Fault finding in antenna arrays using bacteria foraging optimization technique

Task of finding position and level of fault in antenna arrays from its far field pattern information is formulated as an optimization problem and solved using bacteria foraging optimization (BFO) technique. A Chebyshev array of specific sidelobe level is taken as the candidate antenna and the developed formulation is tested on it. Several different combinations of failures were considered in this work and successfully traced using the developed methodology. Although developed for a linear array, the principle can easily be extended for a planar array.