Value chain · CLM-0900
In plain terms
The satellite can point its beam far further than there is Earth to point at, so moving power from one receiving station to another is not limited by the antenna. It is limited by other things, including whether a receiving station has been built there and whether that country has allowed it.
The claim as recorded
GB2563574 claims beam steering through 360 degrees in azimuth and/or about plus or minus 55 degrees in elevation, the elevation limit being the 3 dB point of the constituent dipole pattern. The Earth's angular radius seen from geostationary orbit is about 8.7 degrees, so the claimed steering envelope exceeds the entire visible Earth by roughly a factor of six in elevation and is unbounded in azimuth. Retargeting to any point on the visible hemisphere is therefore inside the antenna's stated capability with a wide margin, and the binding constraints on dispatch lie elsewhere - whether a rectenna exists at the destination, the elevation angle at that site, and whether the receiving state has licensed it.
Evidence behind this: A UK patent application as published (GB 2563574 A, filed 5 June 2017, published 26 December 2018), read directly. The patent was granted as GB 2563574 B, published 4 August 2021, and its claims were read too. T3 because it is a published document with a named applicant and a searched disclosure (the Section 17 search report is bound in), and not T2 because a patent teaches an invention rather than reporting a result.
Scope and limits
This is a statement about the ANTENNA's envelope, not about dispatchability as a system property. It says what does NOT constrain retargeting. It says nothing about how fast the beam can move, what the ionosphere does to a pilot arriving at a different slant angle, or whether any regulatory route exists for cross-border dispatch. Those are unanswered.
What it assumes
That the 3 dB elevation limit is the operationally useful limit. Steering further is possible at greater loss, so 55 degrees understates the geometric range and does not weaken the conclusion.
Where it comes from
claim 17 verbatim: "wherein the drive circuit steers the beam through 360 degrees in azimuth and/or steers the beam in elevation by up to about +-55 degrees, with the peak intensity corresponding to the elevation pattern of its constituent antennae." Description internal p6, PDF p18, lines 4-9 gives the same with "a 3dB steering limit of +-55 degrees - as for a half-wave dipole pattern". Claim 35 covers a target that is "a fixed point on the Earth, or a fixed point on a moving object such as a boat, or plane, or a satellite, or any point in space that can be tracked by the beaming apparatus". The 8.7 degree figure is the Earth's angular radius from geostationary altitude and is standard geometry, not a source claim. The granted patent (SRC-795, 2021, read from page images) words this differently: its claim 1 itself requires that the beam can be steered through 360 degrees about the array's central axis (PDF p35); its claim 16 keeps the elevation limit of about plus or minus 55 degrees without the azimuth words (PDF p37); and its claim 34 keeps the target list of the old claim 35 (PDF p40).
Basis: degrees (steering range and angular size)
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-013 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0900
CLM-0900, Energy Aperture, as of 2017-06-05.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-088
- CLM-0896The patent describes measuring the incoming steering signal at scattered sensors, not at every antenna, and working out the values in...CLM-0897The satellite aims its beam by listening for a low-power signal sent up from the receiving station, measuring the shape of that arriving...CLM-0899The patent never says the steering signal is protected in any way. There is a difference between scrambling that signal so nobody can read...CLM-0903The shared clock tells every sensor to take its reading at the same moment. How precise that clock must be depends on how fast the thing...CLM-0905Sharing a clock is not the same as being told what to do. The clock and the carrier tell the antennas nothing about where to send the power...CLM-0913When the satellite corrects its own bending by listening to the ground signal, what is left over is not how far the antennas moved. It is...CLM-0942Three documents held here give three different sizes for the same satellite's transmitting antenna. The patent says 1 to 1.5 km across and...CLM-1176Each transmitting element on the satellite is a small cluster of three short rod antennas standing a quarter of a wavelength apart, all...More on the source page.
- Also from SRC-795
- CLM-0896The patent describes measuring the incoming steering signal at scattered sensors, not at every antenna, and working out the values in...CLM-0897The satellite aims its beam by listening for a low-power signal sent up from the receiving station, measuring the shape of that arriving...CLM-0899The patent never says the steering signal is protected in any way. There is a difference between scrambling that signal so nobody can read...CLM-0905Sharing a clock is not the same as being told what to do. The clock and the carrier tell the antennas nothing about where to send the power...CLM-1485The patent behind the CASSIOPeiA design, both the 2018 application and the granted patent published in 2021, mentions 230 watts per square...