Patent ID: 7786933

Claim:
A global positioning system (GPS) receiver comprising: a plurality of antenna elements adapted to receive signals from a plurality of GPS satellites, wherein the plurality of antenna elements is configured as an array that is not contained within a single plane; at least one frequency down-converter connected to the plurality of antenna elements and adapted to down-convert the signals from the plurality of antenna elements to at least one of an intermediate frequency and a baseband frequency to form a plurality of down-converted signals; a multi-channel receiver comprising a plurality of correlators adapted to correlate the plurality of down-converted signals to form a plurality of correlated signals; a GPS-position-processing unit connected to the multi-channel receiver and adapted to extract time and position data from the plurality of correlated signals; a memory element adapted to store calibration data comprising beam weighting vectors associated with ones of the plurality of antenna elements; wherein the beam weighting vectors comprising the calibration data each comprise: at least one of a phase correction factor, a time-delay correction factor, and an amplitude correction factor, wherein the at least one correction factor is calculated from a measurement by the plurality of antenna elements of a radio-frequency signal source placed in at least one known location relative to the plurality of antenna elements; a digital beam forming (DBF) processor adapted to: apply the beam weighting vectors to the plurality of down-converted signals to form a plurality of weighted down-converted signals; selectively combine ones of the plurality of weighted down-converted signals; form at least one coherent beam from a combination of ones of the plurality of weighted down-converted signals wherein the at least one coherent beam comprises a shaped beam configured to receive signals from more than one of the plurality of GPS satellites from which any of the plurality of antenna elements is receiving a signal; and form at least one directional gain suppression feature from a combination of ones of the plurality of weighted down-converted signals; and an array processor adapted to: dynamically select ones of the plurality of antenna elements from which signals are sent to the DBF processor; dynamically alter the beam weighting vectors to change a pointing direction of the at least one coherent beam; dynamically assign the plurality of down-converted signals associated with the at least one coherent beam to corresponding ones of the plurality of correlators in the multi-channel receiver; and dynamically alter the beam weighting vectors to change an angular position of the at least one directional gain suppression feature.