System and method for discrete gain control in hybrid MIMO/RF beamforming

Abstract

A system for selectively and discretely amplifying or attenuating antennas in a hybrid multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radio distribution network (RDN) receiving system is provided herein. The system includes a MIMO receiving system comprising a MIMO baseband module having N branches; an RDN connected to the MIMO receiving system, the RDN comprising at least one beamformer fed by two or more antennas, so that a total number of antennas in the system is M, wherein M is greater than N, wherein each one of the beamformers include a passive combiner configured to combine signals coming from the antennas coupled to a respective beamformer into a combined signal, wherein the at least one beamformer is further configured to selectively amplify or attenuate in discrete steps, one or more of the signals coming from the M antennas, based on qualitative metrics measured by the MIMO baseband module.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.