On the optimal synthesis of sparsely thinned planar array antenna with constraints using meta‐heuristic optimization

Abstract

SummaryThe investigations related to the planar antenna array have attracted much attention due to their vast applications in the areas of advanced wireless communication and electromagnetics. This article presents an effective synthesis method of a sparsely thinned symmetric planar antenna array using three well‐known meta‐heuristics including symbiotic organism search (SOS) algorithm, moth fly optimization (MFO), and multi‐verse optimization (MVO) algorithms. The main aim of this work is to optimize the positions of the switched‐on antenna elements on the array aperture in order to reduce the value of side‐lobe levels in the radiation field pattern in multiple planes for a desired first null beam width and subsequently to obtain the maximum reduced number of array‐elements in the antenna array. Two different cases are performed to optimize the radiation pattern in different azimuth angles with two different examples. The proposed methods can constrain the total number of array elements, inter‐element distance, and aperture area of the array. The radiation pattern characteristic and computation time linked with each example and each algorithm are recorded and compared with each other as well as with a fully populated planar symmetric rectangular array antenna of same aperture size for arriving at the conclusion. The simulation‐based results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design and the efficiency of the performance using the SOS algorithm.