Moth flame optimization based design of linear and circular antenna array for side lobe reduction

Abstract

This paper presents an accurate approach to design a symmetrical linear antenna array (LAA) and a non-uniformly excited single ring circular antenna array (CAA) to improve the far-field radiation characteristics. The far-field radiation pattern is improved with lower side lobe level (SLL) which is essential for the reduction of interference in the entire side lobe regions. A recently proposed meta-heuristic based optimization algorithm called moth flame optimization (MFO) is applied to determine the optimal sets of current excitation weights and the inter-element spacing among the array elements to reduce the SLL. In this context, 10-element and 16-element LAA and 8-element, 10-element, and 12-element CAA design examples are presented by optimizing the array parameters. The simulation results obtained by using MFO algorithm based approach yield a considerable improvement in SLL and some marked improvement of half power beam width with respect to the uniform array pattern and those of the recently reported literature.