Pattern Nulling of Linear Antenna Arrays By Controlling Only the Element Positions With the Use of Improved Touring Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm

Abstract

An efficient search technique based on the improved touring ant colony optimization algorithm is presented for pattern nulling by controlling only the position of linear antenna array elements. The relative importance between the null depth level and the maximum sidelobe level is also considered by introducing a set of weighting factors in the cost function constructed for the improved touring ant colony optimisation algorithm. The frequency memory feature of tabu search is used in the improved touring ant colony optimization algorithm. To verify the validity of the technique, illustrative examples of Chebyshev pattern with the imposed single, multiple and broad nulls are given.