Hierarchically Elaborated Phased-Array Antenna Modules and Method of Operation.

A method for operation of a phased-array antenna comprising at a submodule apparatus:

• receiving a first major operand;
• receiving a first and a second minor operand;
• storing the first major operand as a base phase shift for the submodule;
• recursively adding a first minor operand to the base phase shift to determine a first vector of phase shift weights for each of a plurality of shifters;
• and
• recursively adding a second minor operand to each member of the first vector to determine phase shift weights for all the shifters.

A method for transforming electrical signals by determining antenna weight vectors for a series of beam directions at digital functional logic circuits distributed among RFIC devices adjacent to their associated phased-array antenna element:

• initializing local registers and common registers with integer-pair values for location of each antenna element in an phased-array antenna and a phase correction factor;
• for each desired beam direction in the series of beam directions subsequent to initializing local registers and common registers,
• reading four binary coded phase shift values from a serial bus;
• storing the four binary coded phase shift values into common registers on each RFIC device accessible to each digital functional logic circuit associated with one of the phased-array antenna elements;
• and at each digital functional logic circuit associated with one of the phased-array antenna elements,
• reading from common registers a pair of binary coded phase shift increment values for each increment in module location on the printed circuit board and a pair of binary coded phase shift increment values for each increment in antenna element location on the module;
• reading from common registers integer-pair values corresponding to the location of the module on a printed circuit board;
• reading from common registers a phase correction factor;
• reading from local registers associated with each digital functional logic circuit integer-pair values corresponding to the coordinate location of its associated phased-array antenna element in the phased-array antenna on a radiating surface of the module;
• summing the phase correction factor and the multiplication products of the four binary coded phase shift values with their corresponding location-specific integer value;
• setting an antenna phase shift and amplitude weight value for its phased-array antenna element according to a resolution;
• and
• transforming the electrical signal according to the computed weight values.