Optimal synthesis of linear antenna arrays using a harmony search algorithm

A method based on harmony search algorithm (HSA) for the pattern synthesis of linear antenna arrays with the prescribed nulls is presented. Nulling of the pattern is achieved by controlling the amplitude-only, the phase-only, and the position-only. The HSA is conceptualized using the musical process of searching for a perfect state of harmony. To show the effectiveness of the proposed HSA, several examples of linear antenna array patterns with the imposed single, multiple and broad nulls are given. It is found that the nulling method based on HSA is capable of steering the array nulls precisely to the undesired interference directions. The results of HSA are compared with the results of the modified touring ant colony optimization (MTACO), the bees algorithm (BA), the bacterial foraging algorithm (BFA), the plant growth simulation algorithm (PGSA), the clonal selection algorithm (CLONALG), the particle swarm optimization (1,50), the quadratic programming method (QPM), the tabu search algorithm (TSA), the genetic algorithm (GA), the memetic algorithm (MA), the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm 2 (NSGA-2), the multiobjective differential evolution (MODE), and the multiobjective evolutionary algorithms based on decomposition with differential evolution (MOEA/D-DE). (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.