Patent attributes
A phased-array antenna system includes antenna elements of an RF front-end that each propagate a wireless beam portion. A digital beamforming system generates a digital beam corresponding to the wireless beam that is transmitted or received from the phased-array antenna system. Digital beamforming processors are each associated with a proper subset of the antenna elements. The digital beamforming processors can be collectively configured to iteratively process digital beam portions of the digital beam in a plurality of iteration levels comprising a lowest iteration level associated with lowest-level digital beam portions corresponding to the respective wireless beam portions at each of the respective antenna elements and a highest iteration level associated with the digital beam. Each digital beam portion associated with a given iteration level includes a sum of lesser digital beam portions from a next lower iteration level.
