Optimization of compact multi-functional antennas

Work in the direction of multi-functional antennas has been done in the past with a reconfigurable antenna tunable on a broad band. This communication presents an approach whereby a single multi-port antenna reconfigurable by switches is designed to serve several systems. A highly efficient full-wave simulation tool based on the Method of Moments (MoM) makes it practical to perform electromagnetic optimization of a complex starting structure with modest computational resources. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used in conjunction with a local optimizer to minimize a fitness function descriptive of antenna performance. The paper reports the results on the optimization of a two-port antenna that is to operate on a broad band with a narrow-band instantaneous requirement at each port.