DETERMINING PHASE PROFILE FOR BEAMFORMING ANTENNA

A system and method are provided for determining a phase profile over an aperture of a beamforming antenna to shape a beam of the beamforming antenna. As input, a target beam shape to be established and a characterization of the aperture of the beamforming antenna are received. The stationary phase approximation is used to determine a transport map, which maps intensities in a preferably measure-preserving manner from an antenna domain of the beamforming antenna to a beam domain of the beamforming antenna through a gradient of the phase profile. The transport map is integrated over its irrotational part to obtain the phase profile. The phase profile, or a sampled version thereof, is then output, for example to a transmitter of the beamforming antenna. The above measures may allow the phase profile to be computed in a computationally efficient manner and in real-time or near-real time.