Patents by Inventor Robert Fairfield

Robert Fairfield has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 10530448
    Abstract: A switched-beam communication node (e.g., transmitter, receiver, or transceiver) has an antenna array, an (N×N) passive multibeamformer (e.g., Butler matrix (BM)), a phase network, a switch network, and a controller. The phase network has N phase shifters, one for each different beam port of the Butler matrix. The controller configures the node to support either (i) any one of N main beampatterns supported by the Butler matrix by controlling the switch network to select one of the phase shifters and its corresponding BM beam port or (ii) any one of up to at least (N?1) combined beampatterns by controlling the switch network to select two of the phase shifters and their two corresponding BM beam ports. Each combined beampattern is a combination of two phase-shifted main beampatterns. In some embodiments, the node can be configured to provide two concurrent beampatterns for transmit and/or receive operations, thereby supporting space-division multiple-access systems.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2020
    Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy
    Inventors: Cuong Tran, Robert Fairfield, Ajit Reddy, Dragan Samardzija