UPLINK MULTI-USER SOUNDING FOR WLAN

A WLAN AP includes an array of antennas, a transceiver and a processor. The transceiver is configured to transmit via the array of antennas downlink packets to WLAN STAs, and to receive uplink packets from the STAs. The processor is coupled to the transceiver and is configured to send a request to a plurality of the STAs to transmit a respective plurality of channel-sounding packets corresponding to the plurality of STAs, to receive the plurality of channel-sounding packets from the plurality of STAs in response to the request, to compute, based on the received plurality of channel-sounding packets, a beamforming matrix that defines subsequent transmission beams aimed toward at least a subset of the plurality of STAs, and to transmit one or more downlink data packets to one or more of the STAs via the array of antennas, in accordance with the beamforming matrix.