US Patent 8466848 Beam shaping for wide band array antennae

An apparatus and method are provided for applying a fixed non-linear profile of power (amplitude) and delay to signals across the aperture of an array antenna having multiple antenna elements where multiple beams are formed to span the field of view of the antenna. Using such fixed profiles in combination enables a substantially constant beam width to be maintained across a wide range of operational frequencies, e.g. 6-18 GHz, ensuring that the points of overlap for adjacent beams does not drop below a certain level, e.g. −3dB, and hence maintaining a substantially uniform coverage across the field of view of the antenna at all frequencies in the range.