Abstract

Time-modulation principle evolves as an emerging technology for easy realization of the desired array patterns with the help of an additional degree of freedom, namely, "time." To the antenna community, the topic, time-modulated antenna array (TMAA) or 4D antenna arrays, has got much attention during the last two decades. However, population-based, stochastic, heuristic evolutionary algorithm plays as an important protagonist to meet the essential requirements on synthesizing the desired array patterns. This chapter is basically devoted to understand the theory of different time-modulation principles and the application of optimization techniques in solving different antenna array synthesis problems. As a first step, the theory of time-modulation principles and the behaviors of the sideband radiation (SBR) that appeared due to time modulation have been studied. Then, different important aspects associated with TMAA synthesis problems have been discussed. These include conflicting parameters, the need of evolutionary algorithms, multiple objectives and their optimization, cost function formation, and selection of weighting factors. After that, a novel approach to design a time modulator for synthesizing TMAAs is presented. Finally, discussing the working principle of an efficient heuristic approach, namely, artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, the effectiveness of the time modulator and potentiality of the algorithm are presented through representative numerical examples.

Keywords: antenna array synthesis, side lobe level (SLL), time modulation, sideband radiation, sideband level (SBL), evolutionary algorithms
