Patent ID: 8754810

Claim:
A hybrid antenna array comprising: (a) a plurality of digital branches, each digital branch including: (i) an analogue beamforming sub-array, each sub-array having a plurality of antenna elements, a phase shifter adapted to apply a phase shift to the signal from each antenna element, and a combiner adapted to combine the phase shifted signals; (ii) a signal chain adapted to convert the output of the sub-array to baseband; (b) a digital processing module, including: (i) an angle of arrival estimation sub-module adapted to estimate an angle of arrival of a signal at the antenna elements; (ii) a phase control sub-module adapted to control the phase shift applied by each phase shifter depending on the estimated angle of arrival; and (iii) a digital beamformer adapted to combine the baseband signals from the digital branches using a weight vector to form an output signal.