Patent ID: 7369833

Claim:
A method of improving the directivity of a receive system, the method comprising: receiving receive signals from an antenna array, the antenna array comprising a plurality of elements; amplifying the receive signals to form amplified signal-plus-noise signals; determining a phi-phase equivalent to a difference between a reference phase and a phase of the amplified signal-plus-noise signals; forming in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) versions of the amplified signal-plus-noise signals by subtracting the phi-phase and adding or subtracting about ninety degrees from the in-phase version to form the quadrature version; multiplying the phase difference by each of a series of integers to create a plurality of outputs; summing the outputs coherently to form an improved overall output with an improved sensitivity substantially greater than a normal sensitivity of the receive signals; and computing the arctangent of a noise reduced quadrature signal divided by a noise reduced in-phase signal to constitute an angle, phi, of the signal.