Array Pattern Synthesis With Excitation Control via Norm Minimization

Simple and efficient procedures are presented to synthesize antenna array patterns (focused or shaped beams) while controlling the excitations. This synthesis problem is of great practical interest as it makes active arrays more attractive by reducing their complexity, cost, and weight. With a proper regularization of the array pattern synthesis solution, the excitations can be optimized in order to design uniform amplitude sparse arrays, arrays whose excitations have a low dynamic range ratio or a smooth amplitude variation. More specifically, the synthesis procedures are composed of the minimization of a norm (mixed ℓ1/ℓ∞norm, total variation norm, or a combination of the ℓ1- and ℓ∞-norms) associated with radiation pattern constraints. Various representative array synthesis problems are considered. Examples including the coupling between antennas and a comparison with a deterministic approach confirm both the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed procedures.