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Early antenna array systems deployed mechanical rotation systems to point the beam in the desired direction. With the advent of phased arrays, beamsteering has been accomplished electronically by applying phase offsets to individual antenna elements.

In an all-digital beamforming system, the RF signal from each antenna element is directly digitized by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). These ADCs and DACs generally have sampling rates and usable analog bandwidths of up to a few gigahertz. This enables direct digitization of the L/S/C/X- and Ku-bands.