US Patent 7620019 Space division multiple access scheduling

Space division multiple access scheduling for a transmitter having an antenna array with multiple beams includes determining, and storing at the transmitter, angles of arrival of signals and identifiers from user equipments, such as cellular telephones. The user equipment identifiers are sorted at the transmitter in order of angle of arrival to form an ordered list. The ordered list is subdivided into ordered sub-lists of user equipment identifiers in order of angle of arrival. The transmitter sequentially transmits simultaneously to a group of each respective ordinal member of each sub-list of user equipments, which are well-spaced.