Disclosed are systems and methods which apply design criteria to beam forming network parameters to arrive at a passive beam forming network design. Preferably a beam forming network approach is implemented in two primary stages. Operation of the aforementioned first primary stage may provide a branching configuration which determines how the weights of a desired radiation pattern weight set are allocated in the beam forming network. Preferably, branching nodes are configured to substantially equally distribute power splitting/combining the branches of a node. The aforementioned second primary stage operates to determine the actual physical layout of the various components. Preferably, each branching node is analyzed to determine an optimal physical layout configuration with respect thereto.