Patent ID: 8165171

Claim:
A method for achieving a coherent beam comprising: providing a set of nodes including a plurality of nodes; identifying, for each node in a subset of the set of nodes, the subset including at least two nodes, an associated previous node and an associated next node; and obtaining a periodic signal which is synchronized among at least the nodes in the subset of nodes such that the periodic signal at each node in the subset of nodes has a common frequency and phase with the periodic signals at the other nodes in the subset of nodes by, at each node in the subset of nodes: receiving a first signal transmitted by the associated previous node; transmitting the first signal to the associated next node; receiving a second signal transmitted by the associated next node; transmitting the second signal to the associated previous node; combining the first signal and the second signal; filtering the combination of the first signal and the second signal to obtain the synchronized periodic signal; frequency-shifting and phase-shifting, at each node in the subset of nodes, the synchronized periodic signal; and transmitting the frequency- and phase-shifted signal, from each node in the subset of nodes, to achieve a coherent beam at a target location upon combination with the transmitted signals from each of the nodes.