International Journal of Speech Technology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-020-09701-2

Synthesis of phased array antenna for side lobe level reduction using
the differential evolution algorithm
Ravi Tej1 · K. Ch. Sri Kavya1 · Sarat K. Kotamraju1

Received: 2 December 2019 / Accepted: 14 March 2020

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract
In this paper, we synthesis an array consisting of uniformly excited unequally spaced elements for reducing SLLs. A glob-
ally optimal solution for the array elements phase and position is determined by using a differential evolutionary algorithm
for a given radiation pattern. Reduced side-lobe levels are observed with position-phase synthesis. The obtained results are
compared with the possible two cases i.e., uniform amplitude equal phase (variable position-control) and uniform amplitude
unequal phase (variable phase-control). The obtained results justify that the position-phase synthesis technique is not only
reduces the side-lobe levels to (− 25.28) dB, but also preserves the advantages of both variable position-controlled synthesis
and variable phase-controlled synthesis with a minimum number of array elements.

Keywords Phased array · Uniform excitation · Side lobe level · Equal phase · Unequal spacing

1 Introduction can be enlarged to use multiple fitness functions. There are

Different mathematical methods for the pattern synthesis of
antenna arrays have evolved from the last few years. There are
several optimization weighting methods for the linear array
synthesis. They are Chebyshev and Taylor methods and also
there are some statistical-based weighting methods. These
have some different types of algorithms based on various fac-
tors. Some execution comparison on various types of arrays
is using Least Mean Square (LMS) and Root Mean Squared
(RMS) algorithms are applicable to a smart antenna (Ali et al.
2012). And some direct search methods involve random deci-
sion making are Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic
Algorithm (GA), Differential Evolution (DE) algorithms. In
Artificial Intelligence the Evolutionary algorithms utilize the
mechanisms essentially and take care of issues through proce-
dures that imitate the practices of the living life forms. These
* Ravi Tej
ravitej025@gmail.com; ravi.tej489@gmail.com
K. Ch. Sri Kavya
kavya@kluniversity.in
Sarat K. Kotamraju
kksarat@kluniversity.in
1
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Greenfields,
Vaddeswaram, Guntur, AP 522502, India
three evolutionary algorithms; they are PSO (Particle Swarm
Optimization) an algorithm, GA (Genetic Algorithm), DE
(Differential Evolution) algorithm. For discrete optimiza-
tion mainly we use GA (genetic algorithm). For continuous
optimization, we use PSO (particle swarm optimization) and
DE (differential evolution) algorithms. These two algorithms
are more natural compared to GA (Genetic algorithm). In this
paper, we apply the DE algorithm which has given priority or
the equally spaced antenna array e.g., by changing the phase
and the amplitudes of the elements, the minimum side-lobe
level are achieved. In the non-uniform amplitude array model
there are few functional obstacles but the amplitude, in particu-
lar, decreased the antennas of the micro-strip array which are
well known among the antenna models due to their minimum
size (Zubir et al. 2010). For example, look at the micro-strip
antenna model which exhibits feed on the micro-strip board.
If we use the substrate in the feed line of the micro-strip with a
high dielectric constant for high amplitude ratios the width can
be very small causing problems with suppliers. However to
achieve the enormous amplitude ratios used by the microstrip
line on a substrate with small dielectric constant substrate the
width grows excessively greater. The consequence radiation
pattern has equal ripple side-lobes like a Chebyshev design
(Miller and Goodman 1983). Chebyshev channels are utilized
to isolate one band of frequencies from another. The essen-
tial characteristic of Chebyshev’s design is its speed. This is

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because they are completed by recursion instead of convolu-
tion. In the Taylor arrangement extension strategy, a produc-
tive calculation for playing out the famous Jacobi arrangement
is built up for the development of radiation which is necessary
for portraying the activity of reflector and other roundabout
gap radio wires. This methodology brings about a Bessel
arrangement extension for the radiation vital. The strategy is
then applied for effortlessness to various instances of source
work with rotational balance.
The main drawback of the variable-phase synthesis which
uses the same element size is the need for a large number
of components contrast to the amplitude decreased arrays
for accomplishing minimum side lobe rates (Tian and Qian
2005). The measure of the decrease in the sidelobe level is
achievable is very large particularly for huge arrays. The
performance of the non-uniform element spacing dispers-
ing practically is regularly easier than the generally utilized.
Likewise, the powerful abilities of an array having all the
elements are superior to at the point when the amplitude
is decreased (Rocha-Alicano et al. 2006) In this paper,
although it appears as design problem may be bypassed by
the uniform amplitude uniformly spaced arrays with equal
levels, the power-productive antenna arrays in the case of
cellular communications allow us to operate the power
amplifiers with less non-linearity. Therefore increasing the
radiated energy with fewer elements is important for some
applications as achieving decreasing rates of side lobes. The
antenna elements whose spacing is unequal are connected to
the uniform spacing of the time-space signals. The synthesis
of pole-zero patterns differs from most others in that it gives
origin areas only the example and the number of sources that
needs to be determined. The DE algorithm which uses the
best of irregular differential transformation applies to the
synthesis of antenna arrays that are unequally spaced. The
best differential shift is used as the differential mutation by
the best person among the arbitrarily selected ones (Lin et al.
2010). The differential evolution with N = 32 components
will reduce non-uniformity. Compared to other algorithms
the algorithm is strong (Kumari and Sridevi 2016). Trouble
in analyzing and modeling unequally spaced arrays stem
from the array factor’s non-linear and non-convex phases
and locations of components. The elements of the positions
and angles for given radiation are trouble as a synthesis of
equal amplitude and unequal phases of uniformly spaced
sets.
2 Literature survey
Low side-lobe antennas are getting a progressively more
essential element of highly realized electronic setup, mainly
those working in intense clutter and jamming situations. The
purpose of evolutionary algorithms is now frequent in complex
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International Journal of Speech Technology
EM problems (Modi et al. 2019). GA is indicated as one of
the dynamic approaches that are able to handle complicated
problems among several self-sufficient variables in scheming
arrays with many elements. For optimizing large huge arrays
classical optimization techniques are not strongly suitable
(Ares-Pena et al. 1999). For attaining good control over the
antenna patterns, high gain than a separate antenna element
and electronic beam steering a phased array antenna is more
advantageous than other antennas. In various classical models,
the phase and amplitude excitation are obtained for elements
among equivalent separation. Also, the far-field pattern of the
array is controlled by the amplitudes and phases of the excita-
tion of currents (Varahram and Rashed-Mohassel 2002). In
several new models, the position of the elements is controlled
with an assumed current distribution. Evolutionary algorithms
have no restrictions on the selection of variables in optimiza-
tion. As a result, the amplitudes and phases of the excitation
can be used as separate variables in the optimization proce-
dure. The necessity of optimization of phased array antennas
is compressing side lobe level or null position control of the
patterns, half-power bandwidth.
3 Differential evolution algorithm
It is a stochastic population-based optimization algorithm for
solving nonlinear optimization problems following the systems
a framework of the DE calculation is as per the following.
Like GAS DE additionally works on a populace with people
and every individual is an emblematic portrayal of the vector
comprising of the streamlining parameters (Naga Jyothi and
Sriadibhatla 2017, 2019; Jyothi and Sridevi 2018, 2019). The
mutation happens first and the freak vector can be produced
as shown in Eq. (1).
V Mj = vnopi + 𝛽(vnp1 + vnp2 ), i ≠ P1 andi ≠ P2 (1)
where i, p1 and p2 are haphazardly selected individual indi-
cates in the parent populace and the superscript opi alludes
to the ideal individual in the populace. The genuine consist-
ent p is the transformation factor. Once in a while, a few
qualities of the freak vector surpass their pursuit ranges and
these qualities need to be adjusted. After mutation, the vec-
tor with corresponding father vector to give out child vector
is given in equation.2.
(V cj )j = {(vMj )j , 𝛾 < PCross , (v(n)j )j , otherwise (2)
where gamma is random number in range of (0,1) and real
constant Pcross is probability of crossover.
International Journal of Speech Technology
4 Synthesis of arrays
The synthesis of antenna arrays utilizes the differential
evolution algorithm which gives detail in Fig. 1. Initially,
the parent population P̄i , i 𝜀[1, Np ] is assigned uniformly.
At the point when the best parent, as far as its objective
meets the optimization criteria or increases the repetitions
itn achieves the highest indicated repetitions max the opti-
mization is ended. For each repetition itn, given Pi , which
are utilizing K dissimilar procedures, produce parent Pi ,
become child ci . However, it produces a uniformly assign a
random number in [0, 1], the likelihood of producing trail
members is pc , and the likelihood of the parent Pi straight
forwardly it turning in to child ci is (1 − Pc ). If at that point
the trail members are made and the trail portion is created
by the positive procedure contends with the parent and the
champ is mutated with a low likelihood for ending up with
the child. That DE algorithm is essentially a straight mix of
vector contrasts between a subset of the parent population
together with parent Pi or Pb. The quantity of the individuals
in the subset is lower than Np, the complete number of indi-
viduals in the parent population. Subsequently, as opposed
Fig. 1  Flow-diagram of the algorithm of DE used for array synthesis
to the GA (genetic algorithm) the amount of interest in an
evolution process may be more than two. For the synthesis
of the series we also set K=2 to adjust the vector according
to the age of the two trail individuals represented as by Eqs.
(3) and (4).
t1 = Pb + F(Pi − Pr ) (3)
t2 = pr + F(Pi − Pr ) (4)
where F is the true and permanent variable governing dif-
ferent varieties like (P̄i − P̄r ) and (P̄i − P̄r ). Individuals and
parent population sub-set satisfy the condition that the files
are not exactly the same as the running index from Fig. 1.
More on the diverse DE algorithm techniques and the list
age system for r and s can be found. It is to be noticed that
not every one of the element of the vectors t1 and t2 experi-
ence the changes are appointed earlier the elements of the
vector. We are shared with the parent population when all
the children are named as above. The DE algorithm planned
Pm =0 and K = 1. By having K = 2 and for a few cases with
0 ≤ Pm ≤ 0.2, improved attributes have been accomplished.
The ranges of other control parameters are 0.5 ≤ Pc ≤ 1 and
0.4 ≤ F ≤ 1.
4.1 Problem statement for the synthesis
For a linear array the array factor AF (𝜃) with arbitrary posi-
tions is given by the Eq. (5):
Ne
∑ j2𝜋xi
AF (𝜃) = Wi e 𝜆 sin 𝜃 (5)
i=1
where wi indicates the current which is situated at xi and 𝜆
is the wavelength. We consider the components with steady
sufficiency random stage and random positions which array
factor becomes as shown in Eq. (6).
Ne
∑ j2𝜋xi
AF (𝜃) = e 𝜆 sin 𝜃 + 𝜙i (6)
i=1
4.2 Aim to minimize the side‑lobe level
The problem of optimization (or) minimization of the side
lobe level can be given by Eq. (7) for f s (P)
̄ as:
p̄
AF (𝜃)
̄ = Max𝜃𝜖s
f s (P) ̄ (7)
AFP (𝜃0 )
Here s is the space spread over by the point eliminate the
main lobe which comprising of elements positions and the
phases which limits all the side lobe levels and high the
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 International Journal of Speech Technology

power in the main lobe is situated at the 𝜃 = 𝜃0 Hence it can

be given by the Eq. (8) as
p̄ = xi , 𝜙i (8)
where 1 ≤ i ≤ Pi
We utilized an explore procedure to decide as on the basis
of the above equation. In general, it varies starting with one
repetition than on to the next. Since both the positions and
phases appear in the array factors exponential term, there is
no reason to advance both the positions and phases given
in the meantime by the above formula. Because we use the
DE algorithm in the above section three, we demonstrate
that there is a tradeoff between the most extreme distance
between the positions and the phase of a particular set.

Fig. 2  This graph reflects the synthesis of both phase and the position
5 Results and discussion of the side lobe level suppression

In this section uniformly excited unequally spaced phased

array antennas are considered with different cases: almost equal i.e − 55.42 dB. The synthesis results are com-
pared and tabulated for variable-position, variable-phase and
5.1 Comparison of position‑phase synthesis position-phase when dmin=0.5𝜆 and dmax= 0.7𝜆 in Table 1.
and variable‑position synthesis Figure 4 represents the different mutations used in the dif-
ferential evolution algorithm.
For the variable-position and position-phase instances the
synthesis of an arbitrarily distributed array is performed 5.2 Comparision of variable‑phase synthesis
separately for a different range of boundaries between the and the position‑phase synthesis
elements and the corresponding array patterns are shown
in Figs. 2 and 3. The number of elements required for the We have seen in the earlier chapter that the unequally spaced
DEA-based synthesis is 32 so the optimization parameters array consequential from the synthesis of the position-phase
the number is 16 for variable-position synthesis and 32 for has diminished side lobe levels as distinguished to those of
phase- position synthesis. dmin = 0.5𝜆 where dmin is the the unequally spaced arrays derived from the synthesis of
minimum distance between two adjacent elements is the
poor restriction in the synthesis of the positions of the ele-
ments for both the cases. The upper limit of the length of the
elements and dmax is diverse from 0.5 to 1𝜆. The sidelobe
level that we have achieved in variable-position was drasti-
cally reduced to − 55.45 dB whereas in position phase was

Table 1  Comparison of different synthesis techniques

Number of Variable phase Variable Position phase
iterations position

I X∕𝜆 X∕𝜆 X∕𝜆 𝜋

1 1.5 1.5 6.7 2.1
2 2.5 2.5 4.6 2.5
3 2.89 3.5 3.8 0.3
4 4.09 4.5 2.5 6.9
5 5.18 5.5 − 2.75 3.7
6 5.97 6.5 − 5.78 2.4
7 6.4 6.99 − 7.90 3.6 Fig. 3  This graph reflects the variable-postion of the the elements
with the suppression of side lobe level

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International Journal of Speech Technology
Fig. 4  Indicates the mutation used in the DE algorithm
Fig. 5  This represents suppression in the sidelobe level with variable
phases
the variable-position and the corresponding array patterns
are shown in Fig. 5. To design a pencil beam array in this
section we first compare the DEA-based position-phase syn-
thesis and variable-phase synthesis. In both methods of syn-
thesis, the number of elements are 32. The previous limits
assumed in the least and highest distance connecting the ele-
ments for the synthesis of the position-phase aredmin = 0.5𝜆
and dmax = 0.7𝜆. The sidelobe level that we have achieved
in variable-position was drastically reduced to (− 25.28) dB
where as in position-phase (− 15.42) dB.
6 Conclusion
As the first side lobe level which regulates maximum SLL
is the major cause of electromagnetic interference, it must
be reduced. A strategy of finding the optimum solution for
sidelobe level minimizing for a uniformly excited unequally
spaced array is derived, that influence for any scan direction,
beam width, and type of antenna element used. In this paper,
The DEA is used to develop a globally optimum and efficient
synthesis technique for the design of uniform amplitude
unequally spaced arrays. From the analysis of DEA based
variable-position and position-phase synthesis it is observed
that position-phase synthesis derives less side lobe level and
enhanced array gain by preserving all the advantages under
the same radiation conditions.
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