A. Electromagnetic Coupling.
The electromagnetic coupling
PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT OF ARRAY
ANTENNAS IN THE PRESENCE OF
ENVIRONMENTAL OBJECTS USING
GENETIC ALGORITHMS
L. Landesa,1 F. Obelleiro,1 and J. L. Rodrıguez
´ 1
1
´ das Comunicacions
Departamento de Tecnoloxıas ´ nonlinear optimization algorithm.
´
E.T.S.E. Telecomunicacion
Universidade de Vigo
36200 Vigo, Spain
Recei¨ ed 28 May 1999
ABSTRACT: A no¨ el technique is presented which allows us to impro¨ e
the radiation characteristics of an array antenna in the presence of an
obstacle by simply switching off some of the array elements. This method
combines an electromagnetic modeling technique with a genetic algo-
rithm to determine the elements that must be switched off. It can be
useful in working systems in which an object has been placed in its
near-field region. In these cases, it may be impossible (or too expensi¨ e)
to change the excitation coefficients, but it is ¨ ery easy to turn off some
elements. 䊚 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol
Lett 23: 324᎐325, 1999.
Key words: array antennas; genetic algorithms
I. INTRODUCTION
It is well known that the radiation of antennas mounted in
complex environments is highly influenced by the presence of
other elements located in its near-field region. This causes a
degradation of the antenna pattern as well as gain losses.
Recently, some methods have been developed in order to
control and reduce these problems w1᎐6x. These previous
works are useful when the antenna is designed knowing its
final environment. However, in some cases, the antenna has
been designed previously, and later, an obstacle is placed
blocking it. In these cases, it may be impossible Žor too
expensive. to change the excitation coefficients. Nevertheless,
it would be very easy to switch off some array elements.
In this letter, we propose a technique which allows us to
improve the radiation characteristics of an array antenna by
the simple procedure of turning off some elements. This
could be easily implemented by installing an electronically
controllable switch in each array element. The proposed
method also may be useful to reconfigure the array when
some elements are damaged Žin this case, the array may be
synthesized upon the constraint of null excitation in the
damaged elements.. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that
the results always will be limited because a precise control of
the excitations is not allowed.
II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Consider the problem of an array antenna that has been
designed to fit some specifications in a given range of scan-
ning directions. Afterwards, the presence of an obstacle causes
a significant degradation in the antenna performance. In the
proposed method, an optimization process, based on genetic
algorithms, is applied to the electromagnetic problem, includ-
ing the coupling between the array and the obstacle. This
process will provide a list of those elements which must be
switched off in order to reduce the degradation.
´ Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologıa
Contract grant sponsor: Comision ´
ŽCICYT .
Contract grant number: Project Ref. TIC97-0821-C02-01
324 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 23, No. 5, December 5 1999
between the antenna and the obstacles may be analyzed by
different numerical techniques. In this work, we have used
the well-known method of moments ŽMoM. w7x. It must be
pointed out that the coupling between the obstacle and the
array is calculated only once, which is an important advan-
tage due to the high number of iterations involved in any
This coupling array obstacle can be formulated in a matrix
form, by imposing electric or magnetic field boundary condi-
tions on the surface of the obstacle:
A ⭈ x s b Žy. Ž1.
where A is the impedance matrix which does not depend on
the array coefficients Žy., b is the excitation vector, and x
accounts for the unknown coefficients of the MoM basis used
to model the obstacle.
Otherwise, b depends on the array coefficients y as shown
in the following matrix relation:
b Žy. s B ⭈ y Ž2.
where B is a matrix which contains the radiation of the array
elements Žexcitation. over the obstacle.
The global radiation of the array and the obstacle to-
gether may be formulated as
St s Sa ⭈ y q So ⭈ x Ž3.
where S a denotes the radiation matrix of the isolated array,
S o denotes the radiation matrix of the currents associated
with the obstacle, and vectors x and y can be related through
Eqs. Ž1. and Ž2.. Thus, Eq. Ž3. can be written as a function of
the array coefficients as
S t s S a ⭈ y q S o ⭈ w Ay1 ⭈ B ⭈ yx s w S a q S o ⭈ Ay1 ⭈ Bx ⭈ y Ž 4 .
which is the expression that will be used in the optimization
algorithm.
B. Optimization by Genetic Algorithms. Genetic algorithms
ŽGAs. w8x are iterative optimization procedures which have
proved to be very useful tools for optimization problems
involving highly nonlinear andror nondifferentiable objective
functions. Their repetitive application to a population of
potential solutions Žthrough the application of the selection,
crossover, and mutation operator. results in an optimization
process that resembles the natural evolution. Although these
techniques can be used for general optimization problems,
they typically operate on a discretized andror coded repre-
sentation of the parameters themselves, namely, when the
optimization unknowns can be physically represented by a
chromosome or binary string. They have been extensively
used for different problems involving optimization of the
array antenna excitation w9, 10x.
In this paper, GAs have been preferred to other stochastic
algorithms due to their inherent accommodation to the prob-
lem. The chromosome is straightforwardly defined by a binary
string of 1s Žswitched-on elements. and 0s Žswitched-off ele-
ments.. With this definition and the matrix system calculated
at the beginning, we may obtain the chromosome that opti-
mizes the radiation parameter. Each chromosome produces a
modified y⬘-vector Žoriginal y-vector with 0s in the switched-off
elements., which is included in Eq. Ž4. in order to obtain the
global radiation that we are optimizing. It must be pointed
out that the excitation of the active elements is the same as
in the original system with all active elements. This parame-
ter can be, for example, the directivity or the radiation
pattern.
III. NUMERICAL RESULTS
In order to illustrate the performance of the proposed algo-
rithm, a two-dimensional Ž2-D. problem has been addressed.
A linear array antenna of electric line sources is blocked by
the double perfectly electric conducting obstacle, as seen in
Figure 1. The array has been previously designed, using
uniform amplitude and a progressive phase distribution for
the excitations, in order to provide high directivity for every
scanning direction. Nevertheless, the presence of the obstacle
provides an important degradation in the radiation properties
of the antenna. Figure 1 compares the scanning capability
Ždirectivity. of the antenna when the obstacle is present and
the improved solution achieved by switching off the array
elements selected according to the proposed method. It can
be seen that an acceptable gain is achieved, even more than 3
dB in some scanning directions. Finally, a map of elements
for each scanning direction is shown in Figure 2, where white
boxes represent active elements and black boxes represent
nonactive elements. In this example, it can be seen that the
results obtained for small scanning angles could be essentially
summarized under the trivial and intuitive rule of turning off
the elements shadowed for the obstacles, which demonstrates
that the solution achieved is quite logical, although this rule
cannot be extended to larger scanning angles. In any case, it
has been observed that a significant improvement is obtained
when the proposed method is compared with the above-men-
tioned rule of thumb for the whole range of scanning angles.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
A novel and simple technique has been presented, which
allows us to improve the radiation characteristics of an array
antenna in the presence of an obstacle by simply switching
Figure 1 Directivity versus scanning angle of an array antenna
blocked by a double obstacle. d s 0.5␭, D 1 s 1 ␭, D 2 s 10.8 ␭, a s
9␭, b s 1 ␭, r s 1.2 ␭, N s 41. ᎏᎏᎏ Array with obstacles, ⭈⭈⭈⭈⭈⭈⭈⭈⭈⭈
improved solution
MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 23, No. 5, December 5 1999
Figure 2 Map of switch-off elements. Open ŽI. blocks represent
switched-on elements, and solid ŽB. blocks represent switched-off
elements
off some of the array elements. The method has been de-
scribed as a combination of the method of moments with a
genetic algorithm optimization, although it may be easily
extended to any other time-harmonic electromagnetic meth-
ods. The application of the proposed technique has been
illustrated for a practical situation, demonstrating its effi-
ciency and usefulness.
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䊚 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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