Beam-Scanning Sparse Array Design with Minimum

Spacing Constraint
Jing Yang1, Yanhui Liu1, Xin Huang1, Xiaofeng Tan2, Qing Huo Liu3
1
Department of Electronic Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361005, China (yanhuiliu@xmu.edu.cn)
2
Overseas Education College, Jimei University, Xiamen, Fujian 361021, China
3
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA

II. DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD

Abstract- In this paper, we propose a new method to design a
beam-scanning sparse array with minimum spacing constraint. A. Beam-scanning array model
The proposed method consists of two optimization steps. In the Consider a linear array consisting of N antenna elements
first step, an iterative reweighted L1-norm optimization is used to located on the z-axis, then the pattern is,
obtain an initial sparse array without minimum spacing N
dn cos –cos
constraint. In the second step, we carry on a series of element f ã wne j 0
(1)
combination and perturbations to meet the minimum spacing nã1
constraint. An example is given to design a sparse array which where is the beam pointing direction, ã2 / and is
0
has the minimum spacing of 0.5 wavelength and the beam
scanning from -45o to 135o. the wavelength at working frequency. wn is the excitation of
the n -th element, and d n is the corresponding position of the
n -th element. For a scannable beam pattern, we let
I. INTRODUCTION
u ã cos -cos 0 , then we have
Array antennas with scannable beams have many N

applications in communications, radar systems and so on [1][2]. f u ã wn e j dn u

(2)
n ã1
Among the array antennas, sparse arrays have received more
where the range of u is extended from [–1,1] to
and more attention in recent years due to their advantages such
m in m ax
as the reduction in the antenna weight and cost. Many sparse [– 1 – cos 0 ,1 – c o s 0 ] for the beam pointing
array synthesis methods have been presented, for example, the direction scanning from min
to max
.
0 0 0
methods in [3-7]. For this highly nonlinear problem, most of
them do not take account into the minimum spacing constraint,
although this constraint is very significant for practical B. Minimize the Number of Elements for A Scannable Beam
antenna array. Recently, few methods such as in [6] and [7] Minimizing the number of elements is equivalent to set some
have considered the antenna spacing constraint in the excitation ( wi ) equal to zeros. That is
synthesis; however, they are proposed only for fixed beam min w (3)
w 0
patterns. T
In this paper, we present a new method to synthesize the where w ã [ w1 , w2 ,..., wN ] , and w 0 represent the number of
beam-scanning sparse linear array with the minimum spacing non-zeros. However, this problem is non-convex, so that it
constraint. This method consists of two optimization steps. In can’t be solved easily. Then we change (3) into following L1-
the first step, we solve the reweighted L1 norm iterative norm optimization,
optimization problem. Each iteration of this step performs the min w 1 (4)
reweighted L1 norm minimization under the sidelobe upper w

bound constraint. Since the minimum spacing constraint does The above optimization can produce a sparse solution. To
not be considered in this step, the synthesized array probably further improve the sparsity of the solution, we can perform
does not meet this constraint. To overcome this problem, we the reweighted L1-norm optimization. Finally, the problem of
perform the second synthesis step, and in each step the minimizing the number of elements for a beam-scanning array
neighboring elements with the spacing less than the minimum can be formulated as follows:
k
spacing requirement is appropriately merged to be one min wi k
element and then small perturbations on element positions,
s.t. f (u 0 ) ã 1 (5)
amplitudes and phases for the merged array is performed to
optimize the synthesis performance. The second step will not f (u sll ) sll
be stopped until all the element spacings are no less than the where k
ã 1 / wi k –1
õ , â 0 , and k represents the
prescribed minimum spacing. Numerical results show the
effectiveness of the proposed idea. number of iteration. sll is the sidelobe level constraint. After
getting the optimal result, the element with the excitation
amplitude below w can be discarded. Then the elements with after the first reweighted L1-norm optimization step and the
larger excitations are reserved, so the resulting solution is a second merging and perturbation step. Fig. 2 shows the
sparse array. Provided the number of the reserved elements is synthesized patterns after the two steps. As can be seen, the
S , then the array’s pattern can be written as second step can solve the small spacing problem while
S maintaining the pattern acceptable.
f r (u ) ã ws e j ds u
(6)
s ã1

C. Re-optimizing the Sparse Array with Spacing Constraint

Although we obtain a sparse solution in the above step, the
spacing between two adjacent antennas may be larger than the
prescribed spacing constraint. Thus, we will perform the
second step for reoptimizing the sparse array to meet the
minimum spacing constraint. The second step is performing
the following two operations successively:
a) Find out the spacing of adjacent elements, and confirm
whether the minimum spacing is below d . If so, just combine
the two adjacent elements, and if not, stop the whole process.
b) Add perturbations to the position and the weight and let the
position and weight perturbations subject to corresponding Fig. 1. The excitation distributions after the first reweighted L1-norm
constraints. Then, optimize the sidelobe level. When Step a) is optimization step and the second merging and perturbation step
finished, turn to Step b).
The problem of perturbing the positions and excitations can
be expressed as the following optimization problem
S
f (u ) ws + ws e j ( ds ds )u
(7)
s ã1

min f (u ) u u sidelobe
w

s. t . Re f (u0 ) ã 1
Im f (u0 ) ã 0 (8)
ws w

ds d
Fig. 2. The synthesized patterns after the first reweighted L1-norm
The above problem can be solved by using convex optimization step and the second merging and perturbation step
optimization[8], if we adopt the following approximation
S
f (u ) ws + ws e j ( ds ds ) u
IV. CONCLUSION
s ã1
S
(9)
ws + ws e j dsu
1 j dsu The proposed method can synthesize a beam-scanning sparse
s ã1 linear array with the minimum spacing constraint. A synthesis
example is provided to validate the effectiveness of the
proposed method. Since the minimum spacing constraint can
III. RESULT be imposed in this method, it would be very useful for
practical sparse array design.
Here, we synthesize a 7 length sparse array with beam
REFERENCES
scanning range of [450 ,1350 ] . At first, we discretize the total
aperture using 281 potential positions with spacing of 0.025 . [1] W. H. Kummer, “Basic array theory,” Proceedings of the IEEE vol. 60,
In the first step of the proposed method, we set the upper no. 1, pp. 127-140, 1992.
[2] Y. Y. Bai, S.Q. Xiao, M.C. Tang, Z.F. Ding, and B.Z. Wang, “Wide
sidelobe bound to be -22dB. The output of this step is sparse angle scanning phased array with pattern reconfigurable elements,”
array with 16 elements reserved. However, the minimum IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol 59, no. 11, pp. 4071 4076,
spacing is only 0.125 which cannot be realized in practice. Nov.2011.
So, we carry on the second step optimization so that the [3] B. Fuchs, “Synthesis of sparse with focused or shaped beampattern via
sequential convex optimizations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., no. 7,
minimum spacing is no less than 0.5 . Finally, we obtain a pp. 3499-3503, Jul. 2012.
sparser array with only 14 elements and the minimum spacing [4] L. Cen, W. Ser, Z. L. Yu, S. Rahardja, and W. Cen, “Linear sparse array
is equal to 0.5 . Fig. 1 shows the excitation distributions synthesis with minimum number of sensors,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 720-726, Mar.2010.
[5] G. Prisco and M. D'Urso, “Maximally sparse arrays via sequential
convex optimizations,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation
Letters, vol. 11, pp. 192-195, 2012.
[6] M. B. Hawes and W. Liu, “Compressive sensing-based approach to the
design of linear robust sparse antenna arrays with physical size
constraint,” IET Microwaves., Antennas, Propagation, vol. 8, no. 10, pp.
736-746, 2014.
[7] A. F. Morabito, A. R. Lagana, G. Sorbello and T. Isernia, “Mask-
constrained power synthesis of maximally sparse linear arrays through a
compressive-sensing-driven strategy,” Journal of Electromagnetic
Waves and Applications, vol. 29, no. 10, pp. 1384-1396, 2015.
[8] M. Lobo, L. Vandenberghe, S. Boyd, and H. Lebret, “Applications of
second-order cone programming,” Linear Algebra Applications, Special
Issue on Linear Algebra in Control, Signals and Image Processing,
pp.193-228., Nov,1998.