Phased array antenna with distributed beam steering

An antenna array (10) includes a plurality of antenna elements (12), each of which is associated with a transmit-receive TR module (14). The antenna elements and their associated TR modules are grouped into sets, which in the illustrated embodiment are sets of four. Each set of four TR module/antenna elements is associated with one phase and gain controller (18X), which is part of a distributed phase and gain controller. The beam direction is commanded by a central radar control computer (RCC) (22), which transmits beam direction and other information to all the separate phase/gain controllers. Each separate phase/gain controller accesses local memory to obtain data relating to the location within the array of those antenna elements which it controls. Each phase/gain controller then calculates the necessary phase shift for each antenna element it controls, taking into account the phase and gain errors associated with the TR module associated therewith. The calculation is performed separately for the transmit and receive modes. While the described controller calculates for both transmit and receive modules, in a transmit-only or receive-only system, only transmit or receive-mode values, respectively, need be calculated.