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Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) beam pointing and data rate optimization for high throughput broadband access

  • US 9,853,713 B2
  • Filed: 08/01/2016
  • Issued: 12/26/2017
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2016
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A ground terminal apparatus configured to form antenna beams toward an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), comprising:

  • an antenna system comprised of at least one antenna aperture configured to form at least one beam toward the UAV;

    wherein the antenna system further comprises;

    at least one axis mechanical steering mechanism that uses UAV position location coordinates to mechanically point the at least one antenna aperture toward the UAV;

    wherein the at least one antenna aperture comprises a number of sub-apertures;

    a radio transmitter configured to transmit uplink signals to the UAV via the at least one beam;

    a radio receiver configured to receive downlink signals from the UAV via the at least one beam;

    wherein the radio receiver is further configured to modify a downlink signal with a gain and a phase adjustment and form a received beam based at least in part on the modified downlink signal;

    a processor sub-system, the processor sub-system further configured to control steering of the at least one beam to track a location coordinate associated with the UAV; and

    wherein the radio transmitter is further configured to;

    weight an uplink signal for each one of the number of sub-apertures by a second gain and a second phase adjustment corresponding to the gain and the phase adjustment for the respective ones of the number of sub-apertures;

    adjust the weighted uplink signal by a third gain and a third phase adjustment selected to compensate for a hardware gain and a phase difference between a transmit and a receive path for each one of the number of sub-apertures; and

    transmit the adjusted weighted uplink signal via each one of the number of sub-apertures.

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