Early link detection based adaptive selection of receive parameters

1. A method, comprising:

detecting arrival of a packet at a receiver node having a plurality of antenna sectors, including detecting over the air energy using at least one of the plurality of antenna sectors;

selecting one or more radio frequency (RF) receive parameters of the receiver node based on information included in or determined from a pre-payload portion of the packet, including at least one of:

selecting a first subset of the plurality of antenna sectors that each has one or more sector-specific metrics that is better than one or more sector-specific metrics of each of a second subset of the plurality of antenna sectors to receive the payload of the packet; or

selecting an antenna polarization to receive the payload of the packet based on one or more metrics included in or determined from the pre-payload portion of the packet, the selected antenna polarization having better one or more metrics than an other antenna polarization; and

receiving a payload of the packet at the receiver node using the selected one or more RF receive parameters.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet the one or more sector-specific metrics for each of the plurality of antenna sectors; and

comparing the one or more sector-specific metrics of each of the plurality of antenna sectors to each other to identify the first subset of the plurality of antenna sectors that each has the one or more sector-specific metrics that is better than the one or more sector-specific metrics of each of the second subset of the plurality of antenna sectors.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet a sender node that sent the packet to the receiver node, wherein selecting the one or more RF receive parameters of the receiver node based on information included in or determined from the pre-payload portion of the packet further comprises selecting a receive beamforming pattern used previously to receive packets from the sender node.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting over the air energy using at least one of the plurality of antenna sectors comprises detecting over the air energy using a first antenna sector of the plurality of antenna sectors, the first antenna sector having an omni receive pattern during detection of the over the air energy.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

after detecting arrival of the packet at the receiver node, setting a receive pattern of each of the plurality of antenna sectors to a coarse quasi-omni receive pattern; and

determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet one or more sector-specific metrics for each of the plurality of antenna sectors while each of the plurality of antenna sectors has the coarse quasi-omni receive pattern.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein:

selecting the one or more RF receive parameters comprises selecting the first subset of the plurality of antenna sectors to receive the payload of the packet;

the method further comprises, prior to receiving the payload of the packet at the receiver node, setting a receive pattern of each antenna sector of the first subset of the plurality of antenna sectors to a fine directional receive pattern; and

receiving the payload of the packet at the receiver node using the selected one or more RF receive parameters comprises receiving the payload of the packet using the first subset of the plurality of antenna sectors each having the fine directional receive pattern.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

allocating unique preamble modulation schemes to a plurality of associated wireless stations (STAs); and

determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet a sender wireless STA from among the plurality of associated wireless STAs that sent the packet to the receiver node, wherein determining the sender wireless STA comprises identifying from the pre-payload portion a corresponding unique preamble modulation scheme allocated to the sender wireless STA.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet a sender node that sent the packet to the receiver node, including extracting at least a portion of an association identifier (AID) from the pre-payload portion, the AID identifying the sender node.

9. A method, comprising:

detecting arrival of a packet at a receiver node having a plurality of antenna sectors using a first subset of the plurality of antenna sectors, wherein each antenna sector included in the first subset has an omni receive pattern during detection of the over the air energy and wherein a second subset of the plurality of antenna sectors is turned off or deactivated during detection of the over the air energy;

selecting one or more radio frequency (RF) receive parameters of the receiver node based on information included in or determined from a pre-payload portion of the packet; and

receiving a payload of the packet at the receiver node using the selected one or more RF receive parameters.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

turning on or activating the second subset of the plurality of antenna sectors in response to detecting the arrival of the packet; and

determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet one or more sector-specific metrics for each of the plurality of antenna sectors,

wherein:

selecting the one or more RF receive parameters comprises selecting a third subset of the plurality of antenna sectors to receive the payload of the packet in response to the one or more sector-specific metrics of each antenna sector of the third subset being better than one or more sector-specific metrics of each antenna sector of a fourth subset of the plurality of antenna sectors; and

receiving the payload of the packet comprises receiving the payload of the packet using the third subset of the plurality of antenna sectors.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising, after detecting arrival of the packet at the receiver node, setting a receive pattern of each of the plurality of antenna sectors to a coarse quasi-omni receive pattern to determine the one or more sector-specific metrics for each of the plurality of antenna sectors.

12. The method of claim 10 , further comprising, prior to receiving the payload of the packet at the receiver node, setting a receive pattern of each antenna sector of the third subset of the plurality of antenna sectors to a fine directional receive pattern to receive the payload.

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein selecting the one or more RF receive parameters of the receiver node comprises at least one of:

selecting an antenna polarization to receive the payload of the packet based on one or more metrics included in or determined from the pre-payload portion of the packet, the selected antenna polarization having better one or more metrics than an other antenna polarization; or

selecting a receive beamforming pattern to receive the payload of the packet according to a sender node of the packet identified based on the pre-payload portion of the packet.

14. The method of claim 9 , wherein:

the method further comprises, prior to detecting arrival of the packet at the receiver node and for each of a plurality of sender nodes:

operating each of the plurality of antenna sectors sequentially in different polarizations;

generating one or more metrics for each of the plurality of antenna sectors operating in each polarization; and

identifying a first polarization that has a better metric than a second polarization as an RF receive parameter for a corresponding one of the plurality of sender nodes;

the method further comprises, after detecting arrival of the packet at the receiver node, determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet a sender node of the plurality of sender nodes that sent the packet to the receiver node;

selecting the one or more RF receive parameters comprises selecting the first polarization previously identified for the determined sender node; and

receiving the payload of the packet using the selected one or more RF receive parameters comprises receiving the payload of the packet using the first polarization previously identified for the determined sender node.

15. The method of claim 9 , further comprising determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet a sender node that sent the packet to the receiver node, wherein selecting the one or more RF receive parameters of the receiver node based on information included in or determined from the pre-payload portion of the packet comprises selecting a receive beamforming pattern used previously to receive packets from the sender node.

16. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

allocating unique preamble modulation schemes to a plurality of associated wireless stations (STAs); and

determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet a sender wireless STA from among the plurality of associated wireless STAs that sent the packet to the receiver node, wherein determining the sender wireless STA comprises identifying from the pre-payload portion a corresponding unique preamble modulation scheme allocated to the sender wireless STA.

17. The method of claim 9 , further comprising determining from the pre-payload portion of the packet a sender node that sent the packet to the receiver node, including extracting at least a portion of an association identifier (AID) from the pre-payload portion, the AID identifying the sender node.

18. A method, comprising:

setting a radio frequency (RF) footprint of each antenna sector in a first subset of a plurality of antenna sectors to an omni receive pattern;

detecting arrival of a packet at a receiver node having the plurality of antenna sectors, including detecting over the air energy using each antenna sector in the first subset having its RF footprint set to the omni receive pattern;

setting the RF footprint of each of the plurality of antenna sectors to a coarse quasi-omni receive pattern to determine from a pre-payload portion of the packet one or more sector-specific metrics for each of the plurality of antenna sectors;

selecting one or more RF receive parameters of the receiver node based on the one or more sector-specific metrics determined for each of the plurality of antenna sectors, including selecting a second subset of the plurality of antenna sectors to receive the payload of the packet;

setting the RF footprint of each antenna sector in the second subset of the plurality of antenna sectors to a fine directional receive pattern; and

receiving the payload of the packet at the receiver node using the second subset of the plurality of antenna sectors having the fine directional receive pattern.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein selecting the one or more RF receive parameters of the receiver node further comprises at least one of:

selecting an antenna polarization to receive the payload of the packet based on one or more metrics included in or determined from the pre-payload portion of the packet, the selected antenna polarization having better one or more metrics than an other antenna polarization; or

selecting a receive beamforming pattern to receive the payload of the packet according to a sender node of the packet identified based on the pre-payload portion of the packet.

20. The method of claim 18 , further comprising, prior to detecting arrival of the packet, turning off or deactivating each antenna sector of the plurality of antenna sectors that is not included in the first subset of the plurality of antenna sectors such that each of the antenna sectors that is not included in the first subset is turned off or deactivated during detection of arrival of the packet.