Patent ID: 7414576

Claim:
A system for precision radio frequency (RF) antenna line-of-sight (LOS) pointing, the system comprising: a reference signal transmitter located a distance from an antenna reflector and configured to transmit a reference RF signal toward the antenna reflector to obtain a transmitting reference signal; a plurality of signal receivers attached to an edge of the antenna reflector, wherein each of the signal receivers is configured to receive the reference signal; a signal processing electronics and phase detector coupled to the signal receivers by respective signal transportation harnesses, wherein the signal processing electronics and phase detector is configured to obtain estimates of phase differences between the transmitting reference signal and the received reference signal at each of the signal receivers; a reference signal transportation harness coupled between the reference signal transmitter and the signal processing electronics and phase detector; a LOS pointing estimator coupled to the signal processing electronics and phase detector and configured to compute estimates of a precision RF antenna LOS pointing deviations using the estimates of the phase differences; and a stepping controller coupled to the LOS pointing estimator and configured to correct the precision RF antenna LOS pointing deviations based upon the estimates of the precision RF antenna LOS pointing deviations; wherein each of the signal receivers is coupled to the signal processing electronics and phase detector by a first signal transportation harness having a first signal path associated therewith; each of the signal receivers is coupled to the signal processing electronics and phase detector by a second signal transportation harness having a second signal path associated therewith; and the first signal path and the second signal path are different.