New Stochastic Algorithm for Optimization of Both Side Lobes and Grating Lobes in Large Antenna Arrays for MPT

The concept of placing enormous Solar Power Satellite (SPS) systems in space represents one of a handful of new technological options that might provide large scale, environmentally clean base load power to terrestrial markets. Recent advances in space exploration have shown a great need for antennas with high resolution, high gain and low side lobe level (SLL). The last characteristic is of paramount importance especially for the Microwave Power Transmission (MPT) in order to achieve higher transmitting efficiency (TE) and higher beam collection efficiency (BCE). In order to achieve low side lobe levels, statistical methods play an important role. Various interesting properties of a large antenna arrays with randomly, uniformly and combined spacing of elements have been studied, especially the relationship between the required number of elements and their appropriate spacing from one viewpoint and the desired SLL, the aperture dimension, the beamwidth and TE from the other. We propose a new unified approach in searching for reducing SLL by exploiting the interaction of deterministic and stochastic workspaces of proposed algorithms. Our models indicate the side lobe levels in a large area around the main beam and strongly reduce SLL in the entire visible range. A new concept of designing a large antenna array system is proposed. Our theoretic study and simulation results clarify how to deal with the problems of side lobes in designing a large antenna array, which seems to be an important step toward the realization of future SPS/MPT systems. key words: microwave power transmission, large antenna array, uniform spacing, random spacing, spatial and amplitude tapering, side lobe level, grating lobes, workspace, transmitting efficiency, beam collection efficiency