Space-Borne Circular Antenna Array Optimization with Mountain Gazelle Optimizer for Element Failure Correction

Active phase array antennas are capable of providing high gain, wider coverage, and dynamic beam switching in a desirable direction, thus making them extremely suitable for space-borne applications such as radio astronomy, satellite communication, deep space vehicles, telemetry tracking and control communication systems. Nonetheless, there is a probability that a single or multiple antenna elements go faulty in an array, because of which the radiation pattern of the array gets distorted. The distorted radiation pattern increases the side lobe level (SLL) and reduces the directivity and hence degrades the array performance. In such space applications where it is extremely tedious, time-consuming, and costly to replace the faulty elements, a self-recoverable mechanism of failure correction can be implemented by using metaheuristic algorithms, thus mitigating any manual intervention. The enhanced SLL not only wastes the radio frequency energy but also raises potential challenges due to interference caused by receiving and transmitting the signals in an undesirable direction. In this research article, a circular antenna array (CAA) is investigated for the element failure correction of a faulty array. A mechanism of a self-recoverable array is proposed, having the capability of restoring the SLL of a failed array by recalculating and reoptimizing the array parameters with the remaining active elements within the array. Radiation pattern recovery is achievable by implementing a metaheuristic known as the mountain gazelle optimizer (MGO), and its effectiveness is validated by comparing the simulated results with other algorithms.