J4 ›› 2010, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (5): 888-892+910.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1001-2400.2010.05.020

• Original Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Method for improving the optimization efficiency of sparse linear arrays

ZHANG Shuai;GONG Shu-xi;LU Bao;GONG Qi   

  1. (Key Lab. of Antennas and Microwave Technology, Xidian Univ., Xi'an  710071, China)
  • Received:2009-07-02 Online:2010-10-20 Published:2010-10-11
  • Contact: ZHANG Shuai E-mail:41539766@qq.com

Abstract:

For the synthesis of sparse linear arrays with the design constraints of the number of elements, the array aperture and the minimum element spacing, only taking some elements around both the ends of the aperture into account will have the same effect on the peak side lobe level as taking all the elements into account. Using the statistical method, this paper presents the formula for calculating the number of elements which does not need to be considered in the optimization process, by which the computational cost of the optimization algorithm is considerably reduced. In addition, inserting the element spacing constraint vector, the modified optimization algorithm not only reduces the size of the searching area of the solution, but also avoids the infeasible solution during the optimization process. Thus, the computational cost is further reduced. Using the proposed method, when the minimum element spacing is half-wavelength and the element spacing of equally spaced array is less than 0.8-wavelength, the computing burden of the modified optimization algorithm is reduced to at least 28% of the original one.

Key words: array antenna, sparse arrays, particle swarm optimization