GA-based approach to phase compensation of large phased array antennas

Abstract

The investigation of the effect of electrical and mechanical errors on the performance of a large active phased array antenna is studied. These errors can decrease the antenna performance, for instance, the gain reduction, side lobe level enhancement, and incorrect beam direction. In order to improve the performance of the antenna in the presence of these errors, phase error correction of large phased array antennas using the genetic algorithm (GA) is implemented. By using the phase compensation method, the antenna overall radiation pattern is recovered close to the ideal radiation pattern without error. By applying the simulation data to a 32×40 array of elements with a square grid at the frequency of S-band and measurement of the radiation pattern, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified.