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Side Lobe Suppression of Concentric Circular

Antenna Array Using Social Spider Algorithm

Avishek Das, Durbadal Mandal & Rajib Kar

To cite this article: Avishek Das, Durbadal Mandal & Rajib Kar (2022) Side Lobe Suppression
of Concentric Circular Antenna Array Using Social Spider Algorithm, IETE Journal of Research,
68:6, 4198-4207, DOI: 10.1080/03772063.2020.1788423

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Published online: 03 Jul 2020.

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IETE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH
2022, VOL. 68, NO. 6, 4198–4207
https://doi.org/10.1080/03772063.2020.1788423

Side Lobe Suppression of Concentric Circular Antenna Array Using Social Spider
Algorithm
Avishek Das 1 , Durbadal Mandal2 and Rajib Kar2
1 Department of ECE, HIT, Haldia 721 657, India; 2 Department of ECE, NIT Durgapur, Durgapur 713 209, India

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This paper presents an efficient method to improve the far-field radiation pattern of concentric cir- Concentric circular antenna
cular antenna array (CCAA) design using two stochastic optimization algorithms known as social array; Side lobe level;
spider algorithm (SSA) and modified social spider algorithm (MSSA). Low side lobe level (SLL) plays Directivity; Social spider
a crucial role in reducing the interference with the other frequency components along the entire algorithm; Modified social
spider algorithm
side lobes of the far-field radiation pattern. SSA and MSAA are the state-of-the-art evolutionary opti-
mization techniques which are applied here to determine the optimal current amplitude and the
inter-element distance between two consecutive antennae of the 3-ring CCAA. In this paper, the
optimal results achieved by using SSA, MSSA for (4, 6, 8) elements and (8, 10, 12) elements 3-ring
CCAAs, with and without centre elements are reported. The results achieved by employing SSA and
MSSA show a considerable improvement in SLL reduction as compared to the uniform and the other
array patterns reported in the state-of-the-art literature.

1. INTRODUCTION
Design accuracy has a vital role in the desired radiation
pattern synthesis for the wireless system design. Research
works on the efficient design for antenna array synthesis
are going on over the last few decades for the improve-
ment of radiation pattern characteristics. An efficient
far-field radiation pattern of the CCAA is determined by
its parameters, like current amplitude excitation weights,
inter-element distance and the configuration of the array.
A low SLL as well as a narrow first null beamwidth
(FNBW) are the two main design objectives for an opti-
mal radiation pattern synthesis of the CCAA. A low SLL
and a narrow FNBW are necessary for the reduction
of interference [1] and to enhance the directivity. How-
ever, the low SLL with narrow FNBW for the design of
CCAA is a very challenging work for the antenna design-
ers because these criteria are not satisfied at the same
time [1–3].
Dib et al. in [11] and by Singh et al. in [15] for the CCAA
design. Sharaqa et al. in [12] have employed the fire-
fly algorithm (FA) for the design of CCAA. The results
obtained by using FA are shown to be promising in com-
parison with the results obtained in [9] and [11]. Sym-
biotic organism search (SOS) has been employed in [10]
for the synthesis of CCAA. SOS is a bio-inspired meta-
heuristic algorithm. Das et al., in [16], have applied moth
flame optimization (MFO) for the design of CCAA.
This paper mainly deals with the design of CCAA having
low SLL and narrow FNBW using SSA and MSSA algo-
rithms. These two prime design criteria of a CCAA are
very challenging because the improvement in one dimen-
sion will degrade the performance of the other. In this
paper, the SSA and MSSA based results are compared to
the recently published literature dealing with the same
design criteria for 3-ring CCAA synthesis.

A CCAA contains several concentric rings of circular
shape which consists of a pre-fixed number of antenna
array elements [4]. CCAAs are applied extensively in
several radio systems, e.g. navigation, sonar, radar etc.
Several research works on CCAA design can be found
in [5–14]. Several stochastic optimization algorithms
have been used. Evolutionary programming (EP) was
employed in [9] for the design and synthesis of CCAA.
Biogeography based optimization (BBO) was applied by
Here, the design problems for the CCAA synthesis are
addressed by employing SSA and MSSA. The constraints
are as follows: (i) reduced SLL (ii) placing of nulls on
the peaks of SLL (iii) narrow FNBW, which is essential
for high directivity. SSA and its modification MSSA are
stochastic algorithms which are inspired by the behaviour
of the spiders in their web where they share their per-
sonal experiences with the other spiders. Yu et al., in [17],
have first mathematically modelled the SSA. The values

© 2022 IETE
 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY 4199

of the current and inter-element distance of CCAA are 

optimized here by employing SSA and MSSA. The design
equation for the CCAA and the cost function (CF) are
evaluated in section 2. Section 3 gives a brief description
of the SSA and MSSA. The simulation results are com-
pared and are presented in Section 4. The conclusion of
the paper is drawn in Section 5.
2. DESIGN EQUATION
The spacial configuration has a crucial role in antenna
array design. In CCAA, each element of the array is
arranged in a concentric ring having different radii and
a pre-fixed number of antenna array elements. Figure 1
shows the configuration of an M-ring CCAA, where the
mth (m = 1,2, . . . M) ring contains Nm elements having
a radius rm .
Here, all the elements of the CCAA are considered as
isotropic elements, hence the far-field radiation charac-
teristics of the CCAA is constituted by its array factor
(AF) and is given in (1) and (2) for the CCAA having
no centre element (Case-I) and having centre element
(Case-II), respectively [13].

M 
N
AF(θ , ϕ, I) = Imn
m=1 n=1
× exp[j(krm sin θ cos(ϕ − ϕmn ) + αmn )]
(1)
M 
N
AF(θ , ϕ, I) = 1 + Imn
m=1 n=1
× exp[j(krm sin θ cos(ϕ − ϕmn ) + αmn )]
(2)
The current amplitude excitation weight for the nth
element of the mth ring is represented by Imn . k = 2π/λ,
where λ represents the wavelength of the plane wave.
The elevation and azimuth angles are given by θ and
ϕ, respectively, and are measured from the positive z
and x-axis. The inter-element angular distance is denoted
by ϕmn . All the antenna array elements in the rings are
uniformly distributed.
Hence,
 
n
ϕmn = 2π ; m = 1, 2, . . . M; n = 1, 2, . . . , Nm .
Nm
(3)
αmn represents the phase difference between two consec-
utive antenna array elements. αmn depends on the ϕmn as
shown in (4) and also on the ring radii rm .
αmn = −krm sin θ0 cos(ϕ0 − ϕmn ); m = 1, 2, . . . M;
n = 1, 2, . . . Nm . (4)
where θ0 and ϕ0 represent the peak angular values of
θ and ϕ, respectively, attained in the main lobe of the
far-field radiation pattern. The values of θ0 and ϕ0 are
considered here as θ0 = 900 and ϕ0 = 900 .

The directivity (DIR) plays an important role in CCAA

design. It is the ratio of the maximum power density of
the designed antenna array and an isotropic radiating
source. Directivity is calculated as similar to [18–20] and
is given in (6).
|AF(θms1 , Imn ) + AF(θms2 , Imn )|
CF = W1 ×
|AF(θ0 , Imn )|
π 
 
θ=−π AF(θSLL_Peaks , Imn )
+ W2 ×
|AFmax |
+ W3 × [FNBWComputed − FNBW(Imn = 1)]
(5)
|AF0 (θ0 , ϕ0 )|2
DIR =  2π  π (6)
1
0 |AF(θ , ϕ)| sin θ dθ dϕ
2
4π 0

The next step is the formulation of the cost function (CF),

as shown in (5), to achieve the desired radiation pattern
Figure 1: CCAA structure in the x-y plane for the synthesis of CCAA.
4200 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY

The weighting factors (W1 , W2 and W3 ) of (5) are

selected as 18, 18 and 12, respectively. θ0 represents the
peak angular value of θ attained in the main beam.
θms1 and θms2 represent the angle where the maximum
values of the side lobes are achieved on both sides of
the main beam. The angular distance among the two
nulls of the main beam is known as FNBW. Thus, the
computed FNBW obtained by using the non-uniform
excitation is represented by FNBWComputed . The FNBW
achieved by using uniform excitation is represented by
FNBW(Imn = 1). The last term of the CF is considered
for the improvement of FNBW as well as the directivity
of the far-field radiation pattern.

The second term of the CF is employed to suppress

the SLL by placing the nulls on every crest of SLL
in the far-field radiation pattern.AF(θSLL_Peaks , Imn ), in
(5), denotes the peak value of the SLL within θ ∈
[−π : θms1 , θms2: : π ], and the maximum AF value is
given by |AFmax |. The product of all AF(θSLL_Peaks , Imn )
is denoted by πθ=−π . Hence, the CF minimization indi-
cates the maximum SLL suppression as well as narrowing
the FNBW. The current amplitude excitation weights,
the inter-element distance among the 3-ring CCAA ele-
ments are optimized by employing SSA and MSSA for the
minimization of the CF.

3. EVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUES EMPLOYED

Evolutionary algorithms are population-based meta-
heuristic optimization techniques employed to produce
intelligent optimization scheme. SSA [17,21] and MSSA
[22] optimization techniques are employed in this paper
for the synthesis of the optimal radiation pattern of 3-
ring CCAA. SSA and MSSA based results are found to
be superior to the state-of-the-art published results.

3.1 Social Spider Algorithm (SSA)

In SSA, the spider moves freely on the web and generates
a vibration. The spider’s behaviour in the web is math- Figure 2: Steps of SSA algorithm as a flowchart
ematically modelled in the SSA as given in [17,23]. The
main steps of the SSA algorithm are shown in Figure 2 as
a flowchart.
similar to the differential evolution (DE) algorithm. The
details of MSSA are discussed in [22].
3.2 Modified Social Spider Algorithm (MSSA)
To improve the performance of the SSA, a modifica-
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
tion has been adopted in the original SSA and is called
the modified social spider algorithm (MSSA). In MSSA, SSA and MSSA optimization techniques have been exten-
the binary mask based random walk of spiders has been sively executed to achieve the optimal radiation pattern of
replaced with a mutation and selection process as partly the 3-ring CCAA antennae.
 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY 4201

Table 1: Control parameters of SSA and MSSA Table 3: Comparison of SLL value for the design of CCAA for
Parameters SSA MSSA Case-I
pop 15 15 Average
Number of iteration 500 500 Maximum execution CF
ra 1.78 1.75 Set No. Algorithm Reference SLL (dB) Time (Sec) values
Pc 0.76 – I MSSA Proposed −37.07 2.60 0.35
Pm 0.12 – SSA Proposed −36.92 2.95 0.37
r ∈ (0, 1) – MFO Das et al. [16] −36.84 3.78 0.40
ri – ∈ (0, 1) SOS Dib [10] −33.47 NR* NR*
Ki – ∈ (0, 1) FA Sharaqa el al. [12] −33.20 NR* NR*
C – 0.78 BBO Dib et al. [11] −30.60 NR* NR*
EP Mandal et al. [9] −31.84 NR* NR*
II MSSA Proposed −28.20 4.49 1.09
SSA Proposed −28.05 4.91 1.12
MFO Das et al. [16] −27.92 6.18 1.17
The results reported are the best among the 50 sets of SOS Dib [10] −27.51 NR* NR*
results achieved by employing SSA and MSSA with the FA Sharaqa et al. [12] −27.49 NR* NR*
control parameters as given in Table 1. BBO Dib et al. [11] −26.83 NR* NR*
EP Mandal et al. [9] −26.12 NR* NR*
NR* = Not Reported.
Different parameters of the uniform pattern achieved
by employing uniform excitation (Imn = 1) and uniform
distance (d = λ/2) are given in [16] where Case-I and
Case-II are the CCAA without and with the centre ele- obtained by employing different algorithms for CCAA
ment, respectively, and Set-I and Set-II represent the structure design of Case-I.
CCAA of (4,6,8) elements and (8,10,12) elements, respec-
tively. The reduced SLL values of the radiation pattern obtained
by employing different algorithms are given in Figures 3
The best results achieved by employing SSA and MSSA and 4 for Set-I and Set-II, respectively.
for Case-I of Set-I and Set-II are shown in Table 2 which
includes the current amplitude excitation weights, inter- Table 4 shows the SSA and MSSA based results of CCAA
element distance, SLL, FNBW, directivity, average execu- for two different sets.
tion time per cycle and the CF values.
Tables 2 and 4 show the best results among the set of
The results obtained by employing SSA and MSSA are results obtained after each complete execution of SSA and
compared with the reported results obtained by employ- MSSA for 50 times to achieve the optimal radiation pat-
ing other optimization techniques for Case-I of Set-I and tern of 3-ring CCAA of Case-I and Case-II, respectively.
Set-II type CCAA and are shown in Table 3. The enlisted best results of current amplitude excita-
tion weights and inter-element distance are graphically
The results of Table 3 show the SLL values achieved by plotted in Figures 3–6 to obtain the values of SLL and
employing SSA and MSSA and the other reported results FNBW, whereas, the directivity is calculated from (6) and

Table 2: Different parameters obtained by employing MSSA and SSA for the design of CCAA structure (Case-I)
Average
Inter-element execution time
Set No. Algorithm Current amplitude excitations distance (λ) SLL (dB) FNBW (deg) Directivity (dB) per cycle (Sec) CF
I MSSA 0.4962 0.6195 0.5454 0.6247 0.5111 0.5055 0.5000 −37.07 81.18 12.28 2.60 0.35
0.7803 0.5480 0.5509 0.7979 0.4240 0.7059 0.5773
0.4091 0.2661 0.4171 0.7119 0.4339 0.2651 0.7690
SSA 0.8201 0.7866 0.8980 0.7433 0.6446 0.6763 0.5013 −36.92 81.18 12.13 2.95 0.37
0.8166 0.6604 0.6776 0.7875 0.5042 0.8130 0.5814
0.4963 0.2761 0.4935 0.8339 0.4994 0.2718 0.7713
II MSSA 0.7205 0.2370 0.8067 0.8161 0.6540 0.3150 0.5500 −28.20 50.22 11.01 4.49 1.09
0.6053 0.8150 0.5407 0.0944 0.1413 0.6501 0.6060
0.5235 0.5804 0.1593 0.1179 0.5082 0.5173 0.7500
0.4021 0.2601 0.9674 0.3975 0.3914 0.5011
0.3602 0.3867 0.9991 0.2521 0.3641 0.4940
SSA 0.7354 0.3642 0.6181 0.7650 0.7789 0.2627 0.5508 −28.05 50.22 10.62 4.91 1.12
0.7635 0.7284 0.4720 0.1802 0.1450 0.5594 0.6061
0.4851 0.6132 0.0524 0.0897 0.6424 0.4660 0.7510
0.3762 0.2340 0.9537 0.2426 0.4590 0.4331
0.3670 0.3860 0.9713 0.4401 0.2594 0.4048
4202 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY
Figure 3: The far-field radiation pattern for Set-I of Case-I
Figure 4: The far-field radiation pattern for Set-II of Case-I
the average execution time per cycle and CF values are
achieved from the enlisted best simulation-based results.
Table 5 contains the SLL values obtained by employing
SSA, MSSA and the reported results obtained by employ-
ing different algorithms for CCAA structure design of
Case-II.
The results of reduced SLL values of CCAA (Case-II) by
employing different algorithms are given in Figures 5 and
6 for two different sets.
Different parameters of CF obtained by employing SSA
and MSSA are given in Table 6. The differences of the
CF values are negligible for both the cases and sets of the
CCAA structure design achieved by employing SSA and
MSSA.
4.1 Accuracy Test of SSA and MSSA
The results obtained by employing SSA and MSSA are
compared with the MFO [16] based results to test the
accuracy. Two sample t-test [24] is performed among
SSA/MFO and MSSA/MFO to establish the difference
between the results achieved by employing two algo-
rithms statistically. The t-value is defined in (7) and is
discussed in details in [24].
ᾱ2 − ᾱ1
t= (7)
σ22 σ12
β+1 + β+1
where α 1 and α 2 denote the mean values for the first and
second algorithm, respectively; whereas, σ1 and σ2 rep-
resent the standard deviation for the first and the second
algorithms, respectively. β shows the degree of freedom.
The results of the t-test conducted between the SSA/MFO
and MSSA/MFO pairs are shown in Table 7.
The obtained t-value is higher than 2.15 for β = 49
which signifies the difference between SSA/MFO and
MSSA/MFO optimization techniques with a 98% con-
fidence level. Thus statistical results also confirm the
superiority of SSA and MSSA algorithms.
4.2 Box and Whisker Plots
Box and whisker plots [25] are employed here to compare
the performance of SSA and MSSA based results with the
MFO based results statistically for both the sets of Case-I
and Case-II, respectively. All the algorithms (SSA, MSSA
and MFO) employed in this study are executed 50 times
to obtain the best results and all the CF values achieved in
every execution are employed in box and whisker plots.
Figures 7–10 show the box and whisker plots achieved by
employing SSA, MSSA and MFO algorithms for the syn-
thesis of (4,6,8) elements and (8,10,12) elements CCAA
design with and without centre element.
The top and bottom of the boxes represent the 75th and
25th percentile. Median is shown in green colour. The
median value of CF achieved by employing SSA, MSSA
and MFO algorithms for the design of CCAA of Case-I
and Set-I are 0.49, 0.47 and 0.51, respectively. The range
of variation of CF obtained by using SSA is 0.37–0.77 and
by using MSSA the range is 0.35–0.75 which are better
compared to the variation of CF obtained by using MFO
where the range of variation is 0.40–0.79.
The median values of CF for the design of CCAA of
Case-I and Set-II are 1.26, 1.21 and 1.31, respectively.
The range of CF variation obtained by employing SSA
 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY 4203

Table 4: Different parameters obtained by employing MSSA and SSA for the design of CCAA structure (Case-II)
Average
Inter-element Directivity execution time
Set No. Algorithm Current amplitude excitations distance (λ) SLL (dB) FNBW (deg) (dB) per cycle (Sec) CF
I MSSA 0.3329; 0.4717 0.4900 0.4809 0.4837; 0.3436 0.5501 −43.21 98.46 10.82 3.57 0.40
0.3536 0.1100 0.3581 0.3484 0.1147; 0.1533 0.6063
0.2181 0.1545 0.0423 0.1592 0.2262 0.1578 0.7502
0.0472
SSA 0.7288; 0.3878 0.5541 0.3707 0.5288; 0.8094 0.5208 −43.08 98.46 10.52 3.78 0.41
0.8214 0.7204 0.8183 0.8089 0.7100; 0.3894 0.5351
0.3864 0.4018 0.0041 0.4270 0.3832 0.4191 0.6874
0.0019
II MSSA 0.6091; 0.3280 0.6996 0.3091 0.5646 0.2998 0.5507 −33.28 57.24 12.76 4.72 1.06
0.6995 0.3801 0.7701; 0.5481 0.0098 0.0311 0.6070
0.4019 0.2008 0.3905 0.0226 0.0275 0.6138 0.7499
0.2414; 0.2443 0.2343 0.4666 0.1499 0.2401
0.1802 0.2191 0.1599 0.5001 0.3109 0.2291
0.1391
SSA 0.6207; 0.3631 0.6794 0.2908 0.5738 0.3007 0.5507 −33.02 57.24 12.62 5.05 1.11
0.7102 0.3698 0.7509; 0.5602 0.0110 0.0291 0.6069
0.4006 0.1955 0.3899 0.0275 0.0281 0.6139 0.7506
0.2283; 0.2246 0.2495 0.4703 0.1502 0.2356
0.1568 0.1984 0.1659 0.5108 0.2999 0.2310
0.1502

Figure 5: The far-field radiation patterns for Set-I of Case-II Figure 6: The far-field radiation patterns for Set-II of Case-II

is 1.12–1.48 and the variation obtained by employing
MSSA is 1.09–1.45, whereas, the variation obtained by
employing MFO is more significant compared to SSA and
MSSA and the value is 1.17–1.50.
Figure 9 shows the median values achieved by employing
SSA, MSSA and MFO algorithms for the design of CCAA
of Case-II and Set-I are 0.56, 0.52 and 0.59, respectively.
The variation of CF obtained by using SSA and MSSA are
0.41–0.71 and 0.40–0.69, respectively, whereas, the vari-
ation of CF obtained by using MFO is more significant
compared to SSA and MSSA and the value is 0.43–0.73.
The median value of CF achieved by employing SSA,
MSSA and MFO algorithms for the design of CCAA
of Case-II and Set-II are 1.25, 1.20 and 1.30, respec-
tively. The range of variation of CF obtained by using
SSA is 1.11–1.48 and by using MSSA the range is
1.06–1.44 which are better compared to the varia-
tion of CF obtained by using MFO and the value is
1.14–1.58.
All the above box and whisker plots show that the range
of variation of CF is more extensive in MFO compared
to the variation of CF achieved by employing SSA and
MSSA. Thus the box and whisker plots depict that all the
algorithms used for the design of CCAA for all the cases
offer robust and stable results and confirm the superiority
of SSA and MSSA based results compared to the results
obtained by using MFO.
4204 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY

Table 5: Comparison of SLL value for the design of CCAA for

Case-II
Average
Maximum execution CF
Set No. Algorithm Reference SLL (dB) Time (Sec) values
I MSSA Proposed −43.21 3.57 0.40
SSA Proposed −43.08 3.78 0.41
MFO Das et al. [16] −42.93 4.36 0.43
SOS Dib [10] −42.40 NR* NR*
FA Sharaqa et al. [12] −40.43 NR* NR*
BBO Dib et al. [11] −38.20 NR* NR*
EP Mandal et al. [9] −39.73 NR* NR*
II MSSA Proposed −33.28 4.72 1.06
SSA Proposed −33.02 5.05 1.11
MFO Das et al. [16] −32.88 5.70 1.14
SOS Dib [10] −32.77 NR* NR* Figure 8: Box and whisker plots of different algorithms for Case-I
FA Sharaqa et al. [12] −30.54 NR* NR* (Set-II)
BBO Dib et al. [11] −29.61 NR* NR*
EP Mandal et al. [9] −28.92 NR* NR*
NR* = Not Reported

Table 6: Statistical parameters obtained by employing SSA

and MSSA
Array Set Minimum Maximum Standard
Algorithm Type No. CF CF Mean CF deviation
SSA Case-I I 0.37 0.77 0.65 0.11
II 1.12 1.48 1.38 0.09
Case-II I 0.41 0.71 0.62 0.08
II 1.11 1.48 1.40 0.13
MSSA Case-I I 0.35 0.75 0.62 0.11
II 1.09 1.45 1.35 0.08
Case-II I 0.40 0.69 0.61 0.08 Figure 9: Box and whisker plots of different algorithms for Case-II
II 1.06 1.44 1.37 0.13 (Set-I)

Table 7: t-test values of SSA and MSSA compared with MFO

algorithm
Array Type Set No. Algorithms t-test value
Case-I Set-I SSA/MFO 3.0406
MSSA/MFO 4.3437
Set-II SSA/MFO 3.5233
MSSA/MFO 5.6250
Case-II Set-I SSA/MFO 3.1250
MSSA/MFO 3.7500
Set-II SSA/MFO 2.9605
MSSA/MFO 4.0713

Figure 10: Box and whisker plots of different algorithms for Case-
II (Set-II)

4.3 Convergence Profile Plots of SSA and MSSA

The convergence profiles of different algorithms are plot-
ted with the CF values versus the iteration cycles. Fig-
ures 11 and 12 show the convergence profiles of the SSA
and MSSA obtained for the CCAA structure design of
Case-I (Set-I and Set-II) and Case-II (Set-I and Set-II),
Figure 7: Box and whisker plots of different algorithms for Case-I respectively.
(Set-I)
Figures 11 and 12 show the outstanding performance of
the stability for SSA and MSSA.
 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY
Figure 11: Convergence plots of SSA based results for non-
uniform CCAA
Figure 12: Convergence plots of MSSA based results for non-
uniform CCAA
5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, Social Spider Algorithm (SSA) and Mod-
ified Social Spider Algorithm (MSSA) techniques are
employed individually to find out the optimal radiation
pattern of the CCAA in the presence and the absence of
centre element. The method applied here is a generic one
and can be used for any CCAA design having any num-
ber of elements. The prime design goal of this paper is to
obtain the smallest SLL as well as the narrowest FNBW
for the non-uniform 3-ring CCAA synthesis. The SSA
and MSSA based results and their comparison with the
recently reported literature confirm the outstanding per-
formance of SSA and MSSA for 3-ring CCAA structure
design. Thus SSA and MSSA can be employed efficiently
for the design of a 3-ring CCAA structure.
4205
FUNDING
This work is funded by the Science & Engineering Research
Board (SERB), Department of Science & Technology-Government
of India under the grant EEQ/2017/000519 dated 23 March
2018. The authors are grateful to the Science and Engineering
Research Board for funding the project and Visvesvaraya PhD
Scheme, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India..
ORCID
Avishek Das http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0320-4098
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 A. DAS ET AL.: SIDE LOBE SUPPRESSION OF CONCENTRIC CIRCULAR ANTENNA ARRAY
Authors
Avishek Das completed his BE degree
in electronics and communication engi-
neering and MTech (the project was
done on Microwave at Antenna Division
in SAMEER-Centre for Electromagnetics,
Chennai) in ECE (Microwave) from The
University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India
in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He received
an MBA degree in human resource from Sikkim Manipal Uni-
versity in the year 2014 and completed his PhD degree in 2020
from National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, West Bengal,
India under Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme for Electronics and IT,
Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India. Presently,
he is working as assistant professor in the Department of Elec-
tronics and Communication Engineering, Haldia Institute of
Technology, Haldia, West Bengal, India and associated as a post
PhD researcher at National Institute of Technology, Durgapur,
on the project funded by Science and Engineering Research
Board, Department of Science and Technology, Government
of India (Grant No. EEQ/2017/000519 dated 23/03/2018). His
research interests include the application of evolutionary opti-
mization techniques for the design of antenna arrays.
Corresponding author. Email: avishek.uit0408@gmail.com
4207
Durbadal Mandal passed BE degree in
electronics and communication engineer-
ing, from Regional Engineering College,
Durgapur, West Bengal, India in the year
1996. He received the MTech and PhD
degrees from National Institute of Tech-
nology, Durgapur, West Bengal, India
in the year 2008 and 2011 respectively.
Presently, he is working in National Institute of Technology,
Durgapur, West Bengal, India, as associate professor in the
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering.
His research interest includes array antenna design; filter opti-
mization via evolutionary computing techniques. He has pub-
lished over 350 research papers in international journals and
conferences.
E-mail: durbadal.bittu@gmail.com
Rajib Kar passed BE degree in electron-
ics and communication engineering, from
Regional Engineering College, Durgapur,
West Bengal, India in the year 2001. He
received the MTech and PhD degrees from
National Institute of Technology, Durga-
pur, West Bengal, India in the year 2008
and 2011, respectively. Presently, he is
working in National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, West
Bengal, India, as associate professor in the Department of Elec-
tronics and Communication Engineering. His research inter-
est includes VLSI circuit optimization, signal processing using
evolutionary computing techniques. He has published over 350
research papers in international journals and conferences.
E-mail: rajibkarece@gmail.com