Patent ID: 8354956

Claim:
An antenna system for generating and distributing power among a plurality of beams, the antenna system comprising: a reflector having a focal plane and a non-parabolic curvature configured to form the beams, the curvature being configured to create a symmetrical quadratic phase-front in an aperture plane of the reflector; a plurality of feed antennas configured to illuminate the reflector, each feed antenna being disposed in the focal plane of the reflector, and each feed antenna configured to contribute power toward each of the plurality of beams; a beamforming network configured to divide an incoming signal into a plurality of sub-signals, each sub-signal corresponding to one of the plurality of feed antennas, each sub-signal corresponding to each of the plurality of beams, and to selectably allocate power among the plurality of beams; a plurality of fixed-amplitude amplifiers, at least one amplifier corresponding to each of the plurality of feed antennas, the at least one amplifier for each feed antenna configured to amplify the corresponding sub-signal to generate an amplified sub-signal and to provide the amplified sub-signal to the corresponding feed antenna.