High Sidelobe Level Research Articles

A Novel Waveform Optimization Method for Orthogonal-Frequency Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Radar Based on Dual-Channel Neural Networks.

The orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) mode with a linear frequency modulation (LFM) signal as the baseband waveform has been widely studied and applied in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems. However, its high sidelobe levels after pulse compression affect the target detection of radar systems. For this paper, theoretical analysis was performed, to investigate the causes of high sidelobe levels in OFDM-LFM waveforms, and a novel waveform optimization design method based on deep neural networks is proposed. This method utilizes the classic ResNeXt network to construct dual-channel neural networks, and a new loss function is employed to design the phase and bandwidth of the OFDM-LFM waveforms. Meanwhile, the optimization factor is exploited, to address the optimization problem of the peak sidelobe levels (PSLs) and integral sidelobe levels (ISLs). Our numerical results verified the correctness of the theoretical analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed method. The designed OFDM-LFM waveforms exhibited outstanding performance in pulse compression and improved the detection performance of the radar.

Unequally-spaced slot strategy for radiation null reduction in single SIW-embedded antenna element

The incorporation of higher-order modes (HOMs) can substantially augment the antenna gain and bandwidth, but this improvement is typically accompanied by compromised radiation performance including radiation nulls and higher side lobe levels. In this study, an inventive strategy is introduced to reduce the radiation nulls and the side lobe levels of a single antenna element by positioning multiple slots of the radiating element at unequal spacing. Dual hybrid HOMs are analyzed inside a substrate integrated waveguide-based cavity to design a wide band, enhanced gain dual-polarized antenna. The radiating element of the antenna is designed with multiple slots positioned at unequal spacing but symmetrical along the origin. This methodology provides three-fold advantages: a reduction of side lobes, an adjustment of phase center, and a significant reduction of radiation nulls. The antenna has been fabricated, and experimentally validated. The antenna exhibits a reduction in radiation null to − 0.5 dB, a phase adjustment of the main lobe to 0°, and a reduction in side lobe level from − 14.4 dB (N = 2, equal spacing) and − 15.5 dB (N = 4, equal spacing) a maximum of − 19.7 dB (N = 4, unequal spacing) at 12.35 GHz in the phi-0 plane. Excellent agreement between measured and simulated results corroborates the efficacy of the proposed approach. The significant improvement in the radiation performance of the single-element antenna design sets the antenna design apart from the state-of-the-art solutions.

A mutation hill climber for thinning of concentric circular antenna arrays

ABSTRACT Thinned concentric circular antenna arrays (CCAAs) are crucial in modern wireless communication systems. CCAAs are widely used for efficient communication, directivity, and beamforming capabilities. Nevertheless, CCAAs encounter a challenge of radiation patterns characterised by high sidelobe levels (SLL). Designing thinned CCAAs to surmount this limitation for optimal performance can be complex and challenging. This paper employs a mutation hill climber (MHC) algorithm to optimise the CCAA structure. The goal is to attain an optimal design that balances the number of switched-on elements and reduces the maximum SLL. The performance and efficacy of the MHC are examined using two different cases of thinned CCAA design: two-ring and ten-ring configurations. Simulation results reveal the superiority of the MHC over the latest binary metaheuristic techniques in achieving the lowest maximum SLL and the number of switched-on elements. For the two-ring thinned CCAA, the MHC effectively switched off 50 antenna elements, reducing the maximum SLL by 24.92 dB. Meanwhile, for the ten-ring thinned CCAA, the MHC reduced the number of switched-on antenna elements from 440 to 184, reducing the maximum SLL by 34.09 dB.

Low sidelobe planar electrically large sparse array antenna with element number reduction based on genetic algorithm

AbstractConventionally, both electrically larger (EL) arrays and sparse arrays offer the advantage of element number reduction but disadvantage of high sidelobe levels. A new scheme of planar EL sparse array antenna based on a genetic algorithm (GA) to achieve low sidelobe with element number reduction is proposed. To begin with, EL sparse array antenna optimisation models based on GA for both linear and planar arrays are analysed. Then, an EL slot antenna element based on a 3 × 3 substrate integrated waveguide cavity is designed. An 8‐element linear EL sparse array antenna is designed and compared with a uniform array antenna, demonstrating a reduction in the maximum sidelobe level (MSLL) by nearly 4.6 dB. After that, a 4 × 8 element planar EL sparse array antenna is fabricated and measured. Compared to an 8 × 16 element planar EL uniform array antenna, the number of antenna elements is reduced by 75%, while the MSLL is reduced by approximately 3 dB. The measured −10 dB impedance bandwidth ranges from 25.3 to 27.8 GHz. At the central frequency, the radiation pattern achieves a peak gain of 29.6 dBi, exhibiting low sidelobe levels below −15.0 dB.

Frequency Diversity Arc Array with Angle-Distance Two-Dimensional Broadening Null Steering for Sidelobe Suppression

The frequency diversity arc array (FDAA) improves the structure of the traditional frequency diversity array (FDA) from a linear array structure to an arc array structure, so that the FDAA not only has the advantages of the FDA but also has a large angle and omnidirectional scanning capability. However, when it is equivalent to a linear array, this arc-shaped structure will lead to the phenomenon of inverse density weighting, which leads to a higher sidelobe level of the FDAA beam pattern. In order to solve the problem of a high sidelobe level at a certain position of the FDAA, a frequency diversity arc array with angle-distance two-dimensional broadening null steering is proposed for sidelobe suppression. Using a structural model of the FDAA, the problem of the high sidelobe was analyzed. The linear constrained minimum variance (LCMV) method was used to generate a null with a certain width at the position of the fixed strong sidelobe level in the angle domain and the distance domain of the FDAA beam pattern, to reduce the FDAA sidelobe level. Then, the angle domain and distance domain fixed positions of the FDAA were simulated to generate the null beam pattern. The simulation results verified the effectiveness of this method for reducing the sidelobe level.

Cost-effective horn antennas; from E-plane sectionalized to octagonal shapes

ABSTRACT In this paper, low-cost methods of improving horn antennas are studied based on the recently introduced E-plane sectionalized rectangular horn antennas. In the beginning, application of E-plane sectionalizing of the rectangular horn antennas on open-boundary E-plane sectoral horn antennas is reexamined and a simple method for obtaining high gain and low sidelobe levels (SLLs) is introduced. Subsequently, effects of removing the conductive sheets from the modified E-plane sectionalized horn antenna are studied and a simple horn antenna with octagonal aperture is obtained with slightly reduced efficiency. Finally, an ultra-low-cost method of improving simple rectangular horn antennas is introduced based on this study. The purpose is to compensate the destructive effects of high SLLs of reference antennas in the antenna measurements, since a common reference antenna type is the rectangular horn antenna, which has high SLLs on the E-plane. In particular, efficiency improvement and SLL reduction of rectangular horn antennas are achieved by adding only four triangular conductive sheets to construct octagonal horn antennas.

Optimizing Performance of Antenna Arrays with Clustered Fractal Shapes for Multiband Applications

Fractal antennas are mainly used in multiband applications. However, these types of arrays suffer from numerous disadvantages, such as high sidelobe levels, low directivity, poor taper efficiency, and high design computational complexity. In this paper, the conventional fractal procedures are redesigned and efficient clustered subarrays are deployed, such that their multiband properties are maintained while simultaneously achieving significant improvements in radiation characteristics. A genetic optimization algorithm is used to find the optimal clustered fractal shapes and their associated amplitude distributions, such that the sidelobe levels are minimized at the narrower beam width, i.e. maximum feasible directivity. Since the optimization process is carried out at the clustered level, it can be represented by merely a few variables, which solves the problem of time intensity. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed clustered fractal array, where the sidelobe level has been reduced to more than -10 dB over a wide range of frequencies. Directivity and taper efficiency have been improved by more than 6 dB and 50%, respectively, in comparison to the parameters of conventional, original fractal arrays. Moreover, the proposed fractal array pattern offers an additional advantage, as it is capable of wide sidelobe nulling at some undesired directions.

Metallic waveguide transmitarrays for dual-band terahertz antennas with high gain and low sidelobe levels

The antenna is an indispensable device in terahertz (THz) wireless communication systems. Owing to the high propagation attenuation of THz waves in atmospheric, THz antennas with high gain and low sidelobe levels (SLLs) are in an urgent need. Here, a metal waveguide transmitarry antenna (MWTA) is proposed to realize high gain and low SLLs at dual THz bands simultaneously. At the frequencies of 0.14 and 0.0972 THz, the peak gains are 32 and 28 dBi, the SLLs are both 21 dB lower than the main lobe, and the 3 dB beamwidths are 4.4° and 5.7°, respectively. As a proof of concept, a prototype with a diameter of 48 mm is fabricated and the measured results are in good agreement with the simulations. The proposed MWTA with high gain and low SLLs at dual THz bands holds great application potential in 6G wireless communication, non-destructive testing, and biomedicine.

A multi‐objective optimization approach for beam pattern synthesis of UAV virtual rectangular antenna array

AbstractVirtual antenna array (VAA) formed by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) antenna units using collaborative beamforming (CB) technology plays an important role in the air communication system, and can be used in radar, military, disaster rescue and other places. However, there are still some issues with the beam pattern formed by this method, such as high sidelobe level (SLL), high cost and low efficiency. In this article, each UAV carries an omnidirectional antenna unit, and a large number of UAVs form a UAV virtual rectangular antenna array (UVRAA) to communicate with the ground base station (BS). We formulate an overhead minimization and efficient communication multi‐objective optimization problem (OMECMOP) which jointly optimize the excitation current weights of the UVRAA and reduce the number of UAVs in operation to improve the beam pattern, enhance the communication efficiency and decrease the overhead of UVRAA. In addition, we also propose an improved multi‐objective multi‐verse optimization algorithm based on the inverse decline curve type (ISDT‐MOMVO) which introduces a strategy optimization initialization solution with quasi‐opposition based learning (QBL) and a hybrid solution updating operators to solve the OMECMOP. The simulation results show that compared with other traditional swarm intelligence (SI) optimization algorithms the ISDT‐MOMVO algorithm produces better beam pattern and the thinning rate can reach 50%.

A novel linear and planar multiband fractal‐shaped antenna arrays with low sidelobes

SummaryFractal antenna arrays are usually used to tune multiband frequencies. However, these types of iteratively constructed antennas are associated with undesirable high sidelobe levels and low directivities. In this paper, an optimization procedure based on the genetic algorithm is used to find the optimal weights of the array elements such that the corresponding array patterns have low sidelobe levels and good directivity. Moreover, the fractal nature in the proposed arrays is maintained regardless of the optimized weights. Thus, the proposed fractal‐shaped array maintains its capability in performing multiband frequency operation. These good radiation features make the proposed fractal‐shaped array more appropriate for the current and future wireless communication applications. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the presented linear and planar fractal‐shaped array structures with compared to the conventional fractal cantor linear array and the standard Sierpinski carpet planar array. For the proposed fractal cantor linear array, the sidelobe level has been reduced to more than −20 dB at different operating frequencies, and the directivity has been improved by more than 8 dB, while the modified Sierpinski carpet planar array has achieved −30 dB depressions in the sidelobe level and 6 dB improvement in the directivity.

On the 2D Beampattern Optimization of Sparse Group-Constrained Robust Capon Beamforming with Conformal Arrays

To overcome the problems of the high sidelobe levels and low computational efficiency of traditional Capon-based beamformers in optimizing the two-dimensional (elevation–azimuth) beampatterns of conformal arrays, in this paper, we propose a robust Capon beamforming method with sparse group constraints that is solved using the alternating-direction method of multipliers (ADMM). A robustness constraint based on worst-case performance optimization (WCPO) is imposed on the standard Capon beamformer (SCB) and then the sparse group constraints are applied to reduce the sidelobe level. The constraints are two sparsity constraints: the group one and the individual one. The former was developed to exploit the sparsity between groups based on the fact that the sidelobe can be divided into several different groups according to spatial regions in two-dimensional beampatterns, rather than different individual points in one-dimensional (azimuth-only) beampatterns. The latter is considered to emphasize the sparsity within groups. To solve the optimization problem, we introduce the ADMM to obtain the closed-form solution iteratively, which requires less computational complexity than the existing methods, such as second-order cone programming (SOCP). Numerical examples show that the proposed method can achieve flexible sidelobe-level control, and it is still effective in the case of steering vector mismatch.

Dielectric Lens Antenna for Industrial Radar Applications

Industrial radar applications like tank level measurement is an important research and application area in radar technology. Radar level measurement is a safe solution even under extreme process conditions (pressure, temperature) and vapors. Special antennas are required to meet electromagnetic requirements such as high gain, low sidelobe level and high bandwidth. The small side-beam level and narrow main beam primarily minimize reflections from the side of the tank, while the bandwidth determines the distance resolution of the measurement system. Another requirement is a small size and good manufacturability of the antenna. The main promising solutions are the use of microstrip, horn or dielectric lens antennas for tank level measurement systems. After several tests, we have concluded that the optimal choice for tank level radar measurement task, in terms of integrability and antenna parameters, is a dielectric antenna. The dielectric antenna has many other applications in modern mobile systems as 5 and 6 G systems where these antennas are elements of antenna arrays of beamforming or MIMO systems. In this paper, a special dielectric lens antenna is presented, satisfying main requirements, namely a circular antenna cross section, high antenna aperture efficiency and low sidelobe level. The center frequency of the antenna is 26 GHz with a band width of 1 GHz. The paper presents the analytic investigation and design of the dielectric lens antenna and the circular wave guide transition in detail. The electromagnetic design of the antenna was carried out using CST Microwave Studio 3D software.

Photonic generation of Barker encoded dual-nonlinear frequency modulated RADAR waveforms

Photonics enables the development of versatile waveform generators with carrier frequency tunability and broad bandwidths, allowing for high-range resolution for modern radar systems. Linear frequency-modulated waveforms are widely employed in various radar applications due to their large time-bandwidth products but are limited in functionality due to high sidelobe levels, resulting in a poor signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). On the other hand, non-linear frequency-modulated waveforms (NLFM) have a faster sweep rate at the edges than at the center, resulting in high SNRs, which can be boosted further through encoding techniques. A photonic approach for generating Barker-encoded dual-NLFM waveforms through a dual-drive Mach Zehnder modulator is proposed with improved range resolution, pulse compression ratio, and peak-to-sidelobe ratio. A theoretical analysis is performed, which is then modeled, and experimentally confirmed. Barker-encoded dual-NLFM waveforms are generated at 6 GHz with 500 MHz chirp bandwidth showing a maximum range resolution of 19.89 cm with PCR of 9803.

Effective reduction of sidelobes in pulse compression radars using NLFM signal processing approaches

Pulse compression techniques are widely used in modern radar systems to enhance range resolution and detection capability. As signal design is one of the basic factors of an efficient radar system, the problem of designing a radar signal with good characteristics using pulse compression is addressed in this paper. A linear frequency modulated (LFM) waveform has been widely used for conventional radars. However, it has a higher sidelobe level which makes the detection of weak targets very difficult in presence of strong targets returns and as a result the problem of masking occurs. In order to get suppressed sidelobes of radar matched filter output as well as preserve the main lobe resolution and level to overcome the problem of masking, nonlinear frequency modulated (NLFM) signals are used in modern radars. In this paper, we will introduce two different approaches to design an optimized NLFM signal which is characterized by optimized sidelobe level (SLL). The first is the exponential piecewise linear function (EPWL) which is the modification of piecewise linear (PWL) functions relying on an exponential predistortioning function. The second is the odd-term polynomial approximation (OTPA) in which the generation of NLFM signal depends only on odd-powered terms of the polynomial function. Furthermore, the simulation results of autocorrelation functions (ACF) of the proposed signals show its superiority over the traditional LFM signals and significantly enhancement compared to the recent background work. The Doppler sensitivity of the designed signals has been evaluated, revealing that the first approach offers Doppler tolerance and is suitable for surveillance radar systems, while the second approach with a lower sidelobe level is used in applications such as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Finally, the ambiguity function of the designed signals has been measured to illustrate the effect of the Doppler effect relative to different velocities.

Tapered high-gain Fabry–Perot cavity antenna with high sidelobe suppression for 5G industry

We propose a Fabry–Perot cavity (FPC) antenna to suppress a sidelobe level (SLL) while maintaining a reasonably high gain. Generally, conventional FPC antennas (FPCAs) produce a high SLL because waves in their FPC leak considerably through lateral openings, which is a primary reason for lowering antenna gains. We propose two design approaches to solve this problem: the reflection magnitude tapering of a partially reflective surface (PRS) and considering different incident modes for the PRS design. First, the proposed tapering can remarkably reduce an SLL by providing the PRS with more radiation opportunities. Second, the different incident modes of transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) can increase an antenna gain by considering a more realistic illumination environment of the PRS. We have proven that our antenna provides 19.8 dBi realized gain with high sidelobe suppression (SLS) of more than 23 dB. Consequently, the proposed FPCA can suppress sidelobes significantly while maintaining a high gain. Good agreement between simulations and experiments demonstrates the usefulness of our proposal.

A split-ring resonator full/sparse planar array based on Chebyshev polynomial

A planar split-ring resonator (SRR) antenna full/sparse array, fed by a Chebyshev distribution, is proposed in this paper. Following the Yagi principle, the antenna element consists of SRRs and an I-shaped resonator. The inclusion of the I-shaped resonator enhances coupling, resulting in high gain. Additionally, a 14 × 13 Chebyshev planar antenna array, based on corporate feed, allows for a non-uniform amplitude distribution to suppress side lobes. The proposed Chebyshev planar array exhibits high gain characteristics and low side lobe levels (SLL) in both the E- and H-planes. For sidelobes suppression further, by utilizing a genetic algorithm, a planar sparse array is constructed based on the proposed Chebyshev array. The measured gain of the array at 10.1 GHz is 22.4 dBi, with SLL values of −20.4 dB and −17.5 dB in the E- and H-planes, respectively. These results meet the requirements for wireless communication.

A Single Plane Low profile Patch Antenna π-Shaped Slots and Low Side Lobe Level for Directive Wireless Communications

The patch antenna was used recently for ISM band (5.725 – 5.875) GHz, the patch antenna suffers of being an antenna with low gain as well as narrow operating bandwidth with high side lobe level (SSL) radiation pattern. A single plane with low profile and easy fabrication microstrip patch antenna has been proposed in this work was presented for directive communications and operates in Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band 5.8 GHz with low SLL radiation pattern and gain of 5.20 dB for pint to point (directive). The gain of antenna has been increased while SLL decreased due to shifting the radiating patch and feeder of antenna with specific distance toward –ve side of the X-axis without any need for using techniques which would increase overall dimensions of antenna. The antenna has been printed on Arlon AD 250 substrate. The simulated results of antenna’s gain, operating frequency, bandwidth, return loss, and radiation pattern are presented. CST Microwave studio software was used in this design simulation.

Low-Profile Multibeam Antenna Based on Modulated Metasurface

Linearly polarized (LP) multi-port multi-beam antennas (MBAs) based on modulated metasurface (MTS) are presented in this paper. A key challenge for MTS to generate multiple independent beams is the mutual interference of different impedance modulations. This interference can lead to reduced directivities of main beams and high side lobe levels (SLLs). A full-wave based optimization for a large number of beams is significantly time consuming and practically ineffective. The source locations are optimized here by employing the aperture field calculated from a zeroth-order approximation (ZOA) of the currents on the surface. This provides a good preliminary accuracy without any full-wave analysis. The relevant design method is verified by two examples of 3-beam and 7-beam MTS antennas. Furthermore, the 7-beam MTS antenna is fabricated and successfully measured. The measurements show a measured realized gain of 20 dBi at 14.10 GHz with a beam coverage (10-dB overlap) up to ±36°. It is seen that the same performance requires larger areas with conventional summation of apertures.

Supervised Reciprocal Filter for OFDM Radar Signal Processing

In this paper, we address the problem of the range-Doppler map evaluation in continuous wave radar exploiting OFDM signals. This stage is usually implemented by resorting to a suboptimal batches algorithm and a typical choice is to fragment the signal in batches with length equal to the OFDM symbol length and to apply at each batch an appropriate range compression strategy: typically, either Matched Filter (MF) or Reciprocal Filter (RF). The former provides the best performance against noise-limited scenarios, whereas the latter against clutter-limited scenarios, thanks to its high Peak SideLobe Level (PSL). Using “OFDM fragmentation” requires symbol synchronization and sets constraints on the coherent processing chain; moreover, we show that it provides a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) loss both when using MF and RF. Therefore, we investigate the case of “non-OFDM fragmentation”, which does not require synchronization and avoids setting constraints on the processing chain. Specifically, we address the case of batch lengths longer than a single OFDM symbol that can potentially reduce the SNR loss at long ranges. We find that this is effective for the MF, but causes an even higher SNR loss for the direct application of the RF filter, which still provides a low level of sidelobes. Aiming at preserving the potential benefits of the RF over the MF against the clutter-limited scenarios, we propose some modified versions of the RF for the non-OFDM fragmentation case, which are shown to offer a trade-off between SNR losses and sidelobes level control. The effectiveness of the proposed approaches is demonstrated both by providing theoretical performance prediction expressions and by using simulated analyses. To this purpose, a case study is considered for a passive radar exploiting DVB-T transmissions

Grating Lobe Suppression for Distributed Phased Array via Accumulated Array Pattern Synthesis

Long-sparse distributed phased array (DPA) is a promising technique for increasing resolution and reducing expense. However, inherent grating lobes (GLs) caused by large internode distance are hard to suppress, especially for the limited available nodes case. To solve this problem, a novel accumulated array pattern synthesis (AAPS) scheme to suppress the GLs is proposed, utilizing the time-varying node motion to fill the spatial domain sampling. Furthermore, the high sidelobe level problems caused by mismatching between the actual and nominal position of moving nodes due to imperfect motion control are also considered. Hence, under the AAPS scheme, a measurement-based matching (MBM) algorithm is supplementally proposed based on measuring the relative position and angle between nodes. Simulations are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.