Patent ID: 8923756

Claim:
A method for gain calibration in a ground based beam forming satellite communications system, the method comprising: obtaining from one or more calibration stations measurements of gain for one or more satellite elements included in a satellite; generating a matrix, a cell in the matrix providing storage for an estimate of relative gain between a pair of elements and the cell being associated with a weight indicating a confidence in the estimate of the relative gain corresponding to the cell; identifying, for a first pair of elements that correspond to an empty cell in the matrix, a first calibration station with non-zero measurements of gain for each of the first pair of elements and non-zero weights for each of the first pair of elements indicating confidences in the respective non-zero measurements of gain for each of the first pair of elements; based on the non-zero measurements of gain for each of the first pair of elements, computing an estimate of relative gain for the first pair of elements; based on the non-zero weights for each of the first pair of elements indicating confidences in the respective non-zero measurements of gain for each of the first pair of elements, computing a weight indicating a confidence in the estimate of relative gain for the first pair of elements; storing the estimate of relative gain for the first pair of elements in the empty cell in the matrix associated with the first pair of elements; associating, with the cell in the matrix associated with the first pair of elements, the computed weight indicating the confidence in the estimate of relative gain for the first pair of elements; calculating calibration values for the ground based beam forming satellite communications system based on the estimate of relative gain for the first pair of elements and the computed weight indicating the confidence in the estimate of the relative gain for the first pair of elements, wherein calculating the calibration values comprises: determining that the cell associated with the first pair of elements is associated with a combination of one or more rows in the matrix that include cells storing relative gain for pairs of elements such that a calibration of the gain in the ground based beam forming satellite communications system can be derived using the combination of one or more rows, and obtaining the calibration values from the cells included in the combination of one or more rows; and using the calibration values in a beam forming algorithm to enable formation of one or more beams using the satellite.