Patent ID: 7864110

Claim:
A method of determining a radar beam based upon a scanning antenna having active modules wherein at least one of the active modules is defective, the method comprising: orienting a main lobe of a microwave signal in a direction Uzf pointed to by a scanning antenna comprising active modules, the scanning being effected in one or more planes; sampling and identifying the active modules by a rank i and by coordinates in a reference base forming a plane within which the active modules of the antenna are substantially included, wherein the active modules are distributed according to a non-constant distribution law over a surface of the antenna; determining for each defective active module of rank ip, missing samples of the microwave signal a(Ã®p) relating to the defective active module, by calculating one or more non-adaptive interpolations using the samples coming from the active modules in nominal operating mode situated in the neighborhood of the defective active modules, the beam being formed as if the interpolated samples a(Ã®p) were the missing samples; wherein the non-adaptive interpolation step comprises the steps of: reducing the phase gradient equal to zero in the neighborhood of a particular direction Uz 1 of the samples of the microwave signal coming from the active modules in nominal operating mode situated in the neighborhood of the defective active modules; non-adaptive linear interpolation of the missing samples of the microwave signal; and rephasing of the missing samples obtained in the preceding step.