Lead with the scarce resource, because that is the point. A phased-array aperture is expensive, and the naive design dedicates one array to one link or modem. But links come and go, and apertures sit idle. Multiplexing apertures to modems in real time is a way to get more utilization out of the most costly hardware on the terminal.
The grant US11984664B2, naming inventor Greg Wyler, a serial satellite-constellation founder, classified in H01Q 3/36 (phased-array control) with H04B 7/0486 and H04B 7/0854 (antenna-port and MIMO processing), claims real-time multiplexing of phased arrays to modems. The blend of antenna-control and signal-routing CPC codes marks it as a resource-sharing architecture.
The mechanism is a dynamic switching-and-allocation layer between the apertures and the modems. Rather than hardwiring each array to a modem, the system routes apertures to whichever modems need them moment to moment, so the same hardware serves more simultaneous or shifting demands. It is statistical multiplexing applied to antennas.
The economic logic mirrors flexible capacity at the satellite, only here at the terminal or gateway: treat the expensive resource as a shared pool and move it to demand rather than freezing the assignment. It is the same instinct visible across the sector, from Viasat's flexible-capacity constellation to WAFER's aperture multiplexing, the recurring move toward elastic use of costly hardware.
The caveat is that multiplexing adds switching complexity and potential contention, since if too many modems demand apertures at once, something has to give. The patent describes the flexible-routing architecture. Whether the sharing delivers net benefit depends on the traffic patterns it actually faces, which the deployment, not the claim, reveals.