Distributed beamforming system with user side beamforming processing

[0015]The present disclosure is directed to a distributed beamforming system including a plurality of user terminals and a platform terminal. The platform terminal includes an antenna array having a plurality of antenna elements, where each antenna element emits a wide-area beam that encompasses all of the user terminals that are part of the distributed beamforming system. The platform terminal transmits a plurality of individual wireless signals that are orthogonal with respect to one another based on frequency, time, or by coding techniques. It is to be appreciated that there is a one-to-one mapping of each individual wireless signal to each of the antenna elements located on the platform terminal. The individual wireless signals are received by each individual user terminal. The user terminals apply an amplitude weight and a phase shift to each of the individual wireless signals. The individual wireless signals are then combined together at the individual user terminals to generate