Reduction of Side Lobe Levels of Sum Patterns from Discrete Arrays Using Genetic Algorithm

Antennas are vital elements in any wireless communication systems. Radiation pattern is an important characteristic of an antenna. Radiation pattern of a single antenna element is fixed. Required radiation patterns can be generated from array of antennas. Different pattern synthesis techniques are reported in the literature. Generated patterns from selected pattern synthesis techniques can further be optimized using optimization techniques like genetic algorithms. Genetic Algorithm(GA) is a popular optimization technique for better solutions. A typical genetic algorithm requires genetic representation of the solution domain, fitness function to evaluate the solution domain. Once the genetic representation and the fitness function are defined, a GA proceeds to initialize a population of solutions and then to improve it through repetitive application of the mutation, crossover, inversion and selection operators. Sum patterns are generated using Fourier synthesis technique. The task of reducing the side lobe levels of generated sum patterns using optimization technique is considered in this work.