Phase-only Synthesis of Linear Microstrip Patch Antenna Array using Improved Local Search Particle Swarm Optimization

Antenna arrays have been used for various applications in wireless communications, Radar, satellite communications and mobile communications. Low sidelobe antenna arrays are need to be designed for increasing the efficiency of the communication systems. In this paper, an enhanced version of particle swarm optimization (PSO) known as improved local search particle swarm optimization (ILSPSO) is proposed to synthesis of phased antenna arrays. ILSPSO is a modified version of particle swarm optimization (PSO), in which Gaussian distribution is used to enhance the local search of the PSO. ILSPSO is applied to optimize the phase excitations of the individual elements to suppress the side lobe levels of a linear micro strip rectangular patch antenna array (MSRPA). A 20 and 32 element antenna array have been considered to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The optimized micro strip antenna is simulated using high frequency structure simulator (HFSS). The synthesis results demonstrate that the ILSPSO outperforms PSO and DE in terms of producing lower PSLL and convergence rate. The flexibility and ease of implementation of the ILSPSO algorithm is obvious from this paper, showing the algorithms usefulness in other array synthesis problems.