Patent ID: 7280070

Claim:
A method comprising changing one or more shading coefficients in an adaptive beamformer in response to one or more radar sensor devices becoming non-operational; wherein the one or more radar sensor devices are part of an array of a plurality of radar sensor devices; wherein after the one or more radar sensor devices becomes non-operational, the array is comprised of one or more non-operational radar sensor devices and one or more operational radar sensor devices; wherein the array has a gain pattern which includes a main beam and a sidelobe; wherein the main beam has a main beam level; wherein the sidelobe of the gain pattern of the array is maintained below an acceptable level by changing the one or more shading coefficients; wherein the one or more shading coefficients after being changed are applied to the one or more operational sensors; wherein the array has a total output energy; wherein the array has a main beam of specific bandwidth; wherein the main beam has energy; and wherein the one or more shading coefficients are changed by maximizing the energy In the main beam while simultaneously holding the total output energy to a constant; and further comprising superimposing a non-negative window of specific width and of any arbitrary shape over the main beam to maximize the energy in the main beam and to hold the total output energy constant in beamformer; and wherein the shading coefficients changed to correspond to value of a unique eigenvector associated with a largest eigenvalue of a kernel matrix.