Pattern synthesis in time-modulated linear arrays through pulse shifting

In this study, an innovative approach for the synthesis of time-modulated linear array (TMLA) antennas is presented. The switch-on instants of the time-modulated elements are taken into account as additional degrees of freedom to optimise the array pattern. Towards this end, a technique based on a particle swarm optimisation is proposed to fully exploit the dependence of the sideband radiations (SR) on the shift of the time pulses. A set of representative results are reported to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach as well as its flexibility.