Design of time modulated concentric circular and concentric hexagonal antenna array using hybrid enhanced particle swarm optimisation and differential evolution algorithm

Abstract

Design of circular arrays (CAs) and hexagonal arrays (HAs) with low sidelobe level (SLL) and high directivity is usually achieved by increasing the number of array elements, which leads to a high undesired mutual coupling. Therefore this study presents an efficient optimisation method and a framework to show how to design multi-ring concentric CAs (CCA) and concentric HAs (CHAs) configurations using a hybrid enhanced particle swarm optimisation and differential evolution (hybrid EPSO/DE) optimisation technique. The presented optimum CCA and CHA have perfect invariant SLL and high directivity with low mutual coupling by keeping the inter-element spacing not less than half a wavelength which is not possible to be achieved in CA and HA arrangements. Different configurations with two-rings, three-rings and four-rings are presented. The rotation angle of outer rings and the complex excitations of array elements are first optimised. Then, this design is further optimised using a time modulation technique by controlling the switch-on times and the phases of elements excitations of the best CCA and CHA array designs. The presented time modulated (TM) concentric CA and TM concentric HA designs attain ultra-low SLL, reduced sideband level and maximised directivity besides reducing the dynamic range of the array excitations.