The Use of Inverse Neural Networks in Transmitarray
Antenna Design
G.Gosal, D.A.McNamara & M.C.E.Yagoub
School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Abstract — The design of transmitarray antennas usually utilizes
a database consisting of the complex transmission coefficient
values of an element as a function of its controllable geometrical
features. In the design process this database needs to be
“inverted” so that transmission coefficients can be input and
geometrical feature values output. When more than one such
feature applies the latter process is not entirely straightforward,
but inverse neural networks can be used for such purposes.
I. INTRODUCTION
A printed lens (transmitarray) antenna [1]), depicted in
Fig.1, consists of layers of conducting shapes etched on
multiple dielectric sheets. The conductor layers are divided
into a lattice of cells, with a conducting shape in each cell. A
feed horn (or other appropriate radiator) illuminates the input
surface of the lens. There is thus an incident field distribution
over the input surface that is not uniform in either amplitude
or phase. If, as in the present case, we wish the transmitarray
antenna to have a pencil beam, the purpose of the lens
structure is to transform the incoming field so that the field
phase distribution over the output surface of the lens is as
uniform as possible, and the amplitude at each cell as close to
unity as possible. The conducting shapes thus vary from cell to
cell in order to provide a different transmission coefficient
phase ∠Tn at each cell (say the n-th cell) to ensure the correct
transformation of the incident field there. Although the
techniques to be described in this paper can in principle be
used with any transmitarray geometry, we illustrated their use
by applying it to one consisting of three layers of square
conducting patches separated by dielectric spacers [2], as
sketched in cross-section in Fig.1. Once we know what ∠Tn
must be for each transmittarray element (or cell) the
dimensions of the conductors of each element must be
selected. In the present case the dimensions a1 and a2 on the
three conducting element layers constitute the geometrical
feature of each lens element whose variation allows one to
adjust the ∠Tn values. The specific pair (a1 , a2 ) chosen
should be that which provides the desired ∠Tn and a Tn that
is as close to unity as possible. As implied above, the ∠Tn
values vary as a function of position over the lens aperture,
and so the elements are not all identical. The lens is therefore
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not a periodic structure, although the cell lattice is regular.
Nevertheless, in order to determine the database of complex
Tn values versus (a1 , a2 ) the element is considered to reside in
an infinite periodic array of identically-sized elements, the
phase of the resulting surface's plane wave transmission
coefficient computed, and thus considered to be the Tn for the
n-th element. This is repeated for different element sizes and a
database of Tn versus feature size (a1 , a2 ) is constructed.
The final step in the design of the antenna involves the
selection of the correct element size (a1 , a2 ) for each unit cell
to obtain the desired phase at points over the transmitarray
output surface. This selection can be done relatively easily if
there is a single geometrical feature that needs to be selected
for each element in turn. However, if there is more than one
feature, such as the two quantities a1 and a2 in the present
case, the selection process (the process that needs to “invert”
the database) is more difficult. It is the aspect of interest here.
II. NEURAL NETWORK METHODS
It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the essentials
[3] of artificial neural networks (ANN). The database of Tn
versus (a1 , a2 ) information is generated using an HFSS model
[4] of the associated infinite periodic structure. This data is
used to set up a “forward” ANN that rapidly returns the value
of Tn when (a1 , a2 ) is specified. In particular, we have used a
three-layer MLP structure [3], trained using a quasi-Newton
algorithm as implemented in the Neuromodeler Plus software
[5]. During the antenna design process, when a certain
required transmission phase value ∠Tn is specified, the
database needs to be interrogated to provide all those feature
pairs (a1 , a2 ) that will give this value of ∠Tn . There are many
such pairs that will provide the specific ∠Tn value. This non-
uniqueness issue makes the “inverting” process difficult.
The above design procedure is similar to that used in
reflectarray antenna design, namely database construction and
its use in the selection of some appropriate element
geometrical feature to control the (in the reflectarray case)
reflection phase of each element. Forward ANNs are used for
reflectarray databases in [6,7,8], with an optimization
algorithm (PSO) used in [8] for the “inverting” process.
AP-S 2014
 Reference [9] recognizes such optimization as a viable way in Fig.3 are the points ( ∠Tntarget , ∠Tndirect ). Ideally these
to accomplish such inversion, but describes an alternative so-
should all lie on the solid straight line shown. The
called inverse neural network (INN) approach. We use an INN
discrepancies arise because the forward ANN is imperfect (but
approach here. The INN is generated for the ∠Tn , using the acceptable) due to the limited number of database points used
forward ANN representation of the ∠Tn versus (a1 , a2 ) in training it, but these can be increased if needed.
database mentioned earlier. Note that a forward ANN
representation of Tn versus (a1 , a2 ) is also established, and
used as will be mentioned below, but it does not form part of
the construction of the INN. Due to the non-uniqueness noted
above the training process can become “contradictory” [9],
and so we divide the database space into several neural sub-
models based on adjoint criteria [9]. The INN is constructed
using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm as implemented in
Matlab. During the antenna design the final (a1 , a2 ) selected
for a particular element is done by examining all the (a1 , a2 )
pairs obtruded by the INN for that element, using the forward
ANN to find the Tn for each case, and selecting that which
Fig.2 Graph of the set of points ( ∠Tntarget , ∠Tnforward ) .
has a Tn closest to unity. It is easy to build in other features
as well, such as selecting a particular (a1 , a2 ) pair which will
result in the most relaxed tolerance requirements, and so on.
X

a 2 a
Feed 1

F n-th Cell Feed

Radiator

Input Surface
Z
of Lens
F
X
n-th Element Fig.3 Graph of the set of points ( ∠Tntarget , ∠Tndirect ) .
Output Surface
of Lens

Y Z
Fig.1 Depiction of a transmittarray antenna (left), and a cross-sectional view
(right) of the three-layer transmitarray structure. Dimensional feature pair
(a1, a2 ) of the symmetrical structure control the element transmission.
It is always important to check how well the INN is
working. Two such checks are described here. A set of target
transmission phase values (say ∠Tntarget ) is input to the INN,
which provides the feature pair (a1 , a2 ) for each ∠Tntarget
value. These (a1 , a2 ) are then each used as input to the
forward ANN, and the associated transmission phase values
predicted (say ∠Tnforward ) for each. Fig.2 shows a scatter graph
of the points ( ∠Tntarget , ∠Tnforward ). It is clear that these points
do indeed lie on a straight line, showing that the INN is
successfully inverting the forward ANN representation of the
database without much error. The same set of (a1 , a2 ) values
obtained from the INN is then used as input to the HFSS
infinite periodic structure model, and an associated set of
transmission phase values (say ∠Tndirect ) obtained. The circles
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