Such techniques have been demonstrated (references 10-12) on a small scale and shown to operate successfully. A very simplified schematic of a typical system is illustrated in Figure 2. The transmitter is illustrated in this system, as a one dimensional linear array of special conjugation modules and the receiver is illustrated as having a centrally located transmitter which emits a stable reference signal in the direction of the orbiting transmitter. Since each receive/transmit module lies at a different distance from the ground receiver the locally sampled signal at each of the orbiting modules bears a different phase relation with the ground reference. In this simplified system each module routes this received signal to a special processor which performs a conjugation. The conjugated signal is then routed back to the antenna, amplified, and retransmitted. Note the argument of the transmission for each orbiting module corresponds exactly to the path delay for that particular module but reversed in sign. If the attitude of the transmitter were perfectly stable, the transmission would experience an identical path delay on the downlink, arriving in phase with the ground reference. Since this would be true for each of the modules all the transmissions will be in phase at the receiver. Note this is true no matter what the orientation of the power transmitter even for relative displacements of the conjugation modules. Hence, in this simplified case, this technique can provide automatic steering of the beam, automatic focusing of the beam, (a necessity in the fresnel zone) and compensation for deformation of the transmitter structure.
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