ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,438,579, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to Viasat Inc. (Carlsbad, Calif.).
"Beamforming using sparse antenna arrays" was invented by Brian G. Greinke (Carlsbad, Calif.), John Bacigalupi (Carlsbad, Calif.), Craig A. Miller (Carlsbad, Calif.) and Parker A. Robinson (Ocala, Fla.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An antenna array may be associated with forming discovery beams within a geographic area, where each discovery beam may be formed by a corresponding set of antennas of the antenna array and cover a discovery area within the geographic area. Preambles transmitted from terminals within a discovery area of a discovery beam may be detected ...