GROUND-SATELLITE DISTRIBUTED MULTI-BEAM COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

摘要

A satellite and ground station (Figure 2) distributed multi-beam communication system, method and computer program product implements a beam forming operation (Figure 6) at the ground station. A ground-based beam forming network is included at a ground terminal that separates a signal to be transmitted into multiple signal parts and transmits the signal parts to the satellite via a bandwidth limited feeder link. The multiple signal parts are then converted at the satellite into element channel signals that are applied to respective elements of the phased array antenna so as to produce a multi-beam radiation pattern from the phased array antenna. Similar features are included for the link from the satellite to the ground terminal.