the data in a directional manner to the access point 310, which confirm receipt of the transmitted data by generating and transmitting an acknowledgement message (ACK) in a directional manner to the remote station 320. Transmission of the ACK ends the communication between the access point 310 and the remote station 320, and the wireless network reenters a contention mode.

The present method and communication device may further be used upon wireless connection establishment, or upon movement of one or both of the communication devices. For example, the present method and communication device could be used to estimate a direction of arrival or departure of the wireless signal, so as to more efficiently identify the optimum wireless connection configuration. Reference is now made to Figure 11 , which is a schematic representation of the present method and communication device to estimate a direction of arrival, to optimize selection of an antenna configuration accordingly. Assume that the access point 310 has K possible antenna configurations. Furthermore, assume that M antenna configurations, where M<K, are used to estimate a direction of arrival of the signal (for this example, M=2). The access point configures its directional antenna with the first of the M antenna configuration, and receives a first signal from the remote station 320. While receiving this signal with the first antenna configuration, the access point 310 measures some wireless connection quality parameters such as for example the received signal power. After reception of the first signal, the access point 310 reconfigures its directional antenna with the second of the M antenna configuration and receives a second signal from the remote station 320. While receiving the second signal with the second antenna configuration, the access point 310 measures some wireless connection quality parameters such as for example the received signal power. The processing unit 230 of the access point 310 uses the measured wireless connection quality parameters and the antenna configurations related information to the angle of arrival of the signal from the remote station 320. For example, algorithms such as the single port MUSIC described by C. Plapous et al in an article of 2004 titled 'Reactance domain MUSIC algorithm for electronically steerable parasitic array radiator', in IEEE Transactions on Antennas Propagation, page 3257, or angle of arrival estimation using radiation power profiles described by E. Taillefer et al in an article of 2005 titled 'Direction-of-arrival estimation using radiation power pattern with an ESPAR antenna' published in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, pages 678-684. Based on the estimated angle of arrival, the access point 310 can evaluate which of the K antenna configurations is most likely the best.

This aspect of the method thus provides an efficient way for the access point 310 to initially configure the reconfigurable antenna and use this configuration to receive further signals from the remote station 320. This approach can be easily extended to find the best direction of transmission for symmetric channels. That is, the best direction of reception from the remote station 320 at the access point 3 0 also corresponds to the best direction of transmission from the access point 310 to the remote station 320. For non-symmetric channels, the direction of transmission can be estimated by measuring the channel at the remote point for different transmissions from the access point using different radiation patterns. Furthermore, this approach could also be applied to any wireless communication device equipped with multiple antennas. This aspect of the present method can be used to estimate the direction of arrival of one or more interference sources, so as to configure the antenna by not only taking into account the intended signal but also the interference sources. Finally, this aspect of the method can be modified to successively change the antenna configuration of the access point 310 in real time, while receiving a single signal and collect wireless connection quality parameters with different antenna configurations during this single time interval. This method can also be used by either of the communication devices without coordination with the other (i.e., without sending CP and RP) to determine its local optimal configuration of the radiation pattern for either reception or transmission.

Reference is now made to Figure 12, which provides a schematic representation of a wireless network based on the OSI model. In addition to the previous wireless connection quality parameters previously discussed, an additional wireless connection quality parameter is hereby proposed. This additional wireless connection quality parameter is similar to the "ping" function used in IP networks. When a data packet is transferred from a routing layer to an interface of a wireless modem shown in Figure 12, for example at the MAC layer interface, a timer is started. Once an acknowledgement (ACK) packet for the transmitted packet is received, the timer is stopped. The elapsed time interval, which can be identified as wireless network delay, is a direct indicator of the wireless connection quality from a user's perspective and includes the impact of the wireless physical layer wireless connection quality, including interference and congestion. Thus, the wireless network delay can be used as an alternative wireless connection quality parameter to the ones mentioned above or in combination with the wireless connection quality parameters previously mentioned. By including the wireless network delay in the wireless connection quality parameters measured, the overall wireless network delay perceived by the user may be considered in the identification of the optimum wireless connection configuration. This method can also be used by either of the communication devices without coordination with the other (i.e., without sending CP and RP) to determine its local optimal configuration of the radiation pattern for either reception or transmission.

Reference is now made concurrently to Figures 12 and 13, where Figure 13 is an example summative timeline of delays encountered during a wireless communication. Figure 13 depicts an exemplary transmission from communication device A to communication device B in a WiFi network. As known in the art, the packets to be transmitted are queued in a routing layer, and not in the wireless modem per se. A packet (P) is thus delivered to the wireless modem only when it is ready to be transmitted. At time to, P is delivered from the routing layer to communication device A's MAC interface. At this instant a timer is started in communication device A. Communication device A's MAC layer then performs a procedure called a "clear channel assessment" by sensing the wireless connection for a fixed duration to monitor the physical interface for ongoing wireless transmissions from other communication devices. If the medium is sensed to be busy, communication device A enters the 802.1 1 backoff procedure where it waits a random amount of time before attempting the transmission of P. Once the backoff procedure is finished or if the medium was initially free, P is transmitted by the communication device A's physical layer interface. The physical layer transmission time depends on the selected data transmission rate. If P is correctly received at the communication device B, an acknowledgment is sent from the communication device B to the communication device A after a fixed amount of time following the end of reception of P. If the communication device A receives an acknowledgment for P, an indication is sent to the routing layer and the timer is stopped. However, several factors can prevent the communication device B from correctly receiving P. First, the transmission rate can be too high such that the quality of the received signal (which depends on fading, signal attenuation, interferences, etc.) is not good enough to correctly receive and decode P. Second, other communication devices could be simultaneously transmitting packets, leading to a collision at the communication device B and rendering the incoming signal at the communication device B non- decodable. In these situations, the acknowledgment is not sent to the communication device A, and after a predetermined period after starting the timer in the MAC layer, the communication device A restarts a random backoff procedure to retransmit P. Retransmission procedure at the communication device A continues and repeats until the acknowledgment is received or until the number of retransmissions reaches a maximal value, and a transmission failure is declared. The wireless network delay, i.e. the elapsed time between the arrival of P at the wireless modem interface of the communication device A and the reception of the acknowledgment, is a wireless network connection quality parameter which provides a quantifiable measure of the impact of several factors, such as incoming interferences at the communication device A which inhibit P transmission, the wireless connection transmission rate, the wireless connection channel quality, and interferences at the communication device B which inhibit P reception. The wireless network delay is thus a good indicator of the quality of service that can be delivered to users. In particular, it provides a much better assessment of the user's perceived Quality of Service than relying on wireless connection quality parameters such as the RSSI, and the failure rate (i.e., only monitoring the reception of an acknowledgement).

In the case of reception of the acknowledgment, the timer value corresponds to ucc _> ^tne wireless network delay for the successful transmission of P. This value can be averaged over several successful transmissions to obtain J_succ , the average wireless network delay. If a transmission failure is declared, the timer corresponds to t_oul , the time until a timeout occurs. Over several attempted transmissions, the failure rate r can be computed as the ratio between the number of attempted transmissions declared in failure and the number of attempted transmission. T_oul , the average timeout time can be computed by averaging t_out for the failed transmission attempts or from the system parameters.

The wireless network delay can then be defined as a function of T_succ , T_oul and r . Example of such a function include:

^wireless ^succ and - _ r

t wi .rel .ess = t succ + t out ,

1 -r

The wireless network delay t_wjrelexs can be measured for several wireless connection configurations, and be added to the wireless connection measured parameters previously discussed. The wireless network delay and the failure rate could be measured for different wireless connection configurations. For example, configurations could be first ranked based on the failure rate and then according to the wireless network delay.

Several strategies can be adopted to select the wireless connection configurations for which the wireless network delay is evaluated. The most straight forward approach would be to measure the wireless network delay for all wireless connection configurations. An alternative approach is to use the result of the direction of arrival algorithm to determine an initial antenna configuration to be used. Then, the wireless network delay for this particular wireless network configuration can be evaluated in real-time. If the wireless network delay exceeds a given threshold, this finding could trigger the wireless network delay measurement for adjacent antenna configurations (i.e., radiation patterns with pointing angles close to the pointing angle of the current antenna configuration) and/or adjacent physical rate and/or randomly selected antenna configurations and/or physical data rate. The use of internal motion detectors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers can also be used to select the most appropriate antenna configurations to measure. Evaluation of the wireless network delay for other configurations could also be triggered periodically to determine if another wireless connection configuration is better than the current wireless connection configuration. This alternative configuration may include or many of the following exemplary parameters to maintain an optimum wireless connection configuration aforementioned, such as the antenna polarization, the beam angle (elevation and/or azimuth angle) and shape (profile and beamwidth), transmission rate (including modulation level, coding rate, number of spatial streams, space-time coding options, ...), antenna selection and/or weighted combining, transmitted power, gain, and channel frequency. It would be obvious to someone skilled in the art that other approaches and implementations of the above described wireless network delay measurements solely or in combination with other wireless connection quality parameters are possible.

Those skilled in the art can also further appreciate that various illustrative blocks, diagrams, units, circuits and algorithm steps in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or a combination of both. Therefore, various illustrative components, blocks, units, circuits and algorithm steps have been described generally in terms of functionality. Skilled persons can implement the described functionality in varied ways for each particular application, but such implementations should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the invention.

Figure 14 shows a particular embodiment of the antenna unit 210a based on the the directional antenna being a leaky-wave antenna (LWA). The LWA may correspond to any of the LWAs configurations as described in US Patent 8,094,074, US Published Patent Application US2012/0044108, US Published Patent Application US2012/0262356, US Published Patent Application US2012/0081251 , US Published Patent Application US201 /0248797, US Patent Application 13/512,635, and US Provisional Patent Applications 61/472,849 and 61/567,505 all hereby incorporated by reference. The directional antenna may consists of one or a multiplicity of LWAs. Each LWA can be designed to operate at different frequencies. The radiation pattern of each LWA can be controlled by switching between the LWA input ports or by controlling the bias voltage of varactors in the LWA transmission line or a combination of both The antenna polarization can also be changed by selecting the appropriate input ports. Independent RF streams can be injected at each LWA input ports. Signals from different ports can be combined together with or without phase shifting to produce a variety of radiation pattern shapes and angle in azimuth and elevation. The effective length of the antennas can also be electronically controlled, effectively changing the radiation pattern beamwidth. Finally the LWA has a planar form factor. It would be obvious to someone skilled in the art that the LWA can be implemented at the access point 110 or the remote station 120a and 120b or both. Furthermore, it offers a complete range of configurations where the antenna polarization, the beam angle (elevation and/or azimuth angle) and shape (profile and beamwidth), the number of RF streams per frequency, the channel frequency and transmission technology can be selected.

Furthermore, the LWA antenna unit can be integrated in a multiple of ways. Figure 15 shows an example where several physical antenna units (their integration corresponds to the antenna unit 210a) are connected to a transceiver 220a. In practice this transceiver can consists of several transceiver units as illustrated in Figure 15. Therefore, the method described in the present description can be used to select with which transceiver unit the remote access point establishes the wireless connection. This embodiment thus increases the optimal configuration range of possibilities. As a way of example, each transceiverunit can be an IEEE 802.11 chipset including PHY, MAC and RF components. Each transceiver unit is then equivalent to an IEEE 802.11 access point, while their integration corresponds to the access point 110. As another example, each transceiver unit can be used to establish and maintain a point to point or point to multipoint link in a wireless backhaul, or provide wireless service as an access point, wireless base station or remote radio head. The integration of those then corresponds to a full node in a mesh network. Someone skilled in the art will appreciate that various embodiment of LWA integration at both the access point 110 and/or remote device 120a and 120b are possible.

It will be further understood that the remote device containing a directional antenna or multiple directional antennas can act as a slave device to the access point, using the control scheme afore-disclosed and that this control scheme can be implemented over any communication standard protocol, such as 802.11ac, LTE and 802.11 ad.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A method for assessing quality of a wireless connection, the method comprising: generating by a processing unit of a first communication device a command packet for a second communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier.

2. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection of claim 1 , wherein the command packet further comprises at least one wireless connection quality parameter to be measured during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

3. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection of claim 2, wherein the command packet further comprises a link direction identifier.

4. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection of any of claim 2 or 3, wherein the command packet further comprises an indication for performing an interference measurement.

5. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the command packet further comprises a schedule for the wireless connection configuration.

6. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection of any of claims 2 to 4, wherein the at least one wireless connection quality parameter includes: a received signal strength indicator, signal-to-noise ratio, packet error rate, number of received acknowledgments versus number of transmitted packets, and wireless network delay.

7. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection of any of claims 1 to 6, further comprising: transmitting the command packet by a transceiver of the first communication device to the second communication device.

8. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection of claim 7, further comprising: receiving by the first communication device a report packet, the report packet comprising: the wireless connection configuration used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising the antenna beam identifier; and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

9. The method for assessing quality of the wireless connection of claim 8, wherein the wireless connection quality parameter comprises measured interference.

10. A communication device for assessing quality of a wireless connection, the communication device comprising: a processing unit for generating a command packet to be transmitted to a recipient communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission between the communication device and the recipient communication device, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier.

1 1. The communication device of claim 10, wherein the command packet further comprises at least one wireless connection quality parameter to be measured by the recipient communication device during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

12. The communication device of claim 1 1 , wherein the command packet further comprises a link direction identifier.

13. The communication device of any of claims 11 or 12, wherein the command packet further comprises an indication for performing an interference measurement.

14. The communication device of any of claims 10 to 13, wherein the command packet further comprises a schedule for the wireless connection configuration.

15. The communication device of any of claims 1 1 to 14, wherein the at least one wireless connection quality parameter includes: a received signal strength indicator, signal-to-noise ratio, packet error rate, number of received acknowledgments versus number of transmitted packets, and wireless network delay.

16. The communication device of any of claims 10 to 15, further comprising a transceiver for transmitting the command packet to the recipient communication device.

17. The communication device of claim 16, wherein the transceiver is adapted for receiving a report packet from the recipient communication device, the report packet comprising: the wireless connection configuration used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising the antenna beam identifier; and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

18. The communication device of claim 17, wherein the wireless connection quality parameter comprises measured interference.

19. The communication device of claim 17, wherein: the processing unit extracts from the report packet the wireless connection configuration and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured; further comprising a memory for storing the extracted wireless connection configuration and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured.

20. The communication device of claim 19, wherein: the processing unit further compares a plurality of wireless connection configuration to identify an optimum wireless connection configuration for transmitting data packets between the communication device and the recipient communication device.

21. A method for optimizing a wireless connection between two communication devices, at lest one of the communication devices including a reconfigurable antenna, the method comprising: generating by a processing unit of a first communication device a command packet for a second communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier for the reconfigurable antenna.

22. The method for optimizing the wireless connection of claim 21 , wherein the command packet further comprises at least one wireless connection quality parameter to be measured during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

23. The method for optimizing the wireless connection of claim 22, wherein the command packet further comprises a link direction identifier.

24. The method for optimizing the wireless connection of any of claim 22 or 23, wherein the command packet further comprises an indication for performing an interference measurement.

25. The method for optimizing the wireless connection any of claims 21 to 24, wherein the command packet further comprises a schedule for the wireless connection configuration.

26. The method for optimizing the wireless connection of any of claims 22 to 24, wherein the at least one wireless connection quality parameter includes: a received signal strength indicator, signal-to-noise ratio, packet error rate, number of received acknowledgments versus number of transmitted packets, and wireless network delay.

27. The method for optimizing the wireless connection of any of claims 21 to 26, further comprising: transmitting the command packet by a transceiver of the first communication device to the second communication device.

28. The method for optimizing the wireless connection of claim 27, further comprising: receiving by the first communication device a report packet, the report packet comprising: the wireless connection configuration used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising the antenna beam identifier; and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

29. The method for optimizing the wireless connection of claim 28, wherein the wireless connection quality parameter comprises measured interference.

30. A communication device for optimizing quality of a wireless connection with another communication device wherein at least one of the communication devices include a reconfigurable antenna, the communication device comprising: a processing unit for generating a command packet to be transmitted to the other communication device, the command packet including a wireless connection configuration to be used for transmission between the communication device and the other communication device, the wireless connection configuration comprising an antenna beam identifier for the reconfigurable antenna.

31. The communication device of claim 30, wherein the command packet further comprises at least one wireless connection quality parameter to be measured by the other communication device during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

32. The communication device of claim 31 , wherein the command packet further comprises a link direction identifier.

33. The communication device of any of claims 31 or 32, wherein the command packet further comprises an indication for performing an interference measurement.

34. The communication device of any of claims 30 to 33, wherein the command packet further comprises a schedule for the wireless connection configuration.

35. The communication device of any of claims 31 to 34, wherein the at least one wireless connection quality parameter includes: a received signal strength indicator, signal-to-noise ratio, packet error rate, number of received acknowledgments versus number of transmitted packets, and wireless network delay.

36. The communication device of any of claims 30 to 35, further comprising a transceiver for transmitting the command packet to the other communication device.

37. The communication device of claim 36, wherein the transceiver is adapted for receiving a report packet from the other communication device, the report packet comprising: the wireless connection configuration used for transmission, the wireless connection configuration comprising the antenna beam identifier; and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured during transmission using the wireless connection configuration.

38. The communication device of claim 37, wherein the wireless connection quality parameter comprises measured interference.

39. The communication device of claim 37, wherein: the processing unit extracts from the report packet the wireless connection configuration and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured; further comprising a memory for storing the extracted wireless connection configuration and the at least one wireless connection quality parameter measured.

40. The communication device of claim 39, wherein: the processing unit further compares a plurality of wireless connection configuration to identify an optimum wireless connection configuration for transmitting data packets between the communication device and the other communication device on the wireless connection.