Synthesis of nonuniformly spaced arrays using genetic algorithm

The application of a genetic algorithm to the design of nonuniformly spaced, linear arrays is presented. Looking for positioning of elements in large arrays for low sidelobe levels involves examining a huge number of possibilities, in order to find the best solution. A genetic algorithm, unlike many conventional optimization methods, can optimize such problems. In this paper the genetic algorithm is applied to find the element positions in the 48-element linear array with uniform excitation that produces minimum sidelobe level The comparison of the effectiveness of the proposed approach and the several traditional optimization algorithms is also presented.