Patent ID: 7898476

Claim:
A system for controlling the direction of an antenna beam, the system comprising: a housing coupled to a vehicle; an integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver located in the housing, configured to determine a transmit antenna location indicating the location of a transmit antenna, the transmit antenna being coupled to the housing and configured to produce an antenna beam; an orientation sensor located in the housing configured to determine a transmit antenna orientation indicating the orientation of the transmit antenna; and an antenna beam controller located in the housing configured to: access target data describing a receive antenna of a target, the target data comprising a location of the receive antenna relative to the transmit antenna; calculate a deviation value by: determining a difference between the transmit antenna location and at least a portion of the target data; and determining a difference between the transmit antenna orientation and at least a portion of the target data; wherein the deviation value quantifies a difference between a target direction and an actual direction of the antenna beam produced by the transmit antenna, the target direction intersecting the location of the receive antenna relative to the transmit antenna, and the target direction being different from the actual direction of the antenna beam produced by the transmit antenna; and adjust the actual direction of the antenna beam to reduce the deviation value.