Patent ID: 8451186

Claim:
An antenna system comprising: a comparator network; a feed network; a transceiver module coupled to the comparator network and arranged to process a sum signal and two delta signals; an array of antenna elements; and a normally open micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) switch coupled to each of said antenna elements and the feed network with rectangular coax transmission line, each of the MEMS switches being normally open and having: a drain terminal coupled to an antenna element; a source terminal coupled to the feed network; and a gate terminal adapted to activate said switch on the application of control power thereto to provide overcurrent and overvoltage protection for the transceiver module, wherein the MEMS switches are packaged in hermetic chip-scale packages and coupled to the rectangular coax transmission lines with non-hermetic surface-mount interconnects, wherein the feed network is arranged to combine outputs from the source terminals to generate a number of beams and the comparator network is arranged to provide the sum signal and the two delta signals from the number of beams, and wherein the transceiver module is devoid of high-power passive limiters.