Synthesis of Sparse Cylindrical Arrays Using Simulated Annealing Algorithm

Abstract—In this paper, simulated annealing algorithm (SA) is applied to the synthesis of cylindrical conformal arrays in order to suppress the peaks of side lobes by acting on the elements’ positions. There are multiple optimization constraints including the number of elements, aperture and minimum element spacing. A constraint matrix is designed to make the solution meet the restriction on the minima distance between elements, and the individual matrix which forms on the basis of constraint matrix is used to express array configurations. The SA does not act on the elements’ positions directly but on the variables in a smaller solution space, this indirect description method makes the SA more computationally efficient. The simulation results confirm the great efficiency and robustness of the proposed method.