Patent ID: 8494445

Claim:
A method for distributing transmit power of a forward link signal in a spot beam satellite communication system, the method comprising: receiving a forward link signal from a gateway; generating multiple versions of the forward link signal; selectively attenuating at least one of the multiple versions of the forward link signal; after the step of selectively attenuating, amplifying the multiple versions of the forward link signal using a multi-port amplifier (MPA), to generate multiple amplified signals, wherein amplifying the multiple versions of the forward link signal comprises: processing the multiple versions of the forward link signal using a hybrid matrix, to generate a plurality of hybrid-matrix-processed signals; amplifying the plurality of hybrid-matrix-processed signals using a plurality of high power amplifiers (HPA's), to generate HPA-amplified signals; and processing the HPA-amplified signals using an inverse hybrid matrix, to generate the multiple amplified signals; transmitting the multiple amplified signals to multiple spot beams, each spot beam corresponding to a spot beam coverage area.