Patent Document ID: 7532311
Application ID: 11100082
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A system for observing a field of view, wherein the field of view comprises a plurality of potential target points, the system comprising: a transmitter; a detector comprising a plurality of detector elements, wherein a path is defined between the transmitter and the detector, wherein the transmitter is configured to generate electromagnetic (EM) energy into a transmit portion of the path, wherein the detector is positioned in a receive portion of the path defined by reflected EM energy from some of the plurality of potential target points; a beam forming element configured to select at least one of a plurality of illumination patterns, to selectively generate M beams out of N possible beams to produce an illumination pattern, and to illuminate simultaneously a selected subset of the plurality of potential target points in the field of view using M beams out of N possible beams, the subset including multiple predetermined areas within the field of view, wherein M is an integer, N is an integer, and M is less than N; and a second beam forming element positioned in the receive portion of the path, the second beam forming element configured to select a subset of the plurality of detector elements and to steer the receive portion of the path to the selected subset of the plurality of detector elements.