Synthesis of thinned planar concentric circular antenna arrays using biogeography-based optimisation

Abstract

This study presents a novel optimisation algorithm biogeography-based optimisation (BBO) for thinning large multiple concentric circular ring arrays. The objective is to achieve an array of uniformly excited isotropic antennas that will generate a narrow beam with minimum relative sidelobe level (SLL). BBO is a new comprehensive force based on the science of biogeography. Biogeography is the schoolwork of geographical allotment of biological organisms. BBO utilises migration operator to share information between the problem solutions. The problem solutions are known as habitats and sharing of features is called migration. In this study, the authors propose pattern synthesis method to reduce the SLLs with narrow beamwidth (BW) by making the ring array thinned using the BBO algorithm. The thinning percentage of the array is kept equal to or more than 50% and the BW is kept equal to or less than that of a fully populated, uniformly excited and 0.5λw, spaced concentric circular ring array of same number of elements and rings. The results obtained are compared with previous published results of modified particle swarm optimisation and differential evolution with global and local neighbourhoods.