TESIS DOCTORAL
Autor:
Juan Córcoles Ortega
Ingeniero de Telecomunicación
Director:
Miguel Ángel González de Aza
Doctor Ingeniero de Telecomunicación
Profesor Titular de Universidad
Madrid, 2009
TESIS DOCTORAL: Advanced techniques of optimization and electromagnetic de-
sign based on a hybrid Finite Element – Modal Analysis
method for antennas and antenna arrays.
(Técnicas avanzadas de optimización y diseño electro-
magnético basado en un método hı́brido Elementos Finitos
– Análisis Modal para antenas y agrupaciones de antenas).
PRESIDENTE:
Prof.
VOCALES:
Prof.
Prof.
Prof.
VOCAL SECRETARIO:
Prof.
VOCALES SUPLENTES:
Prof.
Prof.
Madrid, a de de 2009.
A mis padres Juan e Isabel.
A mi hermana Isabel.
A mis abuelos Fidel y Simón.
A mis abuelas Juana y Ascensión.
A mis tı́as Mari y Reme.
El tiempo es ese juez insobornable que da y
quita razones y pone a cada uno en su sitio.
Time is that incorruptible judge that proves people
right and wrong and puts everybody in his place.
El primer agradecimiento es, sin duda, para mi director de tesis, Miguel Ángel. Y no sólo
porque jamás he recibido por su parte un “estoy ocupado”, o un “ahora no puedo atender
esto”, o ni tan siquiera un “espérate un minuto”. Todo lo contrario. Me consta que
siempre que ha podido ha antepuesto las cuestiones relativas a mi tesis, tanto cientı́ficas
como administrativas, a muchas de sus tareas como Profesor Titular. Además, siempre
ha sabido dar valor a cualquier idea que haya surgido sin descartarla, por muy ilusa
que pudiera parecer, y otorgado la libertad para desarrollarla. Sin duda, su dedicación,
accesibilidad y flexibilidad han hecho que la realización de esta tesis me fuera más llevadera.
Pero por encima de todo, lo que ha hecho que esta tesis llegue a buen puerto ha sido su
confianza en mı́.
También me gustarı́a agradecer a Mari Carmen todo lo que me ha ayudado. Su
eficiencia en las tareas administrativas es encomiable. Pero hay algo mucho más importante
que aunque no forme parte de su trabajo ha sabido hacer: decirme esas palabras de ánimo
y apoyo en el momento en que justo más las necesitaba.
Darle las gracias a Juan Zapata por darme la oportunidad de entrar a formar parte
de un grupo cientı́ficamente tan reconocido, aún cuando ni tan siquiera me conocı́a, y por
ser la voz de la experiencia a través de sus valiosos consejos. Y, por supuesto, a Jesús
Rubio, por todas las horas que nos hemos pasado al teléfono hablando y debatiendo sobre
los dichosos modos esféricos. Su ayuda ha servido, sin duda, para salir de varios atolladeros
que ha deparado la investigación.
Como no, un muy especial agradecimiento a mis compañeros de doctorado que han
recorrido o están recorriendo el mismo camino, desde los primeros que conocı́ hasta los
más nuevos que han llegado por el Departamento últimamente. Pero en particular, para
Javi, Edu, Manolo y Jose, con los cuales he compartido la mayorı́a de estos 4 años, y que
han hecho que las veces que pasaba por allı́ tuviesen un corte agradable.
Finalmente, mi más sincero agradecimiento al resto de gente del Departamento.
Profesores como Joserra, Encinar, Rebo, Chemari, Mariano, Page, Manu, Jaime, Alejan-
dro o Jesús, técnicos como Fernando o Teo, además de toda la gente que he nombrado
anteriormente, hacen que se me antoje difı́cil pensar en un grupo de personas que aúnen
a la par no sólo la calidad cientı́fica sino la calidad humana del Departamento.
Esta tesis también ha sido posible gracias a la disposición del profesor Thomas Zwick,
de Alemania, quien me dio la oportunidad de realizar una estancia de investigación en su
instituto. Me gustarı́a agradecer a toda la gente de allı́ la hospitalidad que demostraron,
ya que hicieron que unos cuantos meses en un paı́s del que ni tan siquiera conocı́a el idioma
pasaran más rápido de lo que inicialmente imaginé. Además del lobby polaco, no puedo
dejar de agradecer a Juan Pontes y a su esposa su dedicación desde el primer momento
v
vi
en que pisé suelo alemán. No sólo gané un colaborador cientı́fico, sino un gran amigo.
En el plano más personal, por muy tı́pico que pueda sonar, no habrı́a llegado hasta
aquı́ sin mis padres y sin mi hermana. Por, como ya dije en su momento, haber estado
siempre ahı́, para lo bueno y para lo malo, por ayudarme, por apoyarme, por aguantarme,
por enseñarme cosas que jamás se aprenderán en ningún libro ni en ninguna escuela, y
por cien millones de motivos más. Supongo que nunca seré consciente de lo afortunado
que soy por tener la certeza de que si todo va mal, o incluso si las cosas sólo se tuercen un
poco, siempre puedo llamar a mis padres o ir a casa.
Asimismo, me gustarı́a recordar por todo lo que me han aportado a mis abuelos,
mis yayos, aunque uno se fue hace ya tiempo y los otros tres no sean conscientes de lo que
académicamente supone un Doctorado. Sin duda sé que, al igual que mis tı́as, se alegran
más por mı́ que si hubieran sido ellos mismos.
No puedo olvidar aquı́ a todos los amigos, compañeros y trabajadores del C.M.U.
San Juan Evangelista que he acumulado durante más de un tercio de mi vida, y muy en
especial a Juan Luis Cámara, de quien nunca me ha faltado el ánimo y el apoyo en esta y
otras muchas andaduras que he emprendido. Todos ellos hicieron y siguen haciendo que
el Johnny, que tanto me ha dado y tanto me ha quitado (aunque últimamente me quedo
con lo que me ha dado), sea como siempre he dicho mi segunda casa, y ellos mi segunda
familia.
Y finalmente, a los de siempre, los amigos de Albacete, que siempre anduvieron por
ahı́ para hacerme olvidar los quebraderos de cabeza que te da una tesis y otras cosas, y
que, como ya dije en su momento, me han hecho comprender el verdadero sentido de la
amistad en tantos años fuera de mi ciudad natal.
First of all, I would like to thank my Ph. D. advisor, Prof. M. A. González, for
his valuable guidance and dedication, but, above all, for his trust in me and my work. I
must admit my admiration for Prof. J. Zapata, who gave me the opportunity to carry
out this Ph. D. even when he did not know me personally, and whose experience has
always been present through his advice. Discussions with Prof. J. Rubio always led to
solutions for the emerging problems and usually resulted in useful and interesting research
lines. I would also like to thank everybody in the Departamento de Electromagnetismo y
Teorı́a de Circuitos, since I have shared these four years of work with all of them. Part
of this Ph. D. has been carried out in Germany, thanks to Prof. T. Zwick, who gave
me the opportunity to spend a research period at his institution. Once there, scientific
collaboration with Eng. J. Pontes turned out to be very fruitful. Last, but not least,
a final word of great gratitude to those who have always been in my way through the
good times and the bad times, for their encouragement and their support: parents, sister,
grandparents, aunts and friends.
Abstract
The main objective of this thesis is the development of, on the one hand, efficient analysis
methods that allow a fast and rigorous electromagnetic characterization of radiating struc-
tures, and, on the other hand, efficient design techniques that are capable of inherently
taking into account all electromagnetic effects and interactions in antennas and antenna
arrays throughout the whole design process.
To that effect, a novel computer-aided design methodology for probe-fed, cavity-
backed, stacked microstrip patch antennas is proposed. This configuration is widely used
to increase bandwidth. The methodology, which makes use of neural networks and global
optimization algorithms, incorporates the rigour of a numerical technique, such as finite
element methods. It is validated through a real design.
Moving on to antenna array theory, the generalized-scattering-matrix (GSM) anal-
ysis of finite arrays whose elements’ radiated fields can be individually described in terms
of spherical modes, such as arbitrarily shaped apertures, horns, monopoles, dielectric res-
onator antennas or cavity-backed patch antennas, is presented. It is based on rotation and
translation properties of spherical waves, which can be expressed analytically. Numerical
validation is accomplished through the comparison with measured results.
As for array design techniques, the multiobjective optimization of arbitrary pla-
nar array excitations is presented. The problem formulation is based on matrix-valued
functions computed from the GSM of an array and spherical mode expansions. It al-
lows the maximization of the directive gain subject to a maximum sidelobe level (SLL), a
maximum crosspolar level and a minimum aperture illumination efficiency, the setting of
null-pointing directions and the dynamic range control. To solve the resulting non-linear
optimization problem, a primal-dual interior point filter method specifically adapted to
the formulation is developed.
Going further into array design based on optimization theory, in this case linear
programming, another pattern synthesis technique is introduced. The procedure yields
the complex-valued excitations to achieve the minimum maximum SLL given a specified
pointing direction and mainlobe width and prescribed field nulls. Again, all interelement
coupling effects are inherently taken into account. The procedure is extended to synthesize
patterns with various main beam pointing directions with different widths and shaped-
beam patterns with controllable SLL.
This thesis also presents a flexible method, based on quadratic programming, to
compensate the interelement mutual coupling effects that may degrade the field pattern.
A closed expression for a mutual coupling compensation matrix is derived from the GSM
of an antenna array and spherical mode expansions. This matrix is used to compensate the
value of any excitations obtained with an isotropic-based synthesis. Conditions regarding
null field pattern directions can also be reinforced in this matrix.
Leaving optimization apart, a simple pattern synthesis for linear equispaced arrays
vii
viii
El principal objetivo de esta tesis es el desarrollo de, por una parte, métodos de análisis
eficientes que permitan una caracterización electromagnética de manera rápida y rigurosa
de estructuras radiantes y, por otra parte, técnicas de diseño eficientes que sean capaces
de tener inherentemente en cuenta todos los efectos e interacciones electromagnéticas en
antenas y agrupaciones de antenas (arrays) a lo largo de todo el proceso de diseño.
A tal efecto, se propone una novedosa metodologı́a de diseño asistido por ordenador
para antenas microstrip de parches apilados alimentados por sonda coaxial. Esta confi-
guración es ampliamente utilizada para incrementar el ancho de banda. La metodologı́a,
que hace uso de redes neuronales y algoritmos de optimización global, incorpora el rigor
de una técnica numérica como el método de elementos finitos. Queda validada a través de
un diseño real.
Pasando al campo de la teorı́a de arrays, se lleva a cabo el análisis modal a través de
la Matriz de Dispersión Generalizada (MDG) de arrays finitos con elementos cuyo campo
radiado se puede expresar individualmente en términos de modos esféricos, como aperturas
con forma arbitraria, bocinas, monopolos, resonadores dieléctricos o parches impresos
situados en cavidad. El método se basa en las propiedades de rotación y traslación de
ondas esféricas, que pueden ser expresadas de manera analı́tica. La validación numérica
se realiza a través de la comparación de resultados medidos.
En lo que refiere a técnicas de diseño de arrays, se presenta una optimización multi-
objetivo de arrays planos con geometrı́a arbitraria. La formulación del problema se realiza
a través de funciones matriciales calculadas a partir de la MDG de un array y expan-
siones en modos esféricos. Permite la maximización de la directividad sujeta a un máximo
Nivel de Lóbulos Secundarios (NLS), un máximo nivel de componente contrapolar y una
eficiencia mı́nima de apertura, ası́ como definir direcciones de campo nulo y el control
del margen dinámico. Para resolver el problema de optimización no lineal resultante, se
desarrolla un método de punto interior primal-dual con filtrado especı́ficamente adaptado
a la formulación.
Profundizando en el diseño de arrays basado en la teorı́a de optimización, en este
caso de programación lineal, se desarrolla otra técnica de sı́ntesis de diagramas. El pro-
cedimiento proporciona las excitaciones para alcanzar el mı́nimo NLS máximo dada una
dirección de apuntamiento con una anchura de haz y direcciones de campo nulos. De
nuevo, todos los efectos de los acoplos se consideran inherentemente. Esta técnica se
amplı́a para sintetizar diagramas con varias direcciones de apuntamientos con diferentes
anchos de haz y diagramas de haz conformado con NLS controlable.
Esta tesis también presenta un método flexible, basado en programación cuadrática,
para compensar los efectos de los acoplos que pueden degradar el diagrama de campo. Se
deriva una expresión compacta de una matriz de compensación de acoplos a partir de la
MDG de un array y expansiones de modos esféricos. Esta matriz se usa para compensar
ix
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el valor de las excitaciones obtenidas con una sı́ntesis que asuma fuentes isotrópicas. En
esta matriz se pueden incorporar condiciones para definir direcciones de campo nulo.
Dejando a un lado la optimización, se presenta una técnica de sı́ntesis simple para
arrays lineales equiespaciados. Se puede ver como una extensión de las técnicas clásicas
de las Series de Fourier (SF) o el método de Woodward-Lawson, al caso en el que se con-
sideran los diagramas individuales de cada elemento y los acoplos entre los mismos. El
procedimiento se basa en la SF o la Transformada Discreta de Fourier (TDF) de la ex-
pansión en modos esféricos del campo radiado por el array, ası́ como en varias propiedades
asociadas a los coeficientes de la SF o la TDF.
Como otra técnica de diseño no basada en optimización, se presenta una sı́ntesis
exclusivamente basada en la manipulación de ondas esféricas. Los teoremas de rotación
y traslación se usan para establecer las relaciones necesarias entre distintas expansiones
de modos esféricos que se corresponden con el campo radiado por cada antena y por el
array. De este modo, no se requiere ningún algoritmo complejo para calcular el valor de
las excitaciones.
En lo que refiere al thinning de arrays, se presenta un procedimiento original. El
array resultante es aquél que, con el mı́nimo número de elementos activos, cumple con
varias especificaciones de diseño. El método propuesto proporciona tanto los elementos
activos como sus excitaciones. Se consideran especificaciones como alcanzar una directivi-
dad mı́nima, obtener un diagrama con un NLS máximo o sintetizar un diagrama de haz
conformado dentro de una máscara. Se pueden añadir también direcciones de campo nulo.
Para llevar a cabo el thinning, se usa un algoritmo genético, mientras que el cálculo de las
excitaciones se realiza a través de programación lineal o cuadrática. Dado que la presen-
cia de un elemento puede alterar las caracterı́sticas del array debido al acoplo mutuo, se
consideran dos tipos de thinning: retirar elementos o apagarlos.
Finalmente, se presentan dos modelos para caracterizar sistemas MIMO con antenas.
Los sistemas con visión directa (sin obstáculos) entre antenas se caracterizan a través de
la MDG de cada antena y coeficientes de rotación y traslación de modos esféricos. La
matriz de canal resultante incluye rigurosamente la naturaleza vectorial esférica de la
propagación electromagnética (que puede ejercer una influencia significativa en enlaces de
corto alcance) y los efectos de los acoplos. Se desarrolla también un modelo de red modal
para sistemas MIMO que se aplica a un escenario urbano. El modelo, cuyo núcleo consiste
en una herramienta de trazado de rayos, se basa en la expansión modal del diagrama de
radiación tanto de las antenas transmisoras como de las receptoras y permite una reducción
significativa del tiempo de simulación para proporcionar resultados estadı́sticos de modelos
de propagación deterministas.
Contents
Agradecimientos/Acknowledgements v
Abstract vii
Resumen ix
Contents xi
List of Figures xv
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation and objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Text organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
xi
xii CONTENTS
9 Conclusion 143
9.1 Original contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
9.2 Future research lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
9.3 Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
9.4 Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
9.4.1 Journal articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
9.4.2 Conference proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
9.4.2.1 International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
9.4.2.2 National . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Bibliography 149
xiv CONTENTS
List of Figures
3.1 Scheme of the hybrid methodology used to obtain the GSM of the whole
array from the GSM(s) of the individual antenna element(s) considered as
isolated. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2 Multiport network characterization of an antenna array. . . . . . . . . . . 34
xv
xvi LIST OF FIGURES
4.1 Top and side view of the cavity-backed circular microstrip patch used as an
array antenna element. R1 = 2 cm, R2 = 3 cm, c1 = c2 = 0.6 cm, xp = 0.62
cm, ǫr1 = 2.5, ǫr2 = 20. Coaxial feed (SMA connector): ǫr = 1.95, ri = 0.65
mm, ro = 2.05 mm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2 Field patterns of the E-plane 8 cavity-backed patch linear array for the ex-
citations given by the two optimization cases: when interelement couplings
are included in and excluded from the optimization procedure. . . . . . . . 58
4.3 Field pattern of the optimized 32 patch linear array along the H-plane.
Interferences at −70◦ , −40◦ and −20◦ are rejected and the maximum SLL
between −30◦ and −10◦ is set to -40 dB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.4 Field pattern of the optimized 32 patch linear array along the E-plane. . . . 60
4.5 Optimized 32-element linear patch array field pattern for different maximum
SLL regions and null directions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.6 RDC and optimized (to ensure -20 dB of maximum SLL) field patterns of
the 17 linear DRA array along the H-plane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
LIST OF FIGURES xvii
4.7 Field pattern of the H-plane 17 linear DRA array with optimized excitations
to ensure -75 dB crosspolar level at θ0 = 30◦ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.8 Optimized 21-element linear DRA array field pattern for two different max-
imum SLL regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.9 Optimized 21-element linear DRA array field pattern for different maximum
SLL regions and two null locations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.10 Field pattern of the 30 DRA circular array with optimized excitations to
ensure -30 dB of maximum SLL and crosspolar level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.11 Optimized 9×9 patch array field pattern for -30 dB maximum SLL. . . . . . 68
4.12 Optimized 9×9 patch array field pattern for different regions of maximum
SLL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.1 Field patterns of the uniform 21 DRA array for different excitations. ··· case
1: ideal isotropic pattern from RDC excitations. - - - case 2: real pattern
from RDC excitations. —– case 3: real pattern from proposed-technique
excitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.2 Optimized field patterns of the 21 DRA array for different mainlobe widths.
- - - case 1: maximum SLL: -7.3 dB, 3-dB beamwidth: 5.8◦ . —– case 2:
maximum SLL: -16.9 dB, 3-dB beamwidth: 7.4◦ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.3 Field patterns of the nonuniform 22 DRA array with a SLL region from
±5◦ to ±90◦ . - - - case 1: technique in (Holm and Elgetun, 1997) for sym-
metric isotropic arrays. —– case 2: proposed technique. . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.4 Optimized 21 DRA array patterns with two main beams for two different
pairs of values of p−30◦ and p60◦ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.5 Two optimized 21 DRA array patterns with three main beams. In the
second one, the central mainbeam is broader than the other two mainbeams. 74
5.6 Optimized 21 DRA array patterns for a shaped-beam and a sidelobe region.
· · · case 1: fSB /fSL = 4. - - - case 2: fSB /fSL = 2. —– case 3: fSB /fSL = 1. 78
5.7 Zoom of the shaped-beam region of the optimized 21 DRA array patterns
for a shaped-beam and a sidelobe region. · · · case 1: fSB /fSL = 4. - - -
case 2: fSB /fSL = 2. —– case 3: fSB /fSL = 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.8 Two-beam pattern of the 21-element DRA array obtained with the original
and the MC compensated excitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.9 csc2 pattern of the 21-element DRA array obtained with the original Woodward-
Lawson excitations and the MC compensated excitations. . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.10 Tseng-Cheng pattern of the 8×8 DRA array obtained with the original and
the MC compensated excitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.11 Schelkunoff E-plane field pattern of the 8×8 DRA array obtained with the
original and the two different MC compensated excitations. . . . . . . . . . 83
6.1 Sector field patterns for the 81 DRA array obtained with the excitations
from the proposed FS procedure (coincident with the isotropic array pattern
from the classic isotropic FS method) and from the classic isotropic FS
method, compared to the ideal response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6.2 Sector field patterns for the 81 DRA array obtained with the excitations,
with a Hamming window, from the proposed FS procedure (coincident with
the isotropic array pattern from the classic isotropic FS method) and from
the classic isotropic FS method, compared to the ideal response. . . . . . . 91
xviii LIST OF FIGURES
6.3 Multisector field patterns for the 81 DRA arrays obtained with the excita-
tions, with a Hamming window, from the two classic WL methods and from
the proposed DFT procedure (coincident with the isotropic array pattern
from the classic isotropic WL design), compared to the ideal response. . . 92
6.4 csc2 field patterns for the 81 DRA array obtained with the excitations from
the proposed DFT procedure and from the two classic WL methods, com-
pared to the isotropic array pattern from the classic isotropic WL design
and the ideal response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.5 Multisector field patterns, compared to the ideal response, obtained with
the excitations (with a Hamming window) from the two classic WL meth-
ods and from the proposed DFT procedure, coincident with the isotropic
array patterns from the classic isotropic WL design, for the two electrically
identical, but with different antennas, 49 element arrays. . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.6 Scheme of the relationships between feeding with/and spherical modes used
in the proposed spherical-wave-based pattern synthesis procedure . . . . . . 97
6.7 Layout of the 325-element array used for the spherical-wave-based synthesis
of a flat-top beam pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.8 Three-dimensional normalized copolar field pattern of the 325-element array
of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired
flat-top beam objective copolar pattern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.9 Three-dimensional normalized crosspolar field pattern of the 325-element
array of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a
desired flat-top beam objective copolar pattern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.10 Normalized copolar (black) and crosspolar (grey) field patterns for all ϕ-
cuts of 1◦ of the 325-element array of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of
resonant frequency for a desired flat-top beam objective copolar pattern. . . 102
6.11 Three-dimensional normalized copolar field pattern of the 325-element array
of microstrip patches with 2.5 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired flat-
top beam objective copolar pattern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.12 Three-dimensional normalized crosspolar field pattern of the 325-element
array of microstrip patches with 2.5 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired
flat-top beam objective copolar pattern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.13 Normalized copolar (black) and crosspolar (grey) field patterns for all ϕ-
cuts of 1◦ of the 325-element array of microstrip patches with 2.5 GHz of
resonant frequency for a desired flat-top beam objective copolar pattern. . . 104
6.14 Three-dimensional normalized copolar field pattern of the 325-element array
of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired
sectorized csc2 objective copolar pattern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
6.15 Three-dimensional normalized crosspolar field pattern of the 325-element
array of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a
desired sectorized csc2 objective copolar pattern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.16 Normalized copolar (black) and crosspolar (grey) field patterns for all ϕ-
cuts of 1◦ of the 325-element array of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of
resonant frequency for a desired sectorized csc2 objective copolar pattern. 105
8.1 Channel matrix value for a SISO system of two ideal dipoles. - - - case 1:
Classic transmission equation. —– case 2: Proposed model. . . . . . . . . . 128
8.2 Open-loop capacity for a 20 dB SNR of various-sized 4×4 MIMO system
of ideal dipoles. - - - case 1: Spherical-wave model in (Jiang and Ingram,
2005). —– case 2: Proposed model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.3 Waterfilling capacity for a 20 dB SNR of a 2×2 dipole MIMO system. Link
distance: 100λ0 . - - - case 1: Spherical-wave model in (Jiang and Ingram,
2005). —– case 2: Proposed model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.4 Open-loop capacity for a 20 dB SNR of a dipole MIMO system with fixed-
length arrays (5λ0 ). Link distance: 100λ0 . - - - case 1: Spherical-wave
model in (Jiang and Ingram, 2005). —– case 2: Proposed model. . . . . . 130
8.5 Signal Flow Graph of Generalized Network Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.6 Signal Flow Graph of Generalized Network Model in its compact form, i.e.
transmit antennas, physical channel and receive antennas merged into one
network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
8.7 Equivalent circuit of transmit and receive antennas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
xx LIST OF FIGURES
8.8 Relative Ergodic Capacity Gain vs horizontal antenna inter element spacing
at the base station for two 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antennas
and two vertically oriented dipoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
8.9 Mobile station antenna setups. (a) Two parallel dipoles rotated with respect
to the z-axis and (b) two perpendicular dipoles rotated with respect to their
starting position as vertically and horizontally polarized dipoles. . . . . . . 138
8.10 Relative capacity gain of 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antenna for
two parallel dipoles with varying rotation angle α . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8.11 Relative capacity gain of 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antenna for
two perpendicular dipoles with varying rotation angle α. . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.12 Comparison of the synthesized radiation pattern (—–) and the 742445 ver-
tically polarized Kathrein radiation pattern (- - -) in (a) azimuth and (b)
elevation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
8.13 Relative ergodic capacity gain vs horizontal antenna inter element spacing
at the base station for two vertically polarized synthesized antennas and
two vertically oriented dipoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
List of Tables
7.1 Optimized excitations of the thinned array realizations of two different 17-
element arrays for both thinning options X: element removed, 0: element
turned off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
xxi
xxii LIST OF TABLES
Glossary of symbols
xxiii
xxiv Glossary of symbols
xxv
xxvi Glossary of acronyms
GA Genetic Algorithm 1, 2,
19, 20,
23, 24,
107,
108,
110,
115,
144
GAM Generalized-Admittance-Matrix 5, 7,
13–15
GSM Generalized-Scattering-Matrix 1, 2,
5, 7–9,
15, 29,
30, 33,
42, 85,
95, 98,
108,
109,
127,
128,
143–
145
GTM General Translation Matrix 30, 98,
128
MA Modal Analysis 1, 4, 5,
9, 29,
42, 57,
143
MAM Multipurpose-Admittance-Matrix 10, 13–
15, 21,
23
MC Mutual Coupling 36, 77,
79–81,
83, 96,
100,
128,
144,
145
MIMO Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output 2, 127–
131,
135,
136,
138,
145
MLP Multilayer Perceptron 15
MSE Mean Square Error 18, 23,
69, 79,
81, 114
NN Neural Network 1, 3,
15, 18
Introduction
1
2 Introduction
the GA will be used in a different chapter for other purposes, the details of the GA will
only be given in Chapter 2.
Chapter 3 presents the GSM-analysis of finite arrays whose elements’ radiated fields
can be individually expressed as spherical vector wave expansions. This analysis method
will be the core for the array design techniques developed in successive chapters as they will
all start by assuming the GSM of a finite array is known, therefore making electromagnetic
effects be inherently taken into account through any design technique used to compute
the necessary excitations to achieve the desired pattern specifications.
Chapters 4 and 5 report a wide variety of array design techniques where the design
problem can be formulated, after different transformations, as an optimization problem.
Specifically, in Chapter 4 the optimization procedure used to solve the resulting problem
is developed, while in Chapter 5 the stress is made in making the problem formulation
result in a Linear Programming (LP) or Quadratic Programming (QP) problem.
Chapter 6 presents two non-optimization based synthesis techniques for arrays. The
first one is based on the Fourier expansion of the array radiated field, while the second
one is based on the spherical wave expansion of the array radiated field.
Chapter 7 addresses the topic of array thinning by proposing a nested optimization
procedure to thin an array. The GA previously reported is used to decide which elements
are turned on, while other optimization techniques, mainly the ones reported in Chapter
5, are used to compute the excitation of the array elements.
Chapter 8 leaves the design problem apart and goes into the use of the GSM for-
mulation, alone or in combination with other techniques, to analyze and characterize
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems.
Finally, Chapter 9 gives some conclusions in the form of the original contributions of
this Ph. D. dissertation and the future research lines that it has given rise to. Furthermore,
the framework in which this work has been carried out (research projects, financial support,
. . . ) are reported together with the publications this Ph. D. dissertation has generated.
Chapter 2
2.1 Introduction
Microstrip patch antennas have been focusing the attention of researchers for a long time
because they are easy to use in different configurations and because of their versatility in
achieving a wide variety of responses (Garg et al., 2001). One of the most usual configura-
tions microstrip antennas can be found in is the one where two or more patches are stacked
within several dielectric layers. These patches are intended to introduce resonances, thus
being able to increase bandwidth and have a broadband/multiband antenna (Waterhouse,
1999). Circuit models are not accurate enough to carry out a rigorous analysis of these
structures, the use of a full-wave numerical technique then being required, such as FE
methods, Finite-Difference methods, Method of Moments or hybrid methods. However,
until not so long ago the time consumed by these techniques made them prohibitive when
addressing a new design, pushing them into the background and recovering them only for
validation purposes. On the other hand, not only there have been astounding advances
in the field of computation but there have also been promising achievements towards full-
wave optimization, in the sense of newly developed clever procedures, working as novel
standalone methods or applied to the aforementioned classic numerical techniques.
In this chapter a novel CAD methodology for the design of probe-fed stacked mi-
crostrip patch antennas is proposed. The main idea consists of making the computational
effort at the beginning of the design methodology which will eventually allow a fast final
global optimization to be made. This methodology incorporates the rigour of a contrasted
numerical technique, such as the FE method. Furthermore, in order to be able to perform
an optimization in our design process, two well-known advanced mathematical techniques
have been used: a NN (Haykin, 1998) and global optimization algorithms, specifically
genetic algorithms (Goldberg, 1989) and simulated annealing (Otten and van Ginneken,
1989).
A canonical representation of the antenna being designed is shown in Figure 2.1. It
basically consists of T stacked patches within L dielectric layers, all of which are enclosed
in a cavity. The lower patch is fed via a coaxial probe. The shape and location of the
patches, placed parallel to the x-y plane as seen in Figure 2.1, can be arbitrary. In the
same way, the profile of the cavity along the z direction, as well as its cross-sectional shape
(in planes perpendicular to that direction), can also be piecewise arbitrary as also shown in
3
4 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
Figure 2.1. To make our design, we must first decide on some geometrical constraints and
the parameters and their associated ranges of values involved in the design x1 , x2 , . . . , xI
must be selected according to them. This choice is critical because it requires having the
necessary knowledge of which ones really do affect the desired output of the antenna. This
output, which we will refer to as y, should be directly related to any physical response of
the antenna (directive gain, matching, input-match bandwidth, . . . ) or a combination of
them.
We have divided the CAD methodology into three steps which will be described
throughout the following sections:
1. Hybrid FE-MA with artificial ports
2. Neural Network
3. Global optimization
boundary conditions have been proposed in the literature. One of them is the absorbing
boundary condition, including perfectly matched layers. Another type is the boundary
condition based on boundary integral equations. A very good summary of these two types
of boundary conditions is given in (Liu and Jin, 2001), where a hybrid method with the
advantages of both kinds is developed. The third kind is based on the harmonic expansion
of the field on the boundary (Rubio et al., 2002).
One of the most powerful features of this technique is its capability to segment a
given structure in different regions delimited by modal ports where modal expansions of
the electromagnetic fields are used. The application of the hybrid FE-MA method to each
region provides the GAM that describes it, which relates complex modal coefficients on
the considered ports in that region. The partial GAMs can be assembled analytically, with
no additional numerical effort, by connecting the desired ports through a section with an
arbitrary length of a canonical transmission line (such as a rectangular or cicular waveg-
uide, or a coaxial line) or a transmission line which has been numerically characterized by
a two-dimensional FE method.
This feature allows the design methodology to modify any distance along the z-axis
in Figure 2.1 easily by dividing the whole structure into R regions, allowing the variation
of parameters such as dielectric thicknesses or separation between patches.
6 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
Find
Z H̄ ∈ H such that
1 jk
Z
2
∇ × H̄ · ∇ × W̄ − k µr H̄ W̄ dV = − Ψ̄ · W̄ dS ∀W̄ ∈ H, (2.1)
Ω ǫr η0 ∂Ω
√ p
where k = ω µ0 ǫ0 , η0 = µ0 /ǫ0 , µr and ǫr are, respectively, the relative permeability and
permittivity of the medium, H is an admissible vector function space in which a solution
to the BVP is to be found, and Ψ̄ is the tangential electric vector field on the boundary
∂Ω.
Within the discretized finite element space, the magnetic vector field can be written
in the domain Ω as X
H̄ = hn w¯n (2.2)
n
where hn is the coefficient of the basis function w¯n .
In every modal port belonging to the boundary ∂Ω, the tangential electric vector
field can be expressed as a linear combination of modes:
X
Ψ̄ = V (m) (n̄ × et,m
¯ ) (2.3)
m
where et,m
¯ is the tangential electric vector field corresponding to the mth mode on the
modal port, V (m) is its associated coefficient and n̄ is the unit outward normal vector to
∂Ω on the modal port. By applying the natural and essential boundary conditions to the
rest of ∂Ω, we arrive at the following classic FE algebraic system:
jk
[K] − k2 [M] {h} = − [B] {V}
(2.4)
η0
where {h} and {V} are coefficient vectors of the magnetic field in Ω and the modal electric
field in the modal ports of ∂Ω, while [K] and [M] are sparse symmetric matrices, and [B]
is a sparse matrix, with elements given by:
1
Z
Knm = ∇ × w¯n · ∇ × w¯m dV (2.5)
ZΩ ǫ r
where the integral of Bnm is carried out in the parts of ∂Ω where a modal port is defined.
Now, the tangential magnetic field on the modal port of ∂Ω can be set as a linear
combination of modal tangential magnetic fields ht,m¯ with associated coefficients I (m) as:
¯
X
n̄ × H̄ = n̄ × I (m) ht,m (2.8)
m
2.2 Hybrid Finite Element - Modal Analysis characterization of an antenna 7
From these expressions and after different operations (Rubio et al., 1999, 2001), we
can arrive at matrix relationship between the normalized modal tangential electric and
magnetic fields on the modal ports of ∂Ω as:
Here, ēt,m and h̄t,m are the tangential electric and magnetic fields for each spherical mode
(m) (m)
m, Vi and Ii are their complex amplitudes in terms of voltages and currents, and Mi
is the number of spherical modes used in the spherical port of an antenna i.
Once the GAM is obtained, the GSM of an antenna i shown in Figure 2.2 is calcu-
lated by using the following expressions that relate complex amplitudes of voltages and
(m) (m)
currents with complex amplitudes of incoming ainc,i and outgoing bout,i spherical modes
(depending on the T E r or T M r nature of each spherical mode):
highest degree of the propagating modes. The integer nl depends on the required accuracy
as well as on krmin and on the radius where the field is evaluated (given by the FE mesh).
Fixing nl equal to 2 the approximation is good enough for antennas with a diameter close
to half a wavelength (Rubio et al., 2005). As shown in (Hansen, 1988), the analysis of an
antenna i on an infinite ground plane requires Mi = nmax (nmax + 2), without considering
other symmetry properties.
The resultant GSM for an antenna i with two ports as shown in Figure 2.2 is given
by:
[ρi ] [ri ] {vinc
i } {wi }
= (2.16)
bout
[ti ] [si ] ai i
Figure 2.3: Top and side view of the geometry of the probe-fed U-slot rectangular patch embed-
ded in a cylindrical cavity. Coaxial feed (SMA connector): εr =1.95, do =0.41 cm, di =0.128 cm.
Antenna parameters from (Tong et al., 2000): εr =2.33, a=1.4 cm, b=1.8 cm, c=0.2 cm, g=0.7 cm,
L=3.6 cm, W=2.6 cm, h=0.8 cm.
In order to simplify the analysis process, the antenna is segmented into two regions
delimited by modal ports as shown in Figure 2.4. The first region includes the coaxial
feed and part of the cavity region, and the second region comprises the U-slot patch and
a semi-spherical computation domain where a spherical modal expansion is carried out to
characterize the radiating region. Both regions are separated by a fictitious coaxial port, as
shown in Figure 2.3, where once again an analytical modal expansion of the fields is carried
out. The application of the hybrid FE-MA method provides the GSMs that describe each
region by relating complex modal coefficients on the considered ports. Finally, these
partial GSMs are analytically assembled through a section of a fictitious coaxial line, and
the overall GSM of the isolated antenna is obtained, as shown in Figure 2.4. In this way
the thickness of the substrate may be varied easily without additional numerical effort.
Figure 2.5 shows the computed VSWR against frequency for two cavity radii, R=2.34
cm and R=5 cm, compared with the measured values in (Tong et al., 2000) corresponding
to the same patch but printed on a finite microwave substrate (without a cavity) placed
on a finite ground plane. As can be seen, a good agreement, except for a small level
discrepancy in the second resonant frequency, is obtained for a large cavity radius (5 cm),
10 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
as is expected. For a cavity radius of 2.34 cm which situates the cavity wall very close to
the patch, there is an impedance mismatch. On the other hand, a small cavity may be
required in case a phased array is made up of these radiating elements in order to have
an interelement spacing that avoids the appearance of grating lobes in the considered
frequency band. Hence, in order to maintain a broadband characteristic in the VSWR
with R=2.34 cm, the impedance mismatch is compensated by modifying other dimensions.
In this way, the length b of the U-slot (bringing its arms nearer the upper edge of the
rectangular patch) and the substrate thickness have been modified (b=1.9 cm, h=0.9 cm)
following the guidelines detailed in (Weigand et al., 2003). The modified patch embedded
in a 2.34 cm radius cavity gives a relative bandwidth of about 20% for a VSWR<2 as
shown in Figure 2.6. This result is compared to the one provided by a commercial High-
Frequency Structure Simulator (Ansoft HFSS), both being in good agreement.
Figure 2.5: Measured VSWR of the U-slot patch antenna on a finite microwave substrate (antenna
C in (Tong et al., 2000)) and computed VSWR of the same antenna enclosed in a cylindrical cavity
(see Figure 2.3) for two different radii, R=5 cm and R=2.34 cm.
12 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
Figure 2.6: Computed VSWR of the U-slot patch antenna in Figure 2.3 with b=1.9 cm, h=0.9
cm enclosed in a cavity of radius R=2.34 cm., compared to Ansoft HFSS results.
2.3 Inclusion of artificial ports: multipurpose admittance matrices 13
where ψ̄l and Vl represent the piecewise function and its associated coefficient, and n̄ is
the unitary vector normal to the artificial port. Analogously, the tangential magnetic field
on such artificial port may be expressed as
X
n̄ × H̄ = n̄ × Il ψ̄l , (2.19)
l
T
{I} = I1 T , . . . , Ip T , . . . , IP T (2.21)
T T T T
{I} = I1 , . . . , Ia , . . . , IA (2.22)
T T T T
{V} = V1 , . . . , Vp , . . . , VP (2.23)
T T
{V} = V1 T , . . . , VaT , . . . , VA
(2.24)
where Vp , Ip , Va and Ia are coefficient vectors of, respectively the tangential electric and
magnetic field on the modal port p, and the tangential electric and magnetic field on the
artifical port a, [K] and [M] are sparse symmetric matrices, [β] is a sparse matrix and [d]
is a block diagonal matrix (see (de la Rubia and Zapata, 2007) for all the details).
Hence, a full-wave admittance-type matrix, namely a MAM arises and, as a result,
we are able to deal with a multiport network where the electromagnetic complexity in
the analysis domain has been removed. This way, multiple different physical shape and
dimension analysis can be obtained straightforwardly from the MAM. So far, the full-wave
transfer functions of a variety of specific device realizations requiring only one large sparse
FE stiffnes matrix inversion-like computation is obtained.
In this full-wave network, straigthforward elementary circuit manipulation can be
carried out in the artificial ports, all with a direct electromagnetic counterpart in the
actual structure in the form of a GAM, removing all physical uncertainties. For example,
we can nullify the tangential electric field, thus rendering an artificial port short-circuit,
by simply imposing Va = 0 on the desired artifical port a in (2.20). Analogously, we may
impose Ia = 0 to have an artificial port a open-circuit. Finally, we can impose the field
continuity across two artificial ports a and b defined on the two sides of the same portion
of a surface, both sharing the same mesh, by setting Va = Vb and Ia = −Ib in (2.20).
14 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
Figure 2.7: Example for two typical patch geometries of the possibilities given by the artificial
ports.
This feature allows the design methodology to vary parameters easily directly related
to the shape and location in the x-y plane of a patch where pairs of artificial ports may
be defined on each side of the patch surface. For example, Figure 2.7 shows the different
cases for two typical geometries, a circular patch made up of two circular ports, A and B,
and two ring artificial ports, F and G; and a rectangular patch made up of two triangular
artificial ports, A and B, and two irregular quadrilateral artificial ports, F and G. As
previously stated, these two pairs of artificial ports (A and B, F and G) are defined on
the same portion of the surface but on different sides. By connecting each pair of artificial
ports or letting them short-circuit (trough the appropriate MAM manipulations), we can
easily vary the shape and dimensions of these patch geometries, having the possibilities
shown in Figure 2.7.
In this way, the first step of the CAD methodology, which is intended to bear the
majority of the computational burden, can be summarized in Figure 2.8. As can be seen,
we first calculate the MAM corresponding to the R regions we have divided our whole
structure delimited by the modal ports in Figure 2.1, which exactly requires only R FE
simulations. Within these sections, there will be a number of pairs of artificial ports used
to model the shape and location flexibly in the x-y plane of the patches inside each region
as also shown in Figure 2.1. By properly connecting these latter pairs of ports or letting
them short-circuit, we can produce Sr GAMs for region r, each one corresponding to a
different shape and/or location of the aforementioned patches, thus being able to vary
2.4 Neural network 15
the parameters associated to these shapes and locations without the need of carrying out
any more FE simulations. We can then finally assemble all combinations of the GAMs
belonging to all regions via the analytical connection of modal ports through sections of
transmission lines, which corresponds to a variation in substrate thicknesses. This way,
several GAMs (which can easily be converted into GSMs if needed), which represent the
results of carrying out a FE simulation for each different combination of different values
of design parameters belonging to discrete sets of values Xi , are easily obtained with an
affordable computational effort.
2.4.1 Normalizing
One of the most important steps before training a NN is to carry out a normalization both
for the input and output values of the training patterns. In our case, such a normalization
is carried out as usual by calculating first the mean and the standard deviation over the P
patterns for each input i, i.e. x̄i and σxi , and for the output, ȳ and σy , to finally normalize
every value as follows.
P P
1 X p 1 X p
x̄i = xi ȳ = y (2.25)
P P
p=1 p=1
v v
u P u P
uX p uX
u
u (xi − x̄i )2 u
u (y p − ȳ)2
t p=1 t p=1
σx i = σy = (2.26)
P −1 P −1
To finally normalize every value as follows:
xpi − x̄i y p − ȳ
x̃pi = ỹ p = (2.27)
σx i σy
2.4.2 Training
Figure 2.9 shows a simple Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) feedforward NN (Haykin, 1998),
with an input layer (with normalized inputs x̃i , i = 1 . . . I), a hidden layer (with H hidden
neurons), and an output layer with a linear neuron which directly provides output z̃.
This is the type of neural network we have implemented for our CAD methodology. The
weights connecting the input layer with the hidden layer will be referred to as wi,h , while
the weights connecting the hidden layer with the output will be referred to as vh . Note
how every input to a layer (especifically, the hidden layer and the output layer) is biased.
16 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
Figure 2.8: Graphical description of the first step of the CAD methodology: application of MAM.
2.4 Neural network 17
The only neuron belonging to the output layer has been chosen to be implemented as a
simple sum of the weighted inputs to the layer (known as a linear neuron). On the other
hand, each neuron belonging to the hidden layer has been implemented as a perceptron
with an activation function given by a tanh(bζ), as shown in Figure 2.10, where a and b are
parameters intentionally left to be adjusted depending on the problem and the preferences
for the training. For the training, we carry out a random sequential learning based on
the error backpropagation algorithm (Haykin, 1998; Rumelhart et al., 1987; Brierley and
Batty, 1999). In sequential learning, the weights are updated for each pattern given as an
input to the network in the learning process. Once the training has completed an epoch,
that is to say, has used all the patterns as inputs and correspondingly updated the weights,
if no stopping criterion has been achieved, we proceed to another epoch containing all the
patterns, but given in a different order (chosen at random) than in the previous epoch.
For a normalized input pattern x̃pi , i = 1, . . . , I, the network produces an output z̃ p . The
error incurred by the network for that pattern with respect to the original normalized
output ỹ p is given by ep = z̃ p − ỹ p . Thus, we may find the updating rules for every weight
18 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
for i = 1, . . . , I h = 1, . . . , H
In (2.28)-(2.31) ηout and ηhid represent, respectively, the learning rates for the hidden-to-
output and the input-to-hidden connections. We have set ηhid = 10ηout . These learning
rates may be fixed during the whole training process or, on the other hand, have a varying
value following an adaptive scheme (Haykin, 1998). In our case, we have chosen a simple
adaptive learning rate which decays with the number of epochs according to the following
expression:
η
ηhid ← , (2.32)
1 + j/Jη
where η is the initial learning rate, j is the number of epochs, and Jη is a parameter to be
adjusted depending on the problem and the preferences for the training. However, as the
weights’ variation within each epoch has a random component, there exists the possibility
that the final updated weights after an epoch result in a network with a higher level of
errors than in the previous epoch. To overcome it, we calculate the root Mean Square
Error (MSE) of all the normalized patterns used in the learning process in each epoch.
v v
u P u P
uX uX
u
u |ep |2 u
u (z̃ p − ỹ p )2
t p=1 t p=1
e= = (2.33)
P P
If this error is higher than the error of the previous epoch, we keep the weights from the
previous epoch to initiate the following one.
To finally complete the learning process and have the NN trained, there should be
a stopping criterion. In this case, how to choose this criterion is greatly dependent on
the problem and the needs, and that choice is also crucial for an effective training, in
terms of accuracy and time. However, one must always set a maximum number of epochs.
This criterion is usually based on the aforementioned root MSE, using the denormalized
outputs to have more insight into the real physical problem in this case.
Therefore, the purpose of the second step of CAD methodology is reproducing the
response of the antenna to a given set of values of the design parameters immediately,
since this fact can be used to have a large search space (in theory, as large as desired) with
enough points to find the global maximum/minimum through the application of a global
optimization algorithm. Note that without the inclusion of this second step the search
space of the global optimization algorithm would be constrained to the discrete sets of
values (P points) given directly by the first step, which would require an increment in the
number of FE simulations in order to have a large enough search space.
2.5 Global optimization 19
Mutation: After a crossover, each bit of the new individual may suffer from a jump
or creep mutation (Goldberg, 1989) according to the specified probabilities Pjump and
Pcreep . There are two types of mutation, with their corresponding probabilities: jump
mutation and creep mutation. In the former, a chromosome (bit) switches its value with a
probability Pjump . For the latter, two chromosomes in the individual swap their position
with a probability Pcreep . With these mutation techniques, the GA introduces a random
component which is claimed to make the optimization process avoid getting stuck in local
minima/maxima and keep on searching for the global minimum/maximum. Typical values
to set these probabilities can be found in (Goldberg, 1989; Carroll, 1999).
Micro Genetic Algorithm: The micro genetic algorithm (Krishnakumar, 1990; Car-
roll, 1999) is a very small population GA. Since enough diversity is introduced, mutations
in this variant are not applied.
A good starting point for a similar design (with no superstrate) can be found in
(Waterhouse, 1999). It is based on how each antenna parameter affects the impedance
behaviour, given by a loop on the Smith chart due to the presence of two resonances
corresponding to the two stacked patches. Following these rules, we have chosen the
parameters involved in the design to be the radii of the lower and upper patches R1
and R2 , and the distance between both patches d2 , since the combination of these three
parameters is enough to have a wide range in controlling the input impedance in the
desired band. In addition, the values for the substrate permittivity and thickness have
been adjusted to the commercial ones closest to those given in (Waterhouse, 1999). Given
2.6 Application: broadband stacked circular patches for DCS and UMTS bands 21
the fact that these initial values do not account for the presence of a superstrate, used
intentionally in our design for a matter of ease in the construction of the antenna, as well
as a possible cover, we have chosen the values of the permittivity and thickness of this
superstrate to be as small as possible at the considered frequencies, taking into account
mechanical issues, within the commercial range of values. The coaxial feed has been chosen
to be a 50-Ω N-type connector. In this way, we have set the parameters of the antenna
in Figure 2.11 to the ones shown in Table 2.1, where λ0 is the free-space wavelength and
√
λg = λ0 / ǫr1 .
this design (Pentium IV @ 3.2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM). Note that the total time can be
considerably reduced since we have chosen a frequency-by-frequency scheme covering the
desired band and thereabouts, instead of making use of the reduced-oder model (Padé via
Lanczos).
In order to complete the training set, we have chosen to vary the distance between
patches d2 in steps of 0.125 cm from 0.75 to 2.00 cm, which provides 11 different values.
The time used to carry out the necessary matrix manipulations (artificial port interconnec-
tions and short-circuits, as well as modal interconnections) to make up the whole training
set totals to approximately 3 minutes per point of frequency. Note that our training set
consists of 1331 patterns per frequency, which with a classic FE approach would require
such a number of full-wave simulations, thus resulting in a prohibitive time. In our case,
only 2 FE numerical simulations have been carried out (one per region), and the rest of
the computational effort is reduced to 11 artificial port matrix manipulations per region
and their corresponding modal interconnections.
SA GA micro-GA
R1 (cm.) 2.88 2.88 2.88
R2 (cm.) 2.84 2.84 2.80
d2 (cm.) 1.49 1.47 1.48
maxf |S11 (f )| 0.2964 0.3057 0.3086
Evaluations 13723 2550 1000
instantaneously obtained, the time used in the optimization can be said to be ridiculous
(just a few seconds in the case of SA, less than one second for the GAs) in comparison
with the two previous phases of the proposed CAD methodology. Thus, we can state that
the first idea of making the computational effort in the beginning has been accomplished.
Figure 2.12: Photograph of the constructed and measured antenna. The superstrate has been
removed and the upper patch is the one shown at the bottom.
Figure 2.13: Measured and computed VSWR for the designed antenna showing a 26% relative
bandwidth at VSWR=2.
26 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
Figure 2.14: Computed E-plane pattern at different frequencies. ECP : copolar component.
Figure 2.15: Computed H-plane pattern at different frequencies. ECP : copolar component.
EXP : crosspolar component.
2.6 Application: broadband stacked circular patches for DCS and UMTS bands 27
Figure 2.16: Return loss for the two different designs carried out with the methodology according
to the topology of Figure 2.11.
28 Design methodology for stacked microstrip patch antennas
Chapter 3
Generalized-Scattering-Matrix
analysis of antenna arrays
3.1 Introduction
The use of entire-domain basis functions in the full-wave analysis of finite arrays is well-
known since the end of the 1960s when Mailloux studied two collinear coupled slots by
means of a finite expansion of waveguide modes (Mailloux, 1969). Since then, many
results of external mutual coupling, mostly based on waveguide mode expansions, have
been presented for different types of apertures on a ground plane, see, e.g., (Bird, 2004)
and references therein. The efficient analysis of finite arrays of more complex elements
was tackled a few years ago by using the so called Macro Basis, Synthetic Basis and
Characteristic Basis functions, all of which require a numerical generation process for
each array structure (Suter and Mosig, 2000), (Matekovits et al., 2003), (Prakash and
Mittra, 2003).
Recently, the use of spherical modes on a hemispherical port in each element as
entire-domain functions for the analysis of the external mutual coupling in finite arrays
has been proposed (Rubio et al., 2003, 2005). When spherical modes are used, it is possible
to study a finite array of antennas or scatterers including the coupling effects, by using the
rotation and translation theorems for spherical modes. Translational addition theorems for
spherical modes were introduced by Stein (Stein, 1961) and Cruzan (Cruzan, 1962), and
they have been widely applied to different problems such as the scattering from multiple
conducting (Bruning and Lo, 1971) or dielectric spheres (Hamid et al., 1990), or mea-
surements with probe correction in spherical near-field antenna measurements (Hansen,
1988).
In (Rubio et al., 2003), the reflection and coupling characteristics of two-element
arrays of cavity-backed microstrip antennas are obtained with a procedure which consists
of two steps. First, the GSM of each single antenna, in terms of spherical modes and
feed modes, is obtained from the hybrid FE-MA method described in Chapter 2. Second,
the reflection and coupling characteristics of a two-element array are obtained by using
the matrix expressions given in (Hansen, 1988) (pp. 85-86) for this particular case. In
this chapter, this full-wave procedure is extended in order to completely characterize finite
arrays of arbitrary size.
Although the method can be applied only to finite arrays whose elements’ radiated
fields can be individually described in terms of spherical modes, such as arbitrarily shaped
29
30 Generalized-Scattering-Matrix analysis of antenna arrays
Each one of the column vectors ahi is obtained from the field scattered by each
where [Gi,h ] is known as the General Translation Matrix (GTM). This matrix is obtained
by using rotation and translation of spherical modes and it includes, in the most general
3.2 GSM analysis of an array from rotation and translation of spherical waves31
Figure 3.1: Scheme of the hybrid methodology used to obtain the GSM of the whole array from
the GSM(s) of the individual antenna element(s) considered as isolated.
32 Generalized-Scattering-Matrix analysis of antenna arrays
case, rotations, axial translations and inverse rotations of spherical waves. Substituting
(3.3) in (3.2) we get:
XN
inc
ai = {ai } + [Gi,h ] {bh } (3.4)
h=1
h 6= i
Now, by using (3.4) we can express (3.1) for each antenna i as follows:
N
X
[ρi ] {vi } + [ri ] {ai } + [ri ] [Gi,h ] {bh }={wi } (3.5)
h=1
h 6= i
N
X
[ti ] {vi } + ([si ] − [Ii ]) {ai } + ([si ] − [Ii ]) [Gi,h ] {bh }={bi } (3.6)
h=1
h 6= i
If we repeat these equations for each one of the N antennas and we arrange them,
the following matrix equations are found for the array (Rubio et al., 2005):
where [ρ], [r], [t] and ([s] − [I]) are diagonal block-matrices,
[ρ]=diag([ρi ]) (3.9)
[r]=diag([ri ]) (3.10)
[t]=diag([ti ]) (3.11)
[s] − [I]=diag([si ] − [Ii ]) (3.12)
In order to obtain the overall GSM of the array, which includes the coupling effects,
we will use (3.7) and (3.8), as well as the definition of the overall GSM given by:
[Γ] [R] {v} {w}
= (3.15)
[T] ([S] − [I]) {a} {b}
[[I] − ([s] − [I]) [G]]−1 [t] {v} + [[I] − ([s] − [I]) [G]]−1 ([s] − [I]) {a} = {b} (3.16)
[ρ] + [r] [G] [[I] − ([s] − [I]) [G]]−1 [t] {v} +
+ [r] + [r] [G] [[I] − ([s] − [I]) [G]]−1 ([s] − [I]) {a} = {w} (3.17)
Equations (3.16) and (3.17) provide the overall GSM as can be seen by comparing
them with the definition in (3.15). Therefore, each one of the matrices which make up the
overall GSM is given by:
As can be seen, in order to obtain the overall GSM it is only necessary to invert
one matrix. This is in general a full matrix of dimension given by the total number of
spherical modes used to describe the tangential field on the spherical ports. If the antennas
in the array are not very close, only the propagating modes of each antenna need to be
retained. For moderate-sized arrays, it is possible to carry out a fast direct evaluation
of the system given by (3.18)-(3.21). For very large arrays, this system can be efficiently
solved by using the Compressed Block Decomposition Solver (Heldring et al., 2007) as
shown in (Rubio et al., 2007). Moreover, for regularly spaced arrays of identical elements,
a complex Block-Toeplitz linear system solver can be used to save CPU time and memory
requirements (Rubio et al., 2004a).
Radiating region
{a 1} {b 1} {a i} {b i} {a N} {b N}
{v 1} {w 1} {v i} {w i} {v N} {w N}
Feeding ports of the antennas in the array
Figure 3.2: Multiport network characterization of an antenna array.
{v} = h{v1 }T , . . . , {vN }T iT on the excitation ports of all the elements of the array with
scattered spherical modes {b} = h{b1 }T , . . . , {bN }T iT on the radiating ports of all the
elements of the array, as {b} = [T] {v}. This matrix rigorously provides the radiating
characteristics for any selected excitations including both the element pattern correspond-
ing to every antenna and all the interelement mutual coupling effects. The radiated field
of a planar array is then obtained as a superposition of shifted spherical modes, weighted
(m)
with their complex amplitudes bi , computed from {b} = [T] {v} by imposing a value
for the excitation modes, in the following way:
N Mi
!
(m)
X X
~ ϕ) =
E(θ, bi ~em (θ, ϕ) exp jk sin θ(xi cos ϕ + yi sin ϕ) (3.22)
i=1 m=1
where (xi , yi ) are the coordinates of each antenna in the array, considering a planar array
of N elements in the x − y plane; k is the free-space wavenumber; and ~em (θ, ϕ) are the
spherical mode far field vectors.
Analogously, in the case where there is no incident field coming from outside the
array, the overall reflection matrix of the array [Γ] provides the matching characteristics
for any selected excitations including the mutual coupling effects through {w} = [Γ]{v},
where {w} = h{w1 }T , . . . , {wN }T iT . This information can be used, for example, to set
the specifications of a feeding network which achieves the desired distribution of incident
modes {v} by taking into account the value of the reflected modes {w}.
Finally, it can be said that excitation modes {v} correspond to the modes of the
feeding ports of the antennas in the array, such as the TEM mode in a coaxial line, or the
fundamental modes of circular or rectangular waveguides.
3.4 Numerical validation and examples 35
Figure 3.3: Coupling coefficient magnitude between the fundamental modes of two WR90 rectan-
gular apertures on an infinite ground plane versus the aperture rotation angle α, for two aperture
separations at 9.2 GHz.
Figure 3.4: Geometry of the hemispherical dielectric resonator antenna used as an array antenna
element. R = 12.7 mm, ǫr = 9.5, s = 6.4 mm, h = 6.5 mm. Coaxial feed (50-ohm): ri = 0.5 mm,
ro = 1.505 mm.
mm is used. Figure 3.5 shows the variation of the coupling coefficient magnitude with
the center-to-center separation d, between the array elements, in free-space wavelengths
at 3.68 GHz. Results for both E- and H-plane coupling configurations are presented and
compared with theoretical and measurements given in (Luk et al., 1994). Again, a good
agreement is observed.
Figure 3.5: E- and H-plane mutual coupling coefficient magnitude versus dielectric resonator
spacing at 3.68 GHz.
the scan coverage may be expected owing to the surface wave excitation. The lower order
surface wave propagation would yield a blind-spot at approximately 69◦ calculated from
the infinite array theory (Pozar and Schaubert, 1984). Figure 3.6(b) shows the E-plane
broadside-matched active reflection coefficient magnitude for the central element of the
same arrays considering an interelement spacing larger than a half wavelength, 0.6λ0 at 3.2
GHz. In this case, the simulations show a tendency towards a blind spot as the number of
elements of the array increases, whose value, 41.8◦ , predicted by the grating lobe theory,
coincides with the calculated with the infinite-array model (González et al., 2000).
Figure 3.7 shows the E-plane active element field pattern at 3.2 GHz of the central
element for an interelement spacing of 0.6λ0 . As previously the presence of a blind spot is
observed. The asymmetry of the patterns in this plane (independent of the interelement
spacing) is introduced by the U-slot in the patch, which in the case of the array of 0.6λ0
spacing renders the tendency to the blind angle much more pronounced in one semiplane
than in the other one. The E-plane cross-polarization component is negligible in all the
considered cases. Figure 3.8 shows the H-plane active element field pattern of the central
element for the case of 0.5λ0 spacing. Now the pattern is symmetric and there exists
a crosspolar component which becomes much more significant as the array is scanned
towards endfire.
The different behaviour of the input impedance with the element position in the array
and with the array size is illustrated in Figure 3.9. It shows the active reflection coefficient
magnitude, at 3.2 GHz in arrays of various sizes and d = 0.5λ0 , versus the element position
across (a) the H-plane (central row in the x-direction of the array scheme in Figure 3.6)
when the array is scanned at broadside, and across (b) the E-plane (central column in
38 Generalized-Scattering-Matrix analysis of antenna arrays
Figure 3.6: E-plane broadside-matched active reflection coefficient magnitude |Γ| versus scan
angle at 3.2 GHz of the central element for arrays of various sizes with (a) d=0.5λ0 (b) d=0.6λ0 .
3.4 Numerical validation and examples 39
Figure 3.7: E-plane active element field pattern of the central element at 3.2 GHz for arrays of
various sizes with d=0.6λ0 .
Figure 3.8: H-plane active element field pattern of the central element at 3.2 GHz for arrays of
various sizes with d=0.5λ0 .
40 Generalized-Scattering-Matrix analysis of antenna arrays
Figure 3.9: Computed active reflection coefficient magnitude |ρ| at 3.2 GHz for arrays of various
sizes with d=0.5λ0 for the elements across (a) the H-plane when the array is at broadside scan,
and across (b) the E-plane when the array is scanned at 70◦ in the E-plane.
the y-direction of the array scheme in Figure 3.6) when the array is scanned at 70◦ in
the E-plane. As it is observed, as the size of the array increases, the response gets more
uniform. The theory predicts the appearance of a blind spot at 69◦ in an infinite array on
a continuous dielectric layer when scanning in the E-plane (Pozar and Schaubert, 1984),
which for a finite array would mean a mismatch increment as the number of elements gets
higher. However, Figure 3.9(b) shows how for the cavity-backed patch array this effect
does not appear and, on the contrary, a substantial improvement is achieved.
Finally, in order to show the combination of broadband impedance and wide scan
coverage characteristics in the proposed phased array configuration we have examined
the active reflection coefficient magnitude of a 35×35 array at four different frequencies
covering the input-match frequency band, for three different scan angles. The results are
depicted in Figure 3.10 as a function of the element position across the E-plane when the
array is scanned at broadside (Figure 3.10(a)), and when it is scanned in the E-plane at
60◦ (Figure 3.10(b)); and as a function of the element position across the H-plane when
the array is scanned in the H-plane at 45◦ (Figure 3.10(c)). It is observed that the VSWR
for all the considered elements remains below 2 for the defined scan volume and bandwidth
except for some border elements. The curves of the broadside case are asymmetrical owing
to the U-slots in the patches but are quite uniform, mainly in the central elements, since a
large array is being considered. The results in Figure 3.10(b) show once again the improved
scan performance of the proposed structure with respect to the same U-slot patch array
on a continuous dielectric layer. In this case, owing to the surface wave excitation, the
infinite array theory (Pozar and Schaubert, 1984) predicts a blind spot at 69◦ and 57◦ in
the E-plane for 3.2 GHz and 3.35 GHz, respectively, which would lead to an undesirable
3.4 Numerical validation and examples 41
Figure 3.10: Computed active reflection coefficient magnitude |ρ| at different frequencies for
a 35×35 array with d=0.5λ0 at 3.2 GHz for the elements across the E-plane when the array is
scanned at (a) Broadside (b) 60◦ in the E-plane, and (c) for the elements across the H-plane when
the array is scanned at 45◦ in the H-plane.
42 Generalized-Scattering-Matrix analysis of antenna arrays
mismatch if the considered finite array on a continuous dielectric layer were scanned at
60◦ in the E-plane at these frequencies.
As can be seen, the analyzed configuration provides a broadband impedance band-
width accompanied by a large scan volume preserving the attractive single-layer single-
patch characteristics of conventional patch arrays.
Figure 3.11: Finite array of stacked DRAs on an infinite ground plane fed with coax probes
through a rectangular waveguide. (a) Top view. (b) Longitudinal view including the feeding
network, the inner ports, the input ports, the coax excitation ports and the hemispherical ports.
44 Generalized-Scattering-Matrix analysis of antenna arrays
Figure 3.12: Scattering parameters versus frequency with two interelement spacings compared
to the results in (Eshrah et al., 2006). (a) d=20 mm. (b) d=15 mm.
port to describe free-space propagation. The array is made up of ten identical probe-fed
stacked DRAs with alternating probe offsets. Thus, it suffices to compute just the GSM
of one isolated array element since element rotations are analytically incorporated in the
GSM formulation of the finite array (Rubio et al., 2005). It should be noted that any other
validated analytical or numerical method could be used to obtain the externally uncou-
pled GSM. Thus, e.g., an equivalent generalized network matrix can be quickly obtained
for waveguides radiating into a spherically stratified dielectric by using modal techniques
(Mongiardo et al., 2007). Once the initial GSM of the whole array has been computed
without taking into consideration the external coupling, equations (3.18) and (3.20) are
solved to obtain the overall reflection matrix and the overall transmission matrix of the
array. The radiated field of each stacked DRA has been characterized with a maximum
of 24 spherical modes at the highest frequencies of the analysis band. Therefore, in the
worst case, the dimension of the equation system is 240. The variation of the scattering
parameters with the frequency including the feeding network has been calculated for an
inter-element spacing d of 20 mm and 15 mm (Figure 3.12). A very good agreement with
the results obtained in (Eshrah et al., 2006) with a different method has been found. It has
been noted how the influence of the external mutual coupling is more noticeable for d=15
mm. From the overall transmission matrix, which takes into account the feeding network,
different radiation patterns have been obtained analytically. A very good agreement with
the reference is found again.
Figure 3.13(a) shows the radiation pattern for d=20 mm at 8 GHz. Figures 3.13(b)
3.5 Inclusion of the feeding network effects: waveguide-fed DRA array 45
Figure 3.13: Radiation patterns compared to (Eshrah et al., 2006). (a) d=20 mm, f =8 GHz.
(b) d=15 mm, f =8 GHz. (c) d=15 mm, f =10 GHz.
and 3.13(c) show, respectively, the radiation patterns at 8 GHz and at 10 GHz for d=15
mm. It can be seen how external mutual coupling changes the scanning direction slightly
and broadens the width of the main beam at 8 GHz. It also makes the directivity decrease
by 2.5 dB in the scanning direction at 10 GHz. The influence of the feeding network with
internally coupled and unmatched coaxial ports in the external mutual coupling can be ob-
served by comparing with the analysis without the feeding network. In this case the GSM
formulation based on uncoupled excitation ports fed by matched generators is directly
applied, so now matrices (3.9)-(3.12) are diagonal-block matrices. The radiation pattern
at each frequency is obtained by imposing in the coaxial ports the relative excitations
the feeding network provides. These excitations have been obtained before considering
the external mutual coupling and they produce the same externally uncoupled radiation
pattern than the whole array when the rectangular input port is fed. Results are given
at 8 GHz and at 10 GHz for d=15 mm. They are shown in Figs. 3.13(b) and 3.13(c)
for comparison purposes. It can be seen that the inclusion of the feeding network in the
calculation of the external coupling modifies the radiation patterns, especially at 8 GHz.
All calculations were carried out on a laptop computer with a 2.20 GHz Intel Core2
46 Generalized-Scattering-Matrix analysis of antenna arrays
Duo CPU T7500 processor and 3-GB RAM. The C-type region was analyzed in 14 seconds
per frequency and each one of the A-type regions required 5 seconds per frequency without
using fast frequency-sweep techniques. These multimode problems have been solved with
an efficient sparse direct solver, which is more suitable for small-sized problems with
multiple right-hand-side vectors. The connection of all inner ports to obtain the externally
uncoupled GSM took 0.37 seconds per frequency. Finally, the computation of the external
mutual coupling taking into account the feeding network was carried out in only 0.2 seconds
per frequency, including the fill-in of the matrix system and the calculation of the overall
reflection and transmission matrices.
Chapter 4
Multiobjective optimization of an
array through an IPM with
filtering
4.1 Introduction
Since the early beginnings of antenna arrays, most of the research effort has focused on
finding the optimum excitations for the elements in the array which maximize or minimize
a global array characteristic, i.e. the directive gain or the power gain. A more involved
problem arises when we want to establish a certain control over other array characteristics,
that is, we impose several restrictions to be fulfilled, such as nulls in certain directions or a
maximum Sidelobe Level (SLL) within a region. In optimization theory, that is equivalent
to adding constraints to the original problem of maximization/minimization. A very good
summary on optimization techniques for antenna array excitations, most of which are still
used or constitute the basis for new ones, can be found as early as 1971 in (Cheng, 1971).
Recent advances in the last decade focus on evolutionary computation, especially
genetic algorithms (Markus and Vaskelainen, 1998; Yan and Lu, 1997; Shimizu, 1994;
Ares-Pena et al., 1999; Moreno et al., 2005; Haupt, 2007). One of their major advantages
is their predisposition to incorporate results from numerical simulations or measurements
of antenna elements. However, despite their proven efficiency, they may be computation-
ally expensive for some problems and the specification of constraints (SLL, null pointing
directions) cannot usually be made explicitly thus requiring their inclusion in the cost
function (Ares-Pena et al., 1999; Moreno et al., 2005; Haupt, 2007).
More classic approaches range from the maximization of the ratio of two Hermitian
forms (Cheng, 1971; Voges and Butler, 1972) to the use of Lagrange multipliers (Kurth,
1974), Newton methods (Morini et al., 2006), quadratic programming (Einarsson, 1979;
Ng et al., 1993), biquadratic programming (Hirasawa, 1988) or L∞ optimal methods (Sh-
pak, 1996). Depending on the nature of the quantity to be maximized/minimized and the
constraints, the problem may become a constrained non-linear optimization one, thus re-
quiring the use of more involved methods for its resolution (Steykal et al., 1986; Jiao et al.,
1993; Lebret and Boyd, 1997). One of the main drawbacks of some of these techniques is
that they may require the explicit knowledge of the far-field derivatives with respect to
the excitations of the array.
In (Lebret and Boyd, 1997) a constrained non-linear optimization problem is solved
47
48 Multiobjective optimization of an array through an IPM with filtering
with the aid of an Interior-Point Method (IPM). The latter were introduced in 1984
by Karmarkar (Karmarkar, 1984) and were firstly intended to be a revolution in LP.
However, they were soon discovered to be based on a well-conditioned reformulation,
through a primal-dual approach, of the non-linear optimization barrier methods (Fiacco
and McCormick, 1968), unifying the, until then, separated theories of linear and non-
linear optimization (Gill et al., 1986). It was not until the 1990s when they began to
be widely used in non-linear optimization as an alternative to several problems presented
by sequential quadratic programming methods (Nocedal and Wright, 2000). IPMs have
been implemented using indistinctly one of the two classic approaches: linear search or
trust-region; however, they both present several drawbacks in constrained optimization,
such as finding a suitable merit function in the former. To avoid these problems, new
schemes have been proposed since the beginning of this century. One of them, initially
conceived for sequential quadratic programming, was introduced in (Fletcher and Leyffer,
1997) and is known as the filtering method; recent advances in its application to an IPM
can be found in (Benson et al., 2002; Ulbrich et al., 2004).
However, most of the developments regarding optimization in arrays have tradition-
ally been made by taking for granted several assumptions which can make the solutions
obtained using these procedures not yield the desired response in real designs. Among
these assumptions, one can highlight the use of isotropic sources, which are in fact not
physically possible, or very well-known analytical element patterns. Apart from that, cou-
pling between elements has seldom been taken into account. It has not been until recently
that optimization in arrays has been integrated with full-wave models and computed or
measured data (Moreno et al., 2005; Morini et al., 2006; Blank and Hutt, 2005).
In this chapter, we develop a methodology to optimize the excitations of an arbi-
trary array of coupled and real antenna elements to obtain the maximum gain in a desired
direction subject to restrictions on different characteristics of the array such as the max-
imum SLL in a specified region, the maximum crosspolar level in another desired region,
the aperture illumination efficiency or the Dynamic Range (DR) of the excitations, as well
as setting null pointing directions. A primal-dual IPM with a Newton step specifically
adapted to the derived formulation is implemented along with novel filtering techniques
to solve the resulting non-linear optimization problem efficiently.
Finally, (4.2) can be easily expressed in a more useful matrix form as:
~ ϕ) = hζ(θ, ϕ)i[̥
E(θ, ~ (θ, ϕ)]{v} = h~g(θ, ϕ)i{v} (4.3)
where
T
exp (jk sin θ(x 1 cos ϕ + y 1 sin ϕ))
.
hζ(θ, ϕ)i= .
.
exp (jk sin θ(xN cos ϕ + yN sin ϕ))
M M1
1
(m) (m)
X X
T1,1 ~em (θ, ϕ) . . . T1,N ~em (θ, ϕ)
m=1 .. ..
m=1
..
~ (θ, ϕ) =
̥
. . .
MN
X MN
(m) (m)
X
TN,1 ~em (θ, ϕ) . . . TN,N ~em (θ, ϕ)
m=1 m=1
In case we are only considering the copolar component of the radiated field, then
the vector notation is dropped to have:
Note that in the case of dealing with an ideal array made up of isotropic sources,
the formulation is adjusted straightforwardly by setting in (4.3) hg(θ, ϕ)i = hζ(θ, ϕ)i, or
equivalently [̥(θ, ϕ)] = [I], with [I] being the identity matrix.
The total radiated power is computed as an Hermitian form from:
ZZ
Prad = ~ ϕ)|2 dΩ = 4π{v}H [BR ] {v}
|E(θ, (4.5)
Ω
Z 2π Z π
4π[BR ]= h~g(θ, ϕ)iH · h~g(θ, ϕ)i sin θdθdϕ (4.6)
ϕ=0 θ=0
where · stands for the dot product and the superscript H denotes the Hermitian transpose.
The delivered power to the array can be expressed from the reflection matrix of the
array as:
N
|vi |2 − |wi |2 = 4π{v}H [BD ] {v}
X
Pdel = (4.7)
i=1
4π[BD ]=[I] − [Γ]H [Γ] (4.8)
Finally, the total incident power in the array is easily written in matrix form as:
N
|vi |2 = 4π{v}H [BI ] {v}
X
Pinc = (4.9)
i=1
4π[BI ]=[I] (4.10)
The directive gain GD , power gain GP and system gain GS of an array whose main
beam points to the direction (θ0 , ϕ0 ) are defined as:
~ 0 , ϕ0 )|2
|E(θ
GD =4π (4.13a)
Prad
~
|E(θ0 , ϕ0 )|2
GP =4π (4.13b)
Pdel
~
|E(θ0 , ϕ0 )|2
GS =4π (4.13c)
Pinc
Placing (4.11), (4.5), (4.7) and (4.9) in (4.13), these parameters can be expressed as
a ratio of two Hermitian forms:
{v}H [G0 ] {v}
GD = (4.14a)
{v}H [BR ] {v}
{v}H [G0 ] {v}
GP = (4.14b)
{v}H [BD ] {v}
{v}H [G0 ] {v}
GS = (4.14c)
{v}H [BI ] {v}
where [G0 ] = [G(θ , ϕ )].
The maximum attainable value of a quantity G (standing for either GD , GP or
GS ) expressed as in (4.14), provided [B] (standing for [BR ], [BD ] or [BI ]) is nonsigular
and positive definite, which is our case, is the largest eigenvalue λL of the generalized
eigenvalue problem [G0 ] {v} = λ [B] {v}, and its associated eigenvector {v}L gives the
excitations in the array antenna elements to achieve this maximum value of G. Moreover,
if we consider only the copolar component of the field in the numerators of (4.14), we
would have:
[G0 ]=hg(θ , ϕ )iH · hg(θ , ϕ )i (4.15)
In this case, values for λL and {v}L can be computed straightforwardly (Cheng, 1971) as:
λL =hg(θ , ϕ )i [B]−1 hg(θ , ϕ )iH (4.16)
−1 H
{v}L =[B] hg(θ , ϕ )i (4.17)
This technique provides a direct means to maximize, with no additional constraints,
the directive or power gain of an arbitrary planar array of real antenna elements by
inherently taking into account all interelement coupling effects. However, a real array
design may have to comply with other restrictions, usually related to the maximum SLL
or crosspolar level, whose inclusion in a whole problem formulation is looked at in the
next subsection. Additionally, we will make use of two common array performance indices,
namely the aperture illumination efficiency and the DR, whose maximum and minimum
values (100% and 1) are reached with a uniform cophasal excitation, thus providing a
means of comparing a given excitation to this one. These parameters are respectively
defined as:
{v}H hζ(θ0 , ϕ0 )iH hζ(θ0 , ϕ0 )i {v}
εAP = (4.18)
N {v}H {v}
max | {v} |
DR= (4.19)
min | {v} |
4.2 Non-linear constrained optimization problem formulation 51
where gxp stands for the crosspolar component of ~g, SLLj is the prescribed maximum
sidelobe level in dB in each direction θj , ϕj , XP L the prescribed maximum crosspolar
level, 0 ≤ ε ≤ 1 is the desired minimum aperture illumination efficiency and h stands for
the desired excitation over which a control is performed.
Formulation (4.20) presents a general problem involving all constraints considered in
this thesis, but a real problem may only require the fulfillment of some of these restrictions
or may instead need the specification of other constraints related to typical antenna array
parameters, whose usefulness greatly depends on the problem and design objectives. In
the presented formulation, the maximum SLL, the maximum crosspolar level and the min-
imum aperture illumination efficiency can be explicitly defined. The DR can be controlled
52 Multiobjective optimization of an array through an IPM with filtering
through the adjustment of constant κR , which constitutes a lower bound for every exci-
tation amplitude. The upper bound is implicitly established by the absolute value of the
field in the direction of the main beam, given by constant κ0 , which obviously depends on
the amplitude value of the excitations. This way, constants κR and κ0 should be properly
heuristically selected to avoid an incongruent situation.
A general non-linear optimization problem is given in the form (Nocedal and Wright,
2000):
minx f (x) (4.33a)
s.t. cE (x) = 0 (4.33b)
cI (x) ≥ 0 (4.33c)
l≤x≤u (4.33d)
where f (x) is known as the objective function, cE (x) as the equality constraints, cI (x) as
the inequality constraints, and l and u represent bounds on the variables under optimiza-
tion x. The whole set of constraints represent the feasible region for x within which the
algorithm must reach a solution (minimizing the objective).
By inspection of problems (4.22) and (4.33), we can arrive at:
f (x) =xT hx (4.34a)
a0R x − ℜ(κ0 )
a0 x − ℑ(κ0 )
I
cE (x)= (i) (4.34b)
R x,
a i = 1 . . . IN L
(i)
a x, i = 1 . . . IN L
I (j)
xT bSL x, j = 1 . . . JSL
T (m)
x bXP x, m = 1 . . . MXP
cI (x) = Tb (4.34c)
x AE x
T (n)
x bDR x − κR , n = 1 . . . NDR
The presented formulation provides an immediate way to check if the problem is a
convex optimization problem, that is to say, if we are trying to minimize a convex function
over a convex set (defined by the constraints). There are two main reasons why we would
like our problem to be convex. Firstly, and most important, it is easy to show that
any local minimum of this type of problems is a global minimum (unique if the function
to minimize is strictly convex). Secondly, first-order necessary conditions of optimality
(Nocedal and Wright, 2000) (known as Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions) are also
sufficient. An optimization problem is said to be convex if:
1. the objective function is convex, or equivalently, if its Hessian is positive-semidefinite.
This condition is always fulfilled in problem (4.34) because of the nature of the Hes-
sian, which is constant and equal to h.
2. the equality constraints are linear, which is true for problem (4.34)
3. inequality constraints are concave, or equivalently, if their Hessians are negative-
(j)
semidefinite. Since in problem (4.34) these Hessians are constant and equal to bSL ,
(m) (n)
bXP , bDR and bAE , we can know in advance if we are dealing with a convex problem
Constraint (4.33d) accounts for the imposition of lower and upper bounds on the
variables of a general non-linear optimization problem (most of which do have this type of
constraints). As can be seen, it is not present in the problem formulation with real-valued
variables (4.22) (where these bounds would apply to the real and imaginary parts of the
excitations) and thus it has no direct counterpart in the original problem formulation
(4.20). This is why throughout the development of the IPM constraint (4.33d) will be
treated separately. Anyway, setting these bounds may have a mathematical use in order
to constrain the search space in x, thus making the optimization algorithm search far away
from values which are nowhere near a solution.
54 Multiobjective optimization of an array through an IPM with filtering
We now apply a primal-dual approach (Nocedal and Wright, 2000) introducing the
dual variables defined as z = µS −1 e, where S is a matrix whose diagonal contains the
elements of s and zero-valued for elements out of the diagonal, and e is a vector with all of
its elements equal to 1. After a few algebra manipulations, we can arrive at the following
expression for the KKT perturbed conditions (Nocedal and Wright, 2000):
q(x) − A(x)T λ − C1 η
−C2T λ + C3T η − z
rµ (x, s, λ, η) = rµ (w) =
c(x, s) =0
(4.36)
cb (x, s)
Sz − µe
where λ and η contain the Lagrange multipliers associated to, respectively, c(x, s) and
cb (x, s); q(x) is the gradient of f (x); A(x) is defined as the x-Jacobian of c(x, s), namely
A(x) = ∇x c(x, s); C1 = ∇x cb (x, s), C2 = ∇s c(x, s) and C3 = −∇s cb (x, s), which are all
constant matrices; and w = (xT , sT , λT , η T )T is just a grouping of variables used in the
algorithm.
qk =2hxk (4.38)
a0R
a0I
(1)
aR
(1)
aI
..
.
a(INL )
R
aI(INL )
2xT b(1)
k SL
..
Ak =
.
(4.39)
2xT b(JSL )
k SL
2xTk b(1)
XP
..
.
2xT b(MXP )
k XP
2xT b
k AE
2xTk b(1)
DR
..
.
T (N )
2xk bDRDR
JSL M XP
(j+2+INL ) (j) (m+2+INL +JSL ) (m)
X X
Hk =2h − 2 λk bSL −2 λk bXP − (4.40)
j=1 m=1
N DR
(1+2+INL +JSL +MXP ) (n+2+INL +JSL +MXP +1) (n)
X
−2λk bAE −2 λk bDR
n=1
(l)
where λk denotes element l of λk (lth Lagrange multiplier).
Finally, in each iterarion the barrier parameter is updated with a quasi-quadratic
rate, µk = min{0.8µk−1 , kr0 (xk , sk , λk , ηk )k1.9 } and the IPM converges when kr0 (wk )k ≤
10−8 (1 + kqk k).
(l)
filter, setting then αk = αk . A point enters the filter if it is not dominated by any of the
points in the filter. Furthermore, when a point enters the filter, all the points dominated
by the new one must be eliminated from the filter. Analogously, the dual variables will be
(0,z) (0,z)
updated according to zk+1 = zk + min{αk , αk }∆zk , where αk is the maximum step
length to keep dual variables z strictly in the interior.
We have implemented two different filters (Benson et al., 2002), (Ulbrich et al.,
2004), according to the quantities ϑ, ψ used in each of them. Filter n. 1, which we will
call BVS (after Benson-Vanderbei-Shannon (Benson et al., 2002)) uses as filter quantities:
c(x, s)
2
X
ϑ = f (x) − µ si , ψ=
(4.41)
cb (x, s)
i
and filter n. 2, which we will call UUV (after Ulbrich-Ulbrich-Vicente (Ulbrich et al.,
2004)), uses:
2
c(x, s)
ϑ = f (x), ψ =
cb (x, s)
(4.42)
Sz − µe
One of the problems (Benson et al., 2002) to be taken into account when implement-
ing the filters is the fact that the barrier parameter µ varies for each iteration k. Apart
from the task of updating the points in each iteration, if ϑ or ψ depend on µ, there may
be points that although present in the filter for a certain value of µ, should not be in the
filter for a new value of µ.
Before applying the algorithm described in this section to the problem being studied
(4.22), it has been tested with the non-linear optimization problems proposed in (Schit-
tkowski, 2002). Not being in the scope of this text and for the sake of brevity, these
results, which are in good agreement with those in the reference, will not be presented
here, and they indeed show that the two implemented filtering techniques offer similar
performances.
an analytical calculation that is in the order of tenths of seconds at most for the arrays
used in the examples. The number of spherical modes used to characterize both antennas
is 24. It must also be borne in mind that the number of variables the IPM deals with
is always double the number of antenna elements in the array. In the cases where no
constraints are set in the problem, the IPM always reaches the optimum solution (equal
to that of the direct method in Section 4.2.2) in one iteration, which in turn requires
3 function evaluations, no matter what filtering technique is used. This also happens
when only equality constraints (corresponding to null pointing directions) are set, since
this consitutes a quadratic programming problem with a direct solution (Ng et al., 1993).
Unless otherwise stated (only in the 4 × 4 planar array example) the initial point for the
optimization in all the examples was chosen to be that of a uniform cophasal excitation
and no bounds l or u are set.
Figure 4.1: Top and side view of the cavity-backed circular microstrip patch used as an array
antenna element. R1 = 2 cm, R2 = 3 cm, c1 = c2 = 0.6 cm, xp = 0.62 cm, ǫr1 = 2.5, ǫr2 = 20.
Coaxial feed (SMA connector): ǫr = 1.95, ri = 0.65 mm, ro = 2.05 mm.
Figure 4.2: Field patterns of the E-plane 8 cavity-backed patch linear array for the excitations
given by the two optimization cases: when interelement couplings are included in and excluded
from the optimization procedure.
4.4 Numerical Examples 59
Figure 4.3: Field pattern of the optimized 32 patch linear array along the H-plane. Interferences
at −70◦, −40◦ and −20◦ are rejected and the maximum SLL between −30◦ and −10◦ is set to -40
dB.
Figure 4.4: Field pattern of the optimized 32 patch linear array along the E-plane.
Table 4.1: Computational aspects of linear patch arrays optimizations represented in Figs. 4.2,
4.3 and 4.4.
BVS UUV
Figure N IN L JSL
It. Ev. Time It. Ev. Time
4.2 8 3 0 1 3 0.02 s 1 3 0.02 s
4.3 32 3 41 40 87 0.64 s 40 83 0.81 s
4.4 32 12 142 42 140 3.61 s 42 89 2.81 s
4.4 Numerical Examples 61
Figure 4.5: Optimized 32-element linear patch array field pattern for different maximum SLL
regions and null directions.
(Riblet, 1947; Dolph, 1946) on the array, which results in a field pattern whose sidelobes
are slightly above -20 dB. Next, we carry out an optimization to ensure SLL below -20 dB
between −90◦ and 20◦ and between 40◦ and 90◦ . Both patterns are shown in Figure 4.6 and
it can be seen how the optimized case strictly fulfills the maximum SLL requirement. To
check the capabilities of the presented optimization procedure, we also impose a constraint
on the crosspolar level in the direction of the main beam. Table 4.2 shows the results for
the optimized excitations according to different values for the desired maximum crosspolar
level in the pointing direction (none, -35, -55 and -75 dB) as well as the results for the
RDC excitation. Figure 4.7 shows the pattern obtained with the optimized excitations
for a crosspolar level of -75 dB. In general, a large decrease in the crosspolar level in
the pointing direction (obtaining a similar value for the directive gain) is achieved at the
expense of a loss in the aperture illumination efficiency (expressed as a percentage in
Table 4.2) and an increase in the DR (expressed in natural units in Table 4.2). The IPM
takes for each optimization an average of 43 iterations with about 100 function evaluations,
which amounts to approximately 2.5 s per optimization.
Now, the excitations of a 21-element linear array, with DRAs placed along the
E-plane equispaced at a distance of 0.4λ0 , are optimized to synthesise a pattern which
complies with the following specifications in the E-plane: main beam pointing at θ0 =30◦ ,
maximum SLL of -30 dB between -90◦ and 20◦ , and maximum SLL of -20 dB between
40◦ and 90◦ . The resulting pattern is shown in Figure 4.8.
Finally, the same array is optimized to achieve a pattern that fulfils the following
specifications: main beam pointing at θ0 =30◦ ; maximum SLL of -30 dB between -90◦ and
-40◦ , maximum SLL of -40 dB between -40◦ and 20◦ and maximum SLL of -20 dB be-
62 Multiobjective optimization of an array through an IPM with filtering
Figure 4.6: RDC and optimized (to ensure -20 dB of maximum SLL) field patterns of the 17
linear DRA array along the H-plane.
Table 4.2: Results of the optimizations of the 17 linear DRA array. JSL = 162, MXP =
1 (=0 in the first optimization).
Figure 4.7: Field pattern of the H-plane 17 linear DRA array with optimized excitations to
ensure -75 dB crosspolar level at θ0 = 30◦ .
tween 40◦ and 90◦ ; two null pointing directions at θ=-40◦ and θ=0◦ . The resulting pattern
is shown in Figure 4.9 and it can be seen how it strictly complies with the prescribed
specifications.
Figure 4.8: Optimized 21-element linear DRA array field pattern for two different maximum SLL
regions.
Figure 4.9: Optimized 21-element linear DRA array field pattern for different maximum SLL
regions and two null locations.
4.4 Numerical Examples 65
Table 4.4: Optimized excitations (amplitude and phase) for maximum directive gain of a circular
array with N = 8 and d = 0.9λ0 .
v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6 v7 v8
Patch antenna elements. D=12.90 dBi.
0.64 0.96 1.00 0.81 0.85 0.81 1.00 0.96
Table 4.4 shows the obtained excitations (amplitude and phase) to maximize the
directive gain (no other constraints) in the case of N = 8 and d = 0.9λ0 for the two different
antenna elements under consieration. It can be seen how the achieved solution is different
when using different antenna elements, showing how the formulation implicitly takes into
account the different antenna elements and its corresponding interelement coupling.
We finally consider a circular array of 30 DRA elements with half-wave spacing
between them, scanned at θ0 = 90◦ , ϕ0 = 0◦ . A sidelobe reduction in the azimuthal pattern
up to -29.16 dB can be found in (Yan and Lu, 1997) for this same array configuration with
isotropic sources. With a similar aim, we have fixed a maximum SLL of -30 dB between
ϕ = 20◦ and ϕ = 340◦ for the optimization of the proposed DRA circular array. Although
the algorithm reached a satisfactory solution, it was found that the crosspolar level rised
above the maximum SLL level, so we added the constraints corresponding to a maximum
crosspolar level of -30 dB in the same region. The IPM with the BVS filter took, for
JSL = 321 and MXP = 321, 57 iterations with 124 evaluations (a time of 64.58 s) to
converge to a solution. The achieved pattern, which fulfills the specified requirements, is
shown in Figure 4.10.
As a last note on the optimization of circular arrays, it can be said that although
the results are mathematically correct, they might not be accurate for small finite metallic
planes since they are based on a model with an infinite metallic plane at θ = 90◦ , which
has been the direction chosen to carry out the optimizations over the azimuthal angle ϕ.
Figure 4.10: Field pattern of the 30 DRA circular array with optimized excitations to ensure -30
dB of maximum SLL and crosspolar level.
excitations that achieve, with no restrictions, the maximum directive gain (16.16 dBi) are
very near the uniform excitations, which give 16.12 dBi of directive gain and a maximum
SLL of -12.58 dB. The array excitations have been optimized to achieve the maximum
directive gain while maintaining a maximum SLL of -20 dB between θ = 40◦ and θ = 90◦
in the two principal planes, E- (ϕ = 0◦ , 180◦ ) and H- (ϕ = 90◦ , 270◦ ). We have carried out
several optimizations increasing the value of constant κR to establish a control on the DR,
while keeping the prescribed maximum SLL. The results, along with the computational
aspects of the IPM for the two implemented techniques, are displayed in Table 4.5. They
show how the achieved directive gain and aperture illumination efficiency decrease as the
DR is lowered down. Since the SLL restriction is only set on the two principal planes, the
IPM not having to fulfill any constraints of this type in the rest of the space, as the DR
is lowered down the maximum relative field value between θ = 40◦ and θ = 90◦ outside
the two principal planes may rise. In the worst case (last optimization to reach a DR
of 1.30) this value is approximately -10 dB. Each optimization takes as the initial point
the solution given by the previous optimization (the first one takes the uniform cophasal
excitation and so NDR = 0).
We will now deal with a broadside 9×9 array of equally spaced patches with an
interelement spacing of 0.5λ0 . We have carried out an optimization to achieve a maximum
SLL of -20 dB in the region θ ∈ (19◦ . . . 80◦ ), and another one to obtain a maximum SLL
of -30 dB in the region θ ∈ (23◦ . . . 80◦ ), both of them for eight ϕ-cuts, ϕ ∈ (0◦ , . . . , 315◦ )
in steps of 45◦ , thus having a dense enough grid to ensure SLL below the specified values.
The maximum achievable directive gain of this array (with no restrictions) is 24.10 dBi,
corresponding to a solution which is practically equal to the uniform excitation. Table 4.6
4.4 Numerical Examples 67
Table 4.5: Optimizations of the 4×4 patch array for DR control with =-20 DB in the H- and E-
plane. JSL = 204, NDR = 16.
Table 4.6: Results of the optimization of the 9×9 broadside patch array.
SLLm XP Lm D ε DR
JSL It. Ev.
(dB) (dB) (dBi) (%) (dB)
-20 ∗ -36.00 23.80 91.75 11.12 496 52 130
-30 ∗ -38.85 22.88 75.42 44.36 464 52 130
-12.97 -39.96 24.07 100 0 Uniform excitation
∗ set as a restriction
shows the main parameters of the array with the optimized and the uniform excitations,
as well as the performance aspects (nearly identical for both filtering techniques) of the
IPM, which takes an average of 75 s to converge to a solution. The crosspolar component
in the broadside direction is negligible in all cases and the maximum crosspolar level
XP Lm is always below the maximum sidelobe level SLLm in the whole space as shown
in Table 4.6. As can be seen, in the two optimized situations the maximum SLL has been
respectively lowered by more than 7 dB and 17 dB with respect to the uniform case, while
the directive gain has decreased by less than 0.3 dBi and 1.2 dBi. The price to pay for such
achievements is a larger DR and a loss in the aperture illumination efficiency. Figure 4.11
show the three dimensional field pattern given by the optimized excitations in the case of
a desired maximum SLL of -30 dB.
In the final example, the 9×9 planar broadside patch array has been optimized to
achieve the following maximum SLL restrictions between θ=20◦ and 90◦ : -30 dB in the
region ϕ=45◦ to 225◦ , and -20 dB in the rest of the space. The resulting pattern is shown
in Figure 4.12.
68 Multiobjective optimization of an array through an IPM with filtering
Figure 4.11: Optimized 9×9 patch array field pattern for -30 dB maximum SLL.
Figure 4.12: Optimized 9×9 patch array field pattern for different regions of maximum SLL.
Chapter 5
5.1 Introduction
In the preceding chapter, a general pattern synthesis problem has been formulated in
terms of a non-linear optimization problem with various constraints and solved with an
optimization method which has been specifically developed for this aim. However, there
are other synthesis problems which may not require the use of such a sophisticated opti-
mization algorithm. In optimization theory, both LP and QP are two fields which have
been widely researched and therefore provide a large number of efficient algorithms to be
used (Nocedal and Wright, 2000). In this chapter, the main objective is expressing various
synthesis problems as LP and QP problems so that they can be efficiently solved with the
aid of any LP or QP method. Therefore, the stress is now made on the formulation of
these problems rather than on the development of the optimization method, as this latter
is a well-studied research topic in LP and QP theory. Specifically, LP problems will arise
after a transformation of minimax (i. e., SLL) problems, while QP theory is more suited
to design problems in which the minimization of a MSE appears, such as the adjustment
of the radiated field to a prespecified function.
In this case, the design problem under study is stated as: minimize the maximum value
in the sidelobe region, where sampling (θi , ϕi ), i = 1 . . . I outside the region left for the
mainlobe must be dense enough to cover all possible peaks, subject to a fixed field value
in the main beam direction (θ0 , ϕ0 ) and subject to a zero-valued field in the desired null
directions (θq , ϕq ), q = 1 . . . Q. By taking the matrix-valued expression of the radiated
field (4.4), it takes the form:
69
70 Linear and Quadratic Programming for array pattern synthesis
min δ (5.2a)
s. t. |hg(θi , ϕi )i {v} | ≤ δ, i = 1 . . . I (5.2b)
|hg(θ , ϕ )i {v} | = κ (5.2c)
|hg(θq , ϕq )i {v} | = 0, q = 1 . . . Q (5.3)
However, in the most general case we are treating, we cannot assume a real-valued
field in the whole θ, ϕ-space as in other similar works (Holm and Elgetun, 1997), since we
are on the one hand considering real radiating elements with interelement coupling and on
the other hand making no assumptions on the geometry of the array and the main beam
pointing direction (θ0 , ϕ0 ), so the removal of the norm in |hg(θi , ϕi )i {v} | cannot be made
straightforwardly.
where we have:
E(θi , ϕi ) = hr(θi , ϕi )i {x} + jhh(θi , ϕi )i {x} (5.5)
We can therefore lower the contribution from both the real and the imaginary parts
of the field separately in all θi , ϕi directions by setting:
(where α, β are real positive quantities), and by minimizing α + β while keeping a constant
(generally complex) value of the field in the main beam direction and setting both the real
and imaginary parts of the field to zero in the null directions. The removal of the norms
in (5.9) can now be made by considering the signs of the quantities inside the norms,
since these quantities are no longer complex numbers but real numbers. In this way, the
problem is now reformulated as:
From this formulation, we can arrive at the standard form for a LP problem given
as:
min f T y (5.11a)
s. t. Ay ≤ b (5.11b)
Cy = d (5.11c)
by defining:
{x}
y= α (5.12)
β
{0}
f= 1 (5.13)
1
b={0} (5.14)
ℜ(κ)
d= ℑ(κ) (5.15)
{0}
[RI ] {−1} {0}
[−RI ] {−1} {0}
A= [HI ]
(5.16)
{0} {−1}
[−HI ] {0} {−1}
hr0 i 0 0
hh0 i 0 0
C= [RQ ] {0} {0}
(5.17)
[HQ ] {0} {0}
κ being a constant to be specified, [RI ] and [HI ] are matrices whose columns are respec-
tively hr(θi , ϕi )i and hh(θi , ϕi )i for i = 1 . . . I, [RQ ] and [HQ ] are matrices whose columns
72 Linear and Quadratic Programming for array pattern synthesis
Figure 5.1: Field patterns of the uniform 21 DRA array for different excitations. · · · case 1: ideal
isotropic pattern from RDC excitations. - - - case 2: real pattern from RDC excitations. —– case
3: real pattern from proposed-technique excitations.
Figure 5.2: Optimized field patterns of the 21 DRA array for different mainlobe widths. - - -
case 1: maximum SLL: -7.3 dB, 3-dB beamwidth: 5.8◦ . —– case 2: maximum SLL: -16.9 dB, 3-dB
beamwidth: 7.4◦ .
are respectively hr(θq , ϕq )i and hh(θq , ϕq )i for q = 1 . . . Q, while hr0 i = hr(θ , ϕ )i and
hh0 i = hh(θ , ϕ )i. Analogously, {0} and {−1} stand for column vectors (with the ap-
propiate size in each case). The resulting problem can be solved with any of the existing
LP methods; in this case, an active-set algorithm has been used.
To test the design procedure, a uniform linear 21-element broadside array made up
of DRAs as the one in Figure 3.4 placed along the E-plane with an interelement distance
of 0.4λ0 at the computed resonant frequency of 3.64 GHz is optimized. The resulting
pattern, together to the one given by a RDC excitation (Riblet, 1947; Dolph, 1946) for the
same mainlobe width, is shown in Figure 5.1, where the ideal isotropic RDC pattern is also
shown for comparison purposes. As can be seen, the RDC excitations do not achieve the
minimum maximum SLL reached by the proposed technique. To check the capabilities of
the proposed procedure, Figure 5.2 shows the results obtained for the same array scanned
at -30◦ for two different mainlobe widths and with a desired null at 45◦ .
Finally, a symmetric, nonuniform random linear array of 22 DRAs is considered.
The 11 necessary interelement distances are calculated as (0.4+0.03ψx )λ0 , where ψx is
a uniformly distributed random variable (-1 to +1). Figure 5.3 compares the pattern
obtained with the excitations from the proposed technique with the one yielded by the
excitations from the procedure to minimize the maximum SLL in (Holm and Elgetun,
1997), which assumes a symmetric array with an even number of isotropic elements, with
real symmetric excitations, scanned at broadside (directly resulting in a real-valued field
problem). The excitations in this last case, as in the RDC example, yield a non optimal
pattern. The crosspolar component of the field is negligible in all considered cases.
5.2 LP-based techniques 73
Figure 5.3: Field patterns of the nonuniform 22 DRA array with a SLL region from ±5◦ to ±90◦.
- - - case 1: technique in (Holm and Elgetun, 1997) for symmetric isotropic arrays. —– case 2:
proposed technique.
{x}
y= α (5.19)
β
{0}
f= 1 (5.20)
1
b={0} (5.21)
ℜ({pQ })
d= (5.22)
ℑ({pQ })
[RI ] {−1} {0}
[−RI ] {−1} {0}
A= [HI ]
(5.23)
{0} {−1}
[−HI ] {0} {−1}
[RQ ] {0} {0}
C= (5.24)
[HQ ] {0} {0}
where {pQ } is a vector column containing the values of pq for q = 1, . . . , Q.
Again, a uniform linear 21-element broadside array, with DRA elements along the
E-plane with an interelement distance of 0.4λ0 at the computed resonant frequency of 3.64
74 Linear and Quadratic Programming for array pattern synthesis
Figure 5.4: Optimized 21 DRA array patterns with two main beams for two different pairs of
values of p−30◦ and p60◦ .
Figure 5.5: Two optimized 21 DRA array patterns with three main beams. In the second one,
the central mainbeam is broader than the other two mainbeams.
GHz, is optimized to achieve a pattern with minimum maximum SLL with two mainbeams
(-30◦ and 60◦ ). Furthermore, each of the two mainbeams is required to have a different
mainlobe width. The copolar field pattern is shown in Figure 5.4 for two different pairs of
values of p−30◦ and p60◦ . In general terms, by properly setting the values of pq the relative
amplitude and phase difference of the field in the directions of the main beams can be
specified in the optimization algorithm. However, as expected, the resulting patterns will
be different (especially in the sidelobe region) for every combination of values pq . This
phenomenon can be seen in Figure 5.4.
The same array is now optimized to achieve a pattern with minimum maximum SLL
and three mainbeams (0◦ and ±45◦ ). The results are shown in Figure 5.5. In this case, two
optimizations have been carried out. In the first one, all mainbeams are required to have
the same width, while in the second optimization the beams corresponding to ±45◦ are
narrower than the central one. Therefore, in the latter case, the maximum SLL is higher.
The crosspolar component of the field is negligible in all considered examples.
in turn split into three weighted subobjectives. Each of these three subobjectives has
a correspondence with the three considered regions (which are independently sampled
with I, Q and M points): the sidelobe region, the crosspolar region and the shaped-beam
region. In the first two regions the aim is obtaining the minimum SLL and crosspolar level,
respectively, so the subobjectives are defined in a similar way as the previous sections, equal
to the absolute vale of the field. However, in the third region, the shaped-beam one, the
aim is having a shaped-beam pattern given by and ideal function with sampling points
pm , m = 1, . . . , M . This way, the subobjective is defined as the distance of the actual field
in the region to the ideal field, that is to say, the absolute value of the difference between
the radiated field and the ideal function |hg(θm , ϕm )i {v} − pm |.
As has been previously said, each subobjective in the objective function is weighted
with the three corresponding factors: fSL for the sidelobe region, fXP for the crosspolar
region, and fSB for the shaped-beam region. The values of these factors must be heuris-
tically adjusted by the designer to obtain a desired pattern, as the optimized pattern
depends on them. Setting a higher value of a weight will make the field in the associated
region have a higher degree of compliance than in the other regions.
min max fSL |hg(θi , ϕi )i {v} | + fXP |hgxp (θq , ϕq )i {v} |+ (5.25a)
+fSB |hg(θm , ϕm )i {v} − pm |
i = 1, . . . , I; q = 1, . . . , Q; m = 1, . . . , M
subject to |hg(θl , ϕl )i {v} | = 0, l = 1, . . . , L (5.25b)
xp
|hg (θk , ϕk )i {v} | = 0, k = 1, . . . , K (5.25c)
Now, the minimax-to-LP transformation must be carried out. Defining a set of real
quantities to be minimized while making the real and imaginary parts of each of the three
subojectives remain below these quantities is again the approach which is followed. The
weights are maintained on these real quantities. This way, α1 and α2 are used for the real
and imaginary parts of the of the sidelobe region, β1 and β2 for the real and imaginary
parts of the of the crosspolar region, and γ1 and γ2 for the real and imaginary parts of the
of the shaped-beam region. Therefore, the equivalent minimization problem is expressed
76 Linear and Quadratic Programming for array pattern synthesis
as:
{0}
fSL
fSL
f= fXP (5.29)
fXP
f
SB
fSB
{0}
{0}
{0}
{0}
{0}
{0}
b= (5.30)
{0}
{0}
ℜ({p M })
−ℜ({pM })
ℑ({pM })
−ℑ({p })
M
d = {0} (5.31)
5.3 QP-based methods 77
Figure 5.6: Optimized 21 DRA array patterns for a shaped-beam and a sidelobe region. · · · case
1: fSB /fSL = 4. - - - case 2: fSB /fSL = 2. —– case 3: fSB /fSL = 1.
Figure 5.7: Zoom of the shaped-beam region of the optimized 21 DRA array patterns for a
shaped-beam and a sidelobe region. · · · case 1: fSB /fSL = 4. - - - case 2: fSB /fSL = 2. —– case
3: fSB /fSL = 1.
5.3 QP-based methods 79
where the integration must be carried out in the region(s) where the MSE is desired to be
minimized (in this case, the whole space in planar arrays or the principal plane in linear
arrays). The MSE can be expressed from (5.36) as (Ng et al., 1993):
{v}H [Q]{v} − {u}H [P]H {v} − {v}H [P]{u} + {u}H [C]{u} (5.37)
Integrations in (5.38) and (5.39) are likely to be carried out numerically, while there is
an analytical expression of [C] for certain array configurations (Cheng, 1971; Einarsson,
1979). However, as it is shown next, the computation of [C] is not necessary for our
purposes.
Since the solution vector {v} that minimizes (5.37) is [Q]− [P]{u}, a direct expres-
sion for the MC compensation matrix is then obtained:
Figure 5.8: Two-beam pattern of the 21-element DRA array obtained with the original and the
MC compensated excitations.
θ2 =45◦ , has a lower relative level (approximately 3 dB) than the other one. The MC
compensated excitations yield an equal level for the two main beams, with a field pattern
which is superimposed to the ideal isotropic two-beam pattern.
The second linear array example consists of a cosecant-squared pattern which is
initially designed with the Woodward-Lawson technique (Woodward and Lawson, 1948)
under the assumption of the isotropic nature of the radiators. The csc2 regions are
[−90◦ ,−20◦ ] and [20◦ ,90◦ ]. The field patterns obtained with the original excitations and
with the MC compensated excitations are shown in Figure 5.9. As before, the former
does not achieve the desired requirements since it is degraded because of interelement
MC effects and the individual DRA patterns, while the latter is coincident with the ideal
isotropic pattern.
Finally, an 8×8 DRA planar array is considered. The interelement distance in the x
and y-directions is the same as before. The Tseng-Cheng excitations (Tseng and Cheng,
1968) are used to achieve a maximum SLL of -10 dB in the whole space. Figure 5.10
shows, for three different ϕ-cuts, the pattern obtained with the original Tseng-Cheng and
the MC compensated excitations, as well as the ideal Tseng-Cheng isotropic pattern for
comparison purposes. As shown in Figure 5.10(a), the pattern with the original distri-
bution complies with the SLL restriction in the the E-plane (ϕ=0◦ ). However, the main
beam has broadened with respect to the ideal isotropic pattern, perturbing the optimum
condition the isotropic-based Tseng-Cheng distribution provides for the directive gain. In
the H-plane (ϕ=90◦ ), shown in Figure 5.10(b), the SLL of the two sidelobes closest to
the main beam is higher than -10 dB in the pattern with the original excitations. In
other planes, such as ϕ=60◦ , shown in Figure 5.10(c), there are even more discrepancies
between the real and the ideal patterns using the Tseng-Cheng distribution. The pattern
obtained with the MC compensated excitations achieves a higher level of compliance with
the specifications in the whole space, and it is clearly a best fit of the ideal isotropic
response.
5.3 QP-based methods 81
Figure 5.9: csc2 pattern of the 21-element DRA array obtained with the original Woodward-
Lawson excitations and the MC compensated excitations.
where [I] is the identity matrix. In this case, the excitations {v} that best fit the
ideal isotropic pattern with the reinforced null conditions are computed from the null-
constrained MC compensation matrix as:
As before, for a given array, matrices [Q] and [M] need to be calculated only once from,
respectively, (5.38) and (5.41). They both provide, through (5.44), a direct means to
82 Linear and Quadratic Programming for array pattern synthesis
Figure 5.10: Tseng-Cheng pattern of the 8×8 DRA array obtained with the original and the MC
compensated excitations.
5.3 QP-based methods 83
Figure 5.11: Schelkunoff E-plane field pattern of the 8×8 DRA array obtained with the original
and the two different MC compensated excitations.
compensate the MC effects in a field pattern for any isotropic-based excitation vector {u}
and any set of desired null locations specified by matrix [Z].
As an example, the previous 8×8 DRA array is considered. Schelkunoff method
(Schelkunoff, 1943) is carried out to place 7 nulls in the E-plane (ϕ=0◦ ) pattern in the
following θ-locations: -90◦ , -60◦ , -45◦ , -30◦ , 30◦ , 60◦ and 90◦ . The 8 excitations given by
Schelkunoff method are used in each row of the array (parallel to the x-axis). Figure 5.11
shows the E-plane field pattern obtained with the null constrained MC compensated ex-
citations (using matrix [MN ]) and the MC compensated excitations (using matrix [M]).
For comparison purposes, the ideal isotropic Schelkunoff pattern and the field pattern
obtained with the original Schelkunoff excitations are also shown. The latter is degraded
with respect to the ideal design because of interelement MC effects and the individual
elements’ patterns. Using the MC compensated excitations mitigates this pattern degra-
dation, but the obtained pattern is still far from the ideal isotropic one. As can be seen,
the null constrained MC compensated excitations achieve the highest degree of compliance
with the ideal isotropic Schelkunoff pattern.
84 Linear and Quadratic Programming for array pattern synthesis
Chapter 6
6.1 Introduction
So far, all the synthesis problems which have been reported in this thesis have been
formulated and solved within the framework of optimization theory. This chapter provides
two design methods which require neither the formulation nor the resolution of the problem
be carried out in terms of any optimization-based approaches. The first one is an adaption
of classic isotropic-based techniques based on Fourier theory. The second method digs
explicitly into the GSM characterization through the use of spherical vector modes to
provide a design technique based exclusively on rotation and translation properties of
spherical waves. The common feature in these methods is that they require the expression
of the desired field as a weighted sum of basis functions.
85
86 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
This section presents a new simple procedure for the pattern synthesis of linear
equispaced arrays whose radiated field can be expanded in spherical modes from the array
GSM. It allows the inclusion in the design of real antenna element patterns and mutual
coupling effects, neglected in the aforementioned classic methods. This procedure extends
the analogy between this problem and the signal processing theory by making use of
the linearity and multiplication properties of the FS or DFT coefficients (Oppenheim
and Willsky, 1997), (Oppenheim and Schafer, 1999) of both the desired pattern and the
spherical waves to yield a linear system of equations which provides the antenna array
excitations.
M N
~ ϕ) = (m)
X X
E(θ, ~em (θ, ϕ) bi exp (jk sin θ(xi cos ϕ + yi sin ϕ)) (6.1)
m=1 i=1
N
(m) (m)
X
bi = Ti,h vh . (6.2)
h=1
(m)
As before, coefficients Ti,h , directly extracted from the elements of the overall transmission
matrix [T], take account of the contribution of the excitation of antenna h to the mth
spherical mode of antenna i. This way, both the element pattern corresponding to every
antenna and all the interelement coupling effects are taken into account through coefficients
(m)
Ti,h in (6.2), which for an array of real antennas depend on their radiating and scattering
characteristics and their location in the array.
For a linear equispaced array with antenna elements placed along a ϕ-cut direction
and spaced at a distance d, the copolar component of every spherical mode em (θ) is taken
from (6.1) to arrive at the following expression for the copolar field pattern in the specified
ϕ-cut for θ ∈ [−90◦ , 90◦ ]:
M N −1
(m)
X X
E(θ) = em (θ) bi exp (jikd sin θ) (6.3)
m=1 i=0
With this technique, an improvement in the array field pattern over the classic
isotropic FS or WL methods can be achieved by taking the isolated element pattern into
account. However, it lacks the information concerning mutual coupling, which is critical
in some designs, and whose inclusion in the proposed design procedure is looked at in the
following subsections.
With regard to ẽm (ψ), it can be assumed to be a ψ-periodic signal with the same
(m)
period so that it has an FS with coefficients ci :
Z π
FS (m) (m)
ẽm (ψ) ←−
−→ ci , ci = ẽm (ψ) exp (−jiψ)dψ (6.13)
−π
88 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
In this case, one has to bear in mind that ẽm (ψ) must be a periodic signal with period
2π. Given the fact that the visible region in ψ is [−kd, kd], corresponding to [−90◦ , 90◦ ]
in the θ-space, if we take kd > π, or equivalently d > 0.5λ0 , the periodic nature cannot
be ensured together with condition
S (6.6). For d ≤ 0.5λ0 the analysis is valid and ẽm (ψ)
must be defined in [−π, −kd) (kd, π].
As Hm (ψ) and ẽm (ψ) are ψ-periodic signals, Ẽ(ψ) must also be ψ-periodic, and
therefore it has a FS with coefficients ui :
Z π
FS
Ẽ(ψ) ←− −→ ui , ui = Ẽ(ψ) exp (−jiψ)dψ (6.14)
−π
As before, if d > 0.5λ0 , the visible region extends far beyond where the sampling is carried
out [−π, π], and the analysis cannot be carried out.
By taking the samples in Ẽ(ψ) to form the sequence Ẽi , its associated N DFT
coefficients ui can be calculated as:
N −1
DFT
X
Ẽi ←−
−→ ui , ui = Ẽ(ψl ) exp (−jiψl ) (6.19)
l=0
As in the case of the FS, by applying the linearity and multiplication properties of
the DFT (Oppenheim and Schafer, 1999) to (6.4), we can easily arrive at the following
expression, where
N stands for the N -point circular convolution of two sequences.
M N −1 M
(m) (m) (m) (m)
X X X
ui = bl c(i−l) mod N = bi
N ci (6.20)
m=1 l=0 m=1
6.2 Fourier synthesis of linear arrays 89
These expressions are now used to form a linear system of equations {u} = [D]{v} to
solve for the excitation vector {v}. The design procedure can be summarized as follows:
(m)
1. Compute Ti,h . The method described in Chapter 3 is used to carry out this step.
(m)
2. Compute ci from (6.13) or (6.18). In the case of the infinite FS, no more than
(m)
the 2N − 1 central coefficients ci (for N odd) are required, since in the following
step a convolution with a finite sequence of N terms will be carried out to yield
(m)
another sequence of N terms. In any case, the number of coefficients ci to be
computed can be set as an option in the procedure.
3. Compute matrix [D]. This is an N × N matrix whose element (i, h) is calculated
from (6.21) or (6.22) (depending on the Fourier technique used) as:
M M
(m) (m) (m) (m)
X X
Di,h = ci ∗ Ti,h , Di,h = ci
T
N i,h
m=1 m=1
In the case of the infinite FS, only the central N terms of the sequence resulting
from the convolution are needed.
4. Calculate ui from (6.14) or (6.19) to form the vector {u}. For the infinite FS
technique, only the central N terms need to be calculated. Coefficients ui can
be computed numerically, or analytically in the case of simple or canonical field
patterns. If desired, windowing (Oppenheim and Schafer, 1999), (Orfanidis, 2008)
can be applied to {u}.
5. Solve {u} = [D]{v} for {v}.
A restriction on the maximum distance between elements for this procedure to be
valid has been derived in previous subsections (d ≤ 0.5λ0 ). However, this limitation is not
crucial for practical purposes, since the main feature of the proposed design technique is
its inherent capability of taking coupling effects into account and these effects are known
to exert a critical influence on the field patterns of arrays with an interelement distance
of d ≤ 0.5λ0 .
Figure 6.1: Sector field patterns for the 81 DRA array obtained with the excitations from the
proposed FS procedure (coincident with the isotropic array pattern from the classic isotropic FS
method) and from the classic isotropic FS method, compared to the ideal response.
is the probe-fed hemispherical dielectric resonator antenna shown in Figure 3.4. DRA
elements are placed along the E-plane (x-direction in Figure 3.4) with an interelement
distance of 0.365λ0 at the computed resonant frequency (3.64 GHz).
Figure 6.1 shows the normalized ideal pattern and the normalized field pattern ob-
tained with the FS design procedure proposed in this section. A good level of compliance
is achieved except for the known effects of the Gibbs phenomenon (Oppenheim and Will-
sky, 1997). The normalization is carried out in a way that the value of the pattern at
the center of the sector θ = 40◦ is equal to 1. For comparison purposes, Figure 6.1 also
shows the pattern given by the DRA array (with the GSM and spherical mode expansion
characterization) with the excitations from the classic isotropic FS design technique, that
is to say, if {v} = {u} is directly set. As can be seen, this pattern is degraded as a result
of the absence of the individual elements’ patterns and interelement coupling effects in the
classic design procedure. The pattern obtained with the proposed FS technique coincides
with the one given by the same array of isotropic radiators with the excitations from the
classic isotropic FS method, as is expected from the development of the proposed method.
The crosspolar component is negligible in all considered cases.
Figure 6.2 shows the results for the same previous cases but when a Hamming
window is applied to the excitations. The Gibbs phenomenon has now been eliminated
at the expense of a larger transition region between the desired sector and the rejection
6.2 Fourier synthesis of linear arrays 91
Figure 6.2: Sector field patterns for the 81 DRA array obtained with the excitations, with a
Hamming window, from the proposed FS procedure (coincident with the isotropic array pattern
from the classic isotropic FS method) and from the classic isotropic FS method, compared to the
ideal response.
region. Again a high level of compliance with the ideal response is reached by the proposed
FS design technique.
With the same array, a multisector pattern synthesis has been carried out with the
following features: main beam from θ = 30◦ to θ = 60◦ ; a -20 dB sector from θ = −90◦
to θ = −5◦ and a -30 dB sector from θ = 5◦ to θ = 30◦ . The field in the rest of the
θ-space is null. Figure 6.3 shows, together with the ideal response, the patterns obtained
with the classic isotropic WL design technique and the classic with element pattern WL
technique described in section 6.2.3, as well as the proposed DFT method. In all designs,
a Hamming window is used. As can be seen, the inclusion of the element pattern in the
design procedure achieves in overall an improvement on the classic isotropic WL method
(except for the region near θ = −90◦ ), but because of coupling effects it is still far from the
pattern obtained with the proposed DFT method, near the ideal response. Once again,
our procedure provides a direct means to achieve the pattern obtained with the same array
of isotropic radiators for the isotropic WL excitations.
A csc2 pattern design between θ = 15◦ and θ = 75◦ , with a null field pattern in
the rest of the θ-space, is now considered with the same array. With this aim, a classic
isotropic WL method, a classic with element pattern WL method and our proposed DFT
procedure are carried out. The results obtained, compared to the pattern given by the
92 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
Figure 6.3: Multisector field patterns for the 81 DRA arrays obtained with the excitations, with
a Hamming window, from the two classic WL methods and from the proposed DFT procedure
(coincident with the isotropic array pattern from the classic isotropic WL design), compared to
the ideal response.
6.2 Fourier synthesis of linear arrays 93
Figure 6.4: csc2 field patterns for the 81 DRA array obtained with the excitations from the
proposed DFT procedure and from the two classic WL methods, compared to the isotropic array
pattern from the classic isotropic WL design and the ideal response.
same array with isotropic radiators under a WL excitation and the ideal desired pattern,
are shown in Figure 6.4. No windowing is applied in any case. The same effects as in
the previous multisector pattern designs can be seen. It is again demonstrated how the
proposed DFT procedure achieves a very similar pattern to the isotropic array response
with the classic isotropic WL method, especially in the region of interest.
Finally, in order to check how the proposed design procedure inherently takes into
account the different array antenna elements’ patterns as well as the different coupling
effects between them, it is used to synthesize the pattern of two different 49 element
linear array. Both arrays have the same configuration but they are made up of different
antenna elements. The first array is made up of the aforementioned DRAs placed along
the E-plane with an interelement distance of 0.365λ0 at the computed resonant frequency,
3.64 GHz (3 cm). The elements of the second array are the cavity-backed, coaxial-fed,
microstrip circular patch with superstrate shown in Figure 4.1, which has a computed
resonant frequency of 1.215 GHz, nearly 3 times smaller than the one computed for the
DRA element. The microstrip patch elements are placed along the E-plane (x-direction
in Figure 4.1) with an interelement distance of 9 cm, which at the resonant frequency
is electrically equivalent to the one used in the DRA array. A two-sector-beam pattern
has been synthetized with both arrays, whose configurations are electrically identical and
only differ in the radiating and coupling characteristics of their elements. The main sector
94 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
Figure 6.5: Multisector field patterns, compared to the ideal response, obtained with the excita-
tions (with a Hamming window) from the two classic WL methods and from the proposed DFT
procedure, coincident with the isotropic array patterns from the classic isotropic WL design, for
the two electrically identical, but with different antennas, 49 element arrays.
ranges from θ = −60◦ to θ = −20◦ , while the other one, from θ = 20◦ to θ = 60◦ , must
have a -6 dB level with respect to the main sector. The desired field pattern in the rest
of the θ-space is null. Figure 6.5 shows the normalized field patterns obtained for the two
arrays under consideration with the excitations from the proposed DFT procedure, from
the classic with element pattern WL design and from the classic isotropic WL method.
As can be seen, with the classic WL designs the patterns are degraded with respect to the
ideal response, but in a dissimilar way since the array antenna elements are different. This
degradation is more notorious in the case of DRA elements. As expected, the inclusion of
the individual element pattern in the classic WL method brings, in general, the obtained
pattern nearer the ideal response than the one given by the classic isotropic WL method.
However, as in previous examples, it is not enough to reach the pattern obtained with
the proposed DFT design technique, since coupling between elements is not taken into
account. With the proposed DFT procedure, the synthetized pattern is better fit to the
desired response in both arrays. In fact, these curves are superimposed, with a practical
identical correspondence to the pattern of the same array made up of isotropic radiators
under a classic isotropic WL excitation. In all designs, a Hamming window is applied
to the excitation vector and, as in the preceding examples, the crosspolar component is
negligible in all cases.
6.3 Spherical-wave based shaped-beam synthesis 95
As a final note, it should be reminded that the time taken by the antenna element
FE simulation, which is carried out only once, is on average half a minute for each of
the two elements used in the examples (DRA and microstrip circular patch), while the
computation of the array GSM is an analytical calculation which for the arrays presented
in this section is in the order of tenths of seconds. The time taken by the rest of the design
procedure (matrix manipulations, computation of coefficients, convolutions and resolution
of the linear system) varies from tenths of seconds to 6 s, depending on the example
considered, when using the DFT procedure. In the FS implementation, since a recursive
adaptive quadrature has been used to compute the integrals of the FS coefficients, this
time can be up to 7 times higher than with the DFT implementation. All computations
have been carried out on a standard personal computer with a Pentium D at 2.8 GHz with
2 GB of RAM.
lie within the array sphere, requiring the use of the theorems corresponding to the second
case.
In this section, the combination of the two cases of application of the general transla-
tion theorems for spherical modes is carried out to yield a shaped beam synthesis method
for finite arrays that includes the MC effects. In contrast with the previous section, no
constraints are applicable to the array elements’ positions.
where ~em (θ, ϕ) is the mth spherical far-field vector mode and d(m) is its associated complex
amplitude.
Spherical far-field wave functions satisfy the orthogonality relationship since (from
the properties in (Hansen, 1988)):
Z 2π Z π
= 0, m 6= n
~em (θ, ϕ) · ~e∗n (θ, ϕ) sin θdθdϕ (6.24)
ϕ=0 θ=0 6= 0, m=n
where ∗stands for the conjugate function and · for the vector dot product.
Therefore, by multiplying (6.23) by every spherical wave function ~e∗m (θ, ϕ), integrat-
ing in the whole space and using (6.24), a value of every expansion coefficient needed to
~ ϕ) is obtained as:
achieve a desired field E(θ,
Z 2π Z π
~ ϕ) · ~e∗m (θ, ϕ) sin θdθdϕ
E(θ,
ϕ=0 θ=0
d(m) = Z 2π Z π (6.25)
~em (θ, ϕ) · ~e∗m (θ, ϕ) sin θdθdϕ
ϕ=0 θ=0
Figure 6.6: Scheme of the relationships between feeding with/and spherical modes used in the
proposed spherical-wave-based pattern synthesis procedure
where {ph } is the aforementioned contribution for h = 1, . . . , N (see Figure 6.6). Rewriting
this equation in matrix form would yield:
{d} = [Π] {p} (6.27)
where:
{p1 }
{p }
2
..
.
{p} = (6.28)
{pi }
..
.
{pN }
98 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
and
[Π] = [[I] , [I] , . . . , [I] , . . . , [I]] (6.29)
Now, it will be assumed that the reciprocal relationship is known, although as it will
be shown at the end of the development that this matrix does not need to be calculated,
we make use of a GTM [Qh ] relating coefficients {ph } to coefficients {bh }:
In this case, matrix [Gi,h ] is computed by using the translational additional theorems of
the first case in (Hansen, 1988), as well as rotation theorems.
So, by substituting (6.31) in (6.32) we get:
n o
ahi = [Gi,h ] [Qh ] {ph } (6.33)
The overall coefficients of incident spherical modes of antenna i are given then by
(same as Eq. (3.2)):
XN n o
inc
ai = {ai } + ahi (6.34)
h=1
h 6= i
N
X
inc
ai = {ai } + [Gi,h ] [Qh ] {ph } (6.35)
h=1
h 6= i
Now, by using (6.35) we can get from the GSM of each antenna i, given in (3.1),
the following relationship:
N
X
[ti ] {vi } + ([si ] − [Ii ]) {ai } + ([si ] − [Ii ]) [Gi,h ] [Qh ] {ph }=[Qi ] {pi } (6.36)
h=1
h 6= i
6.3 Spherical-wave based shaped-beam synthesis 99
If we repeat these equations for each one of the N antennas and we arrange them,
the following matrix equation is found for the array:
[t] {v} + ([s] − [I]) {a} + ([s] − [I]) [G] [Q] {p}=[Q] {p} (6.37)
where [t], ([s] − [I]), {v}, {a}, {b} and [G] have the same definition as in Chapter 3, while
[Q] is given by:
[Q1 ] 0 ··· ··· 0
.. ..
0 [Q 2 ] . 0 .
.. ..
[Q] = . .. .. .. (6.38)
. . . .
..
..
. [QN−1 ]
. 0 0
0 ··· ··· 0 [QN ]
Now, by assuming as we are dealing with a radiating array that there is no incident
field coming from outside the array, {a} = 0 (6.37) is reduced to:
By recalling (6.30) we can multiply both sides in the previous equation by a matrix
[F] given by:
[F1 ] 0 ··· ··· 0
. ..
[F2 ] . .
0 0 .
[F] = ... ..
.. .. .. (6.41)
. . . .
..
..
. [FN−1 ]
. 0 0
0 ··· ··· 0 [FN ]
so that
[F] ([I] − ([s] − [I]) [G])−1 [t] {v}=[F] [Q] {p} (6.42)
−1
[F] ([I] − ([s] − [I]) [G]) [t] {v}={p} (6.43)
where [F] [Q] {p} = {p} since it follows straightforwardly, by definition of (6.30) and
(6.31), that [F] [Q] = [I].
Now, by simply inserting (6.27) into (6.42) we get:
[Π] [F] ([I] − ([s] − [I]) [G])−1 [t] {v}=[Π] {p} (6.44)
−1
[Π] [F] ([I] − ([s] − [I]) [G]) [t] {v}={d} (6.45)
where coefficients {d} are known since they are given by the spherical wave expansion of
the desired field for the shaped-beam pattern. Therefore, we can express:
Figure 6.7: Layout of the 325-element array used for the spherical-wave-based synthesis of a
flat-top beam pattern
from where it follows immediately that the required feeding coefficients to achieve the
desired shaped-beam pattern are given by:
{v} = [M]+ {d} (6.48)
with [M]+ denoting the pseudoinverse matrix of [M], defined in (6.47).
It is important to note that matrix [M] contains all the relationships reported in
Figure 6.6, both the ones corresponding to the scattering and transmission features of each
of the individual antennas in the array and the ones corresponding to the interactions
of the different spherical wave expansions used in different spheres, which gives rise to
take interelement MC effects inherently as well as making the proposed pattern synthesis
procedure possible and efficient.
Figure 6.8: Three-dimensional normalized copolar field pattern of the 325-element array of mi-
crostrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired flat-top beam objective copolar
pattern.
Figure 6.9: Three-dimensional normalized crosspolar field pattern of the 325-element array of
microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired flat-top beam objective
copolar pattern.
102 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
Figure 6.10: Normalized copolar (black) and crosspolar (grey) field patterns for all ϕ-cuts of 1◦ of
the 325-element array of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired
flat-top beam objective copolar pattern.
As the second antenna element, the same patch configuration is used, but this time
the permittivity of the superstrate in Figure 4.1 is changed to be equal to 1.0. This
implies that the resonant frequency of the antenna is 2.5 GHz, as reported in (Rubio
et al., 2004b). All dimensions in the array are now adjusted to maintain the same distance
between rows and between columns, 0.5λ0 . The achieved three-dimensional copolar and
crosspolar patterns are shown in Figures 6.11 and 6.12. Again, for the sake of clarity
Figure 6.13 shows the same patterns for every ϕ-cut in steps of 1◦ . As can be seen, there
is no appreciable difference between the achieved copolar pattern in the two different-
element arrays, which shows the efficiency and capability of the proposed technique to
handle different antenna elements. On the contrary, the crosspolar component, as is set to
0 in the design procedure, results in different patterns depending on which patch is used
as the array element.
Finally, a more complex pattern is considered. It is a sectorized csc2 pattern. The
sector comprises the region ϕ ∈ (45◦ , 135◦ ), while the csc2 shape is defined in the sector
with region θ ∈ (10◦ , 60◦ ). The antenna element used is the first one (microstrip patch
with a resonant frequency of 1.215 GHz). The synthesized three-dimensional copolar and
crosspolar patterns are shown respectively in Figures 6.14 and 6.15. Again, for the sake
of clarity Figure 6.16 shows the same patterns for every ϕ-cut in steps of 1◦ . As observed,
with the proposed technique, a high degree of compliance is reached with an achieved
pattern very close to the objective complex desired shaped-beam pattern.
6.3 Spherical-wave based shaped-beam synthesis 103
Figure 6.11: Three-dimensional normalized copolar field pattern of the 325-element array of
microstrip patches with 2.5 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired flat-top beam objective copolar
pattern.
Figure 6.12: Three-dimensional normalized crosspolar field pattern of the 325-element array of
microstrip patches with 2.5 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired flat-top beam objective copolar
pattern.
104 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
Figure 6.13: Normalized copolar (black) and crosspolar (grey) field patterns for all ϕ-cuts of
1◦ of the 325-element array of microstrip patches with 2.5 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired
flat-top beam objective copolar pattern.
Figure 6.14: Three-dimensional normalized copolar field pattern of the 325-element array of
microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired sectorized csc2 objective
copolar pattern.
6.3 Spherical-wave based shaped-beam synthesis 105
Figure 6.15: Three-dimensional normalized crosspolar field pattern of the 325-element array of
microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired sectorized csc2 objective
copolar pattern.
Figure 6.16: Normalized copolar (black) and crosspolar (grey) field patterns for all ϕ-cuts of 1◦ of
the 325-element array of microstrip patches with 1.215 GHz of resonant frequency for a desired
sectorized csc2 objective copolar pattern.
106 Non-optimization based field synthesis techniques
Chapter 7
7.1 Introduction
Sparse and thinned arrays offer several advantages associated to a lower cost, weight,
power and complexity than a fully-filled antenna array. Therefore, they have been an
object of intense research since the first studies were carried out in the 1960s (see (Skolnik
et al., 1964; Lo and Lee, 1966) and references therein), and thus various developments
have been reported over the years.
Statistical thinning methods were widely used to tackle the design problem of a
thinned or sparse array (Skolnik et al., 1964; Numazaki et al., 1987; Mailloux and Co-
hen, 1991; Tomiyasu, 1991). However, the outstanding increase in both computational
capabilities and available optimization techniques over the last 20 years have made the
latter a common factor in most of the achievements regarding array thinning. Notwith-
standing, classic optimization methods (such as conjugate gradient, Newton methods and
similar) are not well suited for thinning an array (Haupt, 1994). Stochastic, probabilistic
or evolutionary optimization algorithms are by far the best suited and therefore the most
used.
The simulated annealing technique has been reported to achieve good results in
array thinning (Ruf, 1993; Murino et al., 1996; Trucco, 1999; Trucco and Murino, 1999).
Other approaches, such as multiplicative processing (Davies and Ward, 1980), amplitude
sharing (Walker, 1979), a minimum redundancy synthesis technique (Rossouw et al., 1997),
integer linear programming (Holm and Elgetun, 1997), or the effective aperture method
(Lockwood and Foster, 1996), have been proposed. The use of neural networks and similar
strategies to thin an array has also been researched (Mulholland et al., 1995). Recently,
ant colony optimization (Quevedo-Teruel and Rajo-Iglesias, 2006; Mosca and Ciattaglia,
2006), pattern search algorithms (Razavi and Forooraghi, 2008) and the immune algorithm
(Jianfeng et al., 2008) have been reported to obtain excellent results. However, the most
widely used optimization technique in array thinning is the GA (Goldberg, 1989). Its
inherent nature to represent an element which is turned on (1) or off (0) in a thinned
array makes the GA an attractive choice. In this sense, thinning a fully-filled array is
usually a simpler strategy than a direct sparse aperiodic array synthesis (Haupt, 1994).
Since they were firstly introduced in this topic in the 1990s (Haupt, 1994; O’Neill, 1994;
Buckley, 1996), countless works have relied on GAs to carry out an efficient thinned and
107
108 Array thinning with a nested optimization scheme
sparse array synthesis. In recent years, it can be found in (Chen et al., 2007; Vigano et al.,
2007; Spence and Werner, 2006; Hebib et al., 2006).
In most works, the design objective of a thinned or sparse array is related to the SLL
of the field pattern. Thinning strategies have seldom been combined with the synthesis
of shaped beam patterns (Kim and Nespor, 1996) or other objectives. Analogously, most
array thinning methods are based on the fact that all the active elements (elements which
are turned on) in the thinned array have the same excitation coefficients. Obviously,
maintaining such a simple excitation distribution can be a priority in an overall system
design to have more flexibility or ease in other design steps, i. e., in the design of the feeding
network. On the other hand, adding the possibility of varying the excitation coefficients in
the elements which are turned on may result in a configuration with fewer active elements
and therefore achieving the possible objective of a greater degree of thinning. However,
this is not an easy problem and it usually requires the use of a sophisticated strategy.
Some combined layout and excitation optimization methods to design thinned arrays can
be found in (Walker, 1979; Holm and Elgetun, 1997; Trucco, 1999).
In this chapter, an electromagnetic-based procedure to thin an antenna array is
developed. It allows the inclusion of real antenna element patterns and mutual coupling
effects. The proposed method yields the active elements from a fully-filled array, as well as
their excitations, needed to meet some prescribed design specifications. In order to carry
out the thinning a GA is used, while computing the excitations is carried out through
LP or QP within the fitness function of this GA. Thus, the resulting thinned array is the
one which complies with the requirements with the minimum number of active elements.
Specifications such as achieving a minimum gain in a given direction, obtaining a pattern
with a maximum allowable SLL or synthesizing a shaped beam pattern confined into a
mask are considered. Null field directions can also be added to any of these problems.
where {v}th are the excitations of the active elements and the subindex th refers to a
specific thinned array realization. The definitions of hg(θ, ϕ)i [BR ] and [BD ] are derived
in Chapter 4, from (4.3) to (4.8).
Turning elements off: when the thinning is achieved by turning elements off, the
number of total array elements and thus their location is always the same. Therefore,
the transmission and reflection matrices of the GSM of the array have to be computed
only once since they remain the same for any thinned array realization. So, the following
dependences, explicitly expressed in parentheses, can be established (dropping the θ, ϕ-
variation notation of hgi):
In fact, as the case of turning elements off is equivalent to setting to 0 those excitations
in {v} which are not present in {v}th , it suffices to remove the columns and rows corre-
sponding to these non-active elements in [BR ] and [BD ] to compute [BR ]th and [BD ]th ;
analogously, removing from hgi the entries corresponding to the non-active elements yields
hgith straightforwardly.
Removing elements: in this case, every thinned array realization is a different array,
since the total number of elements and their location varies. Therefore, the GSM will also
be different for every thinned array configuration, and the aforementioned dependences
must now be written as:
where [T]th and [Γ]th stand respectively for the transmission and reflection matrices of
the GSM of the specific thinned array realization. Therefore, the whole process described
in Chapter 3 must be carried out. Note that this option may be computationally much
more expensive in an optimization scheme since it also involves the calculation of the array
transmission [T]th and reflection [Γ]th matrices for each thinned array considered, which
depends on the array analysis model being used (full-wave, circuital, hybrid, . . . ).
depends, on the one hand, on the previous iteration, which has chosen which elements must
be active and, on the other hand, on the final result of an optimization of the excitations
of these active elements. Thus, it is of capital importance that a proper combination of
the objectives in the two optimizations be made in order to achieve the desired design
specifications and to ensure that this is accomplished with the minimum number of active
elements. This fact will be addressed carefully in the following section.
This scheme allows not only dealing with a great number of variables (antenna
elements and their excitations) but also dealing with variables which are different in type
(discrete and continuous). It should be noted that this can be a difficult task with a
direct optimization approach, requiring complex formulations and algorithms (Holm and
Elgetun, 1997; Trucco, 1999). So, with the proposed scheme, the algorithms that are best
suited to the specific nature of each of the two types of variables can be used separately.
Following this reasoning, we have chosen a GA to carry out the optimization corresponding
to the thinning, since as previously said it has already proven to be a reliable and efficient
approach. The implementation of the GA used is the same as the one in Chapter 2.
Therefore, the optimization of the excitations must be made within the evaluation of the
fitness function of each combination of active elements (each individual in the GA).
Figure 7.2 shows a sketch of the value of the FF versus the number of active elements
Nth in a thinned array. The minimum number of active elements for which the design
∗ . For thinned arrays with a number of active
specifications are fulfilled is denoted by Nth
elements lower than this optimum value Nth ∗ , the FF increases as the number of active
elements becomes higher, but it is always far below the maximum value 2N − Nth ∗ since
specifications (whose FF is represented with a circle in Figure 7.2). Analogously there are
7.4 Fitness function 111
Figure 7.2: Sketch of the value of fitness function (specified at each point) vs. the number of
active elements in a thinned array.
thinned arrays with more than Nth ∗ active elements that do fulfill the specifications (whose
FF is represented as a triangle in Figure 7.2). Their associated FF is lower than the one
for the optimum configuration with Nth ∗ active elements but higher than any thinned array
realization that does not comply with the design requirements. Therefore, the GA will
eventually form a population with the thinned arrays which hold the highest FF values
depicted in Figure 7.2.
So far, a general framework consisting of a GA has been provided for the imple-
mentation of the thinning in the nested optimization procedure. However, the inclusion
of the design specifications and their relation to the optimization of the active elements’
excitations have not yet been accomplished. This optimization must be carried out within
the evaluation of the FF in a way that it is ensured that the resulting excitations are
somehow the best so that the given thinned array realization meets the design specifi-
cations. Therefore, it is greatly dependent on the design problem. In this section, we
propose the procedure to tackle (with the minimum number of active elements) three
common design problems: achieving a specified minimum array gain in a given direction;
achieving a pattern with a specified maximum allowable SLL given a main beam direc-
tion and beamwidth; and finally, achieving a shaped beam pattern that remains within
a given mask. Constraints regarding interference rejection (null field) directions are also
incorporated into these problems. These design problems are developed next.
GP gain can be expressed from (7.1) and, respectively, (7.2) or (7.3) as:
{v}H H
th hg0 ith hg0 ith {v}th
GD = (7.11)
{v}H th [BR ]th {v}th
{v}th hg0 iH
H
th hg0 ith {v}th
GP = H
(7.12)
{v}th [BD ]th {v}th
where g0 = g(θ , ϕ ). Maximizing the ratio of two Hermitian forms as in (7.11) or (7.12)
is a well-known optimization problem with a direct solution {v}∗th given by:
H
{v}∗th = [B]−1
th hg0 ith (7.13)
minvth {v}H
th [B]th {v}th (7.14a)
s.t. hg0 ith {v}th = κ (7.14b)
hgi ith {v}th = 0, i = 1 . . . I (7.14c)
In this case, a direct solution for this optimization problem is derived from the QP theory
as:
H H −1
{v}∗th = [B]−1 [G][B]−1
th [G] th [G] {f } (7.15)
where [G] is a matrix where the first row is hg0 ith and the rest of the rows are hgi ith , i =
1, . . . , I, while {f } is a column vector with I + 1 entries whose first element is equal to κ0
and the rest are set to 0.
The solution to this minimax problem is given in section 5.1. It requires, as a first step,
the removal of the norm in (7.16a). However, as we are dealing with complex-valued fields
and variables this cannot be carried out straightforwardly. Thus, a real-valued equivalent
114 Array thinning with a nested optimization scheme
minimax formulation is derived by taking the real and imaginary parts of both the excita-
tions and the field, thus doubling the number of variables. Then, a transformation into a
LP problem is carried out. The resulting real-valued LP problem can be solved with any
of the existing LP methods.
where the integration must be carried out in the region(s) where the MSE is desired to be
minimized. Considering the fully-filled N -element array, the MSE can be expressed from
(7.17) as (Ng et al., 1993):
Therefore, for a thinned array realization, computation of the matrices [Q]th and
{P}th depends on which of the two types of thinning is considered. In the case of turning
elements off, simply removing rows and columns corresponding to non-active elements in
matrices [Q] and {P} of the fully-filled N -element array will yield the result. If the option
is to remove elements, then the calculations in (7.19a) and (7.19b) must be carried out
starting from the transmission matrix [T]th corresponding to the specific thinned array.
Finally, as the contribution of f to the MSE is independent of {v}th , the resulting
QP problem, including the constraints regarding the null field directions θi , ϕi , is expressed
in (7.20) as: minimize with {v}th the MSE subject to setting a zero-valued field in the
interference rejection directions.
minvth {v}H H H
th [Q]th {v}th − {P}th {v}th − {v}th {P}th (7.20a)
s.t. hgi ith {v}th = 0, i = 1...I (7.20b)
Figure 7.4: Field patterns, in ϕ=0◦ , of the isotropic 20×10 thinned arrays achieving -20 dB of
maximum SLL.
based on an intensive file handling, which requires a high hard disk I/O time.
Finally, the FE simulation carried out (only once) to yield the isolated antenna GSM
of the two antennas used as array elements in the examples takes about 30 s for each of
them, as said in Chapter 4.
array has been thinned with the proposed nested optimization scheme to achieve such
a maximum SLL with the minimum number of active elements. The region outside the
mainlobe has been set as θ ∈ (6◦ ,90◦ ) in ϕ=0◦ and θ ∈ (12◦ ,90◦ ) in ϕ=90◦ , so that the
mainbeam width is similar to the one obtained in the reference in both planes. As in
(Haupt, 1994), only one quarter of the array is considered because of symmetries. Figures
7.4 and 7.5 show the patterns obtained in ϕ=0◦ and ϕ=90◦ with the proposed methodology
and the ones obtained in (Haupt, 1994) for comparison purposes. The nested optimization
procedure takes approximately 6 min. Figure 7.6 shows the layout of the active elements in
both cases for the upper right quarter of the array when it is centered in x=0 and y=0. As
can be seen, with the proposed methodology, a higher level of thinning (68%, equivalent to
64 active elements) is achieved at the expense of a non-uniform set of excitations feeding
118 Array thinning with a nested optimization scheme
Figure 7.5: Field patterns, in ϕ=90◦ , of the isotropic 20×10 thinned arrays achieving -20 dB of
maximum SLL.
Figure 7.6: Layouts of the active elements needed to achieve the patterns in Figs. 7.4 and 7.5 of
the isotropic 20×10 thinned array.
7.5 Numerical examples and results 119
Figure 7.7: Field pattern of the isotropic 20×10 array thinned to achieve -30 dB of maximum
SLL.
Figure 7.8: Layout of the active elements needed to achieve the pattern in Figure 7.7 of the
isotropic 20×10 thinned array compared to the layout of a directly sinthesized sparse array of 108
isotropic elements in (Chen et al., 2007).
keeping the same -40 dB maximum SLL restriction. In this last case, the number of active
elements required to meet the specifications is 13. The nested optimization procedure
takes approximately 9 min in each case.
Now, the same array is thinned (by turning elements off) to synthesize a shaped-
beam pattern with the minimum number of active elements. A flat-top beam pattern
between θ=−20◦ and θ=20◦ is considered, having two null field pointing directions at
θ=−60◦ and θ=45◦ . The mask is set so that a maximum ripple of 1 dB is allowed in the
flat-top beam region with a maximum SLL of -20 dB in the rejection region. Two different
cases for two different transition regions between the flat-top beam and the rejection region
are considered. In the first case, the transition regions are set to θ ∈ (-25◦ ,-15◦ ) and θ ∈
(15◦ ,25◦ ), while in the second case, this specification is made more restrictive by setting
them to θ ∈ (-23◦ ,-17◦ ) and θ ∈ (17◦ ,23◦ ). The resulting patterns are shown in Figure 7.10,
where it can be seen how the maximum SLL and null level (set to -100 dB) restrictions
are fulfilled. As before, the crosspolar component of the field is negligible in both cases.
In the first case, only 18 active elements (42% thinning) are required, while in the more
restrictive second case this number is 26 (16% thinning). Figures 7.11 and 7.12 show a
zoom of these two patterns, and it can be seen how they both strictly comply with the
specifications set in the mask for the flat-top beam and the transition region in each case.
As in this problem there is a straightforward solution for the optimized excitations when
computing the FF of each individual, the nested optimization procedure takes less than 2
s in each case.
We will now consider two different 17-element linear arrays. In the first array, the
antenna element used is the cavity-backed, coaxially-fed microstrip circular patch with
superstrate shown in Figure 4.1. The patches are placed along the E-plane (x-direction
in Figure 4.1) with an interelement distance of 0.6λ0 at the resonant frequency, 1.215
GHz. Both types of thinning are applied to this array to yield a field pattern scanned
7.5 Numerical examples and results 121
Figure 7.9: Field patterns of the 31 DRA array thinned to achieve different maximum SLL and
mainbeam width restrictions with null field directions.
Figure 7.10: Field patterns, for two different transition regions, of the 31 DRA array thinned to
synthesize a shaped flat-top beam response with restrictions.
122 Array thinning with a nested optimization scheme
Figure 7.11: Detail of the field pattern of Figure 7.10 for the flat-top beam response with a
transition region of θ ∈ (±15◦ ,±25◦ ).
Figure 7.12: Detail of the field pattern of Figure 7.10 for the flat-top beam response with a
transition region of θ ∈ (±17◦ ,±23◦ ).
7.5 Numerical examples and results 123
Table 7.1: Optimized excitations of the thinned array realizations of two different 17-element
arrays for both thinning options X: element removed, 0: element turned off
at θ0 =30◦ meeting the requirement of a maximum SLL of -15 dB in θ ∈ (-90◦ ,20◦ ) and
θ ∈ (40◦ ,90◦ ). With this array configuration and with this antenna element, it is expected
that interelement coupling effects play a minor role and therefore both types of thinning
achieve similar solutions. By turning elements off, the GA produces 13 individuals, with
a number of active elements equal to 10, that meet the desired requirements. However, by
ignoring mutual coupling effects based on the aforementioned assumption of weak interele-
ment coupling, these 13 individuals can be reduced to 7 different relevant thinned array
configurations, which are obtained by not taking into account the presence of consecutive
turned off elements at the beginning and at the end of the array (ignoring leading and
trailing 0’s in the individual). In the case of removing elements the proposed method
yields two different thinned array configurations which fulfill the requirements with 10
active elements. As expected, these two configurations are also present in the 7 solutions
reached when the option of turning elements off is used. Table 7.1 (top) shows which are
the active elements and their corresponding excitations for one of these configurations. It
can be seen how the required excitations are practically identical.
Now, the former DRA is used as an array element in the 17-element array configura-
tion along the E-plane. An interelement distance of 0.4λ0 is considered. In this case, the
effects of interelement coupling are expected to exert a significant influence, so the results
obtained with both thinning options should be different. With the option of turning ele-
ments off, the nested optimization procedure yields 5 different thinned array realizations
which meet the requirements having 11 active elements. None of these configurations fulfill
the specifications if the non-active elements are removed instead of turned off, even if the
excitations of the remaining active elements are optimized. On the contrary, by using the
option of removing elements, the GA finds 7 solutions, with 11 active elements, that fulfill
the requirements. Therefore, it is demonstrated how the proposed optimization method
effectively takes interelement coupling into account. Table 7.1 (bottom) shows which are
the active elements (and their corresponding excitations) for one of the configurations
obtained in the case of turning elements off, and in the most similar configuration to this
one achieved when the thinning option is removing elements. To facilitate the comparison,
the excitation of the first active element is set to 1∠0◦ , so all amplitudes and phases of
the rest of the excitations take it as a reference. As can be seen, the locations and excita-
tions of active elements are different in both thinned arrays. However, Figure 7.13 shows
the patterns obtained in these two optimized cases (non-active elements are removed or
turned off) in Table 7.1. It can be seen how both patterns strictly comply with the initial
124 Array thinning with a nested optimization scheme
Figure 7.13: Field patterns of a 17-DRA array thinned with both types of thinning to achieve a
-15 dB maximum SLL with θ0 =30◦ (11 active elements).
specifications. The nested optimization procedure takes approximately 30 min in the case
of removing elements and about 3 min when the thinning option is turning elements off.
Figure 7.14: Layout of the active elements needed to achieve a broadside gain of 16 dBi by a
thinned 6×6 DRA array with the two thinning options.
number of active elements required to achieve a prescribed directive gain in a given main
beam direction. Thinning is carried out by turning elements off. The results are shown in
Figure 7.15. As expected, the number of active elements required increases as the desired
directive gain specification is raised. Each plot (corresponding to a different main beam
direction) ends when the maximum attainable of the fully excited array is reached. It is
observed how achieving a given increase of the gain near the end of the plot requires a
greater increase on the number of active elements than in the case of achieving the same
gain increment for lower directive gain values.
This array is now thinned (by turning elements off) to achieve a broadside pattern
with a maximum SLL of -20 dB in the whole space. To this effect, the sidelobe region has
been defined as θ ∈ (25◦ ,90◦ ), with a 1◦ -sampling, and ϕ ∈ (0◦ ,360◦ ), with a 10◦ -sampling.
The nested optimization takes about 14 h to reach three configurations that meet these
requirements with 34 active elements (58% thinning). The three-dimensional field pattern
of one of these thinned array realizations is shown in Figure 7.16.
126 Array thinning with a nested optimization scheme
Figure 7.15: Number of active elements required to achieve a specified directive gain at different
mainbeam directions θ0 , ϕ0 of the 9×9 cavity-backed patch array.
Figure 7.16: Field pattern of the 9×9 cavity-backed patch array thinned to achieve a broadside
pattern with a maximum -20 dB SLL in the whole space outside the main beam (34 active elements).
Chapter 8
Modelling
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output
systems with a hybrid
spherical-mode-based approach
127
128 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
By inserting (8.2) in (8.1) for i = 1, 2 and solving the matrix system, the 1×1
channel matrix, which relates the input signal at the transmitter with the output signal
at the receiver as w2 = HSISO v1 , can be expressed as (Hansen, 1988):
HSISO = [r2 ] ([I] − [G2,1 ] ([s1 ] − [I]) [G1,2 ] ([s2 ] − [I]))−1 [G2,1 ] [t1 ] (8.3)
To validate the model, let us consider a SISO system made up of two ideal dipoles
facing each other, both parallel to the z-axis. The analytical expression for the ideal
electric dipole GSM is given in (Hansen, 1988). The computed value of HSISO with the
proposed model is shown in Figure 8.1 vs. the link distance.
√ It is compared with the
classic transmission equation HSISO = exp (−j2πr12 /λ0 ) D1 D2 λ0 /4πr12 , where r12 is
the distance between dipoles, λ0 is the free-space wavelength and Di the directive gain, in
natural units, of dipole i (=1.5). As expected, both models are in good agreement only
for large distances.
Figure 8.1: Channel matrix value for a SISO system of two ideal dipoles. - - - case 1: Classic
transmission equation. —– case 2: Proposed model.
where [Gii ] = [0]. By inserting (8.4) into (8.1) for i = 1, . . . , M + N , a direct relationship
between the input {v} = hv1 , . . . , vM +N iT and output {v} = hw1 , . . . , wM +N iT signals of
every antenna in the MIMO system can be derived in as the reflection matrix of an array
made up of all the antennas composing the MIMO system (transmitters and receivers),
given by (3.18), so that {w} = [Γ] {v} By grouping the input and output signals according
to their membership to either the receiving or the transmitting array, so that
{v}Rx = 0, (8.7)
it is demonstrated that the MIMO channel matrix [H]M IM O can be found as the upper
right N × M submatrix of this reflection matrix [Γ], since we have:
{w}Rx [Γ]RxRx [H]M IM O {v}Rx
= (8.8)
{w}T x [Γ]RxT x [Γ]T xT x {v}T x
Figure 8.2: Open-loop capacity for a 20 dB SNR of various-sized 4×4 MIMO system of ideal
dipoles. - - - case 1: Spherical-wave model in (Jiang and Ingram, 2005). —– case 2: Proposed
model.
Figure 8.3: Waterfilling capacity for a 20 dB SNR of a 2×2 dipole MIMO system. Link distance:
100λ0 . - - - case 1: Spherical-wave model in (Jiang and Ingram, 2005). —– case 2: Proposed
model.
As an example, a 4×4 MIMO system made up of ideal dipoles parallel to the z-axis
is considered. The interelement distance (between dipoles) is the same in the transmitting
130 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
Figure 8.4: Open-loop capacity for a 20 dB SNR of a dipole MIMO system with fixed-length
arrays (5λ0 ). Link distance: 100λ0 . - - - case 1: Spherical-wave model in (Jiang and Ingram,
2005). —– case 2: Proposed model.
and in the receiving array. The open-loop capacity, for a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of 20
dB, obtained from our proposed method and from the spherical-wave model in (Jiang and
Ingram, 2005) is shown in Figure 8.2 for various-sized arrays vs. the link distance.
√ Nor-
malized channel matrices are calculated by multiplying the original ones by M N /kHkF ,
where kHkF is the Frobenius norm of the channel matrix obtained with the spherical-wave
model in (Jiang and Ingram, 2005). Three different interelement distances, and thus array
sizes, are considered. As expected, for larger interelement distances coupling is not too
relevant and both models are in good agreement. However, in the case of an interelement
distance of 0.25λ0 , mutual coupling effects in the transmitting and the receiving arrays
result in a severe reduction of the capacity. It should be noted that for very short link
distances, both models are always in disagreement as seen in the SISO example since in
this case coupling between transmitting and receiving antennas is relevant. Figure 8.3
shows the capacity, obtained with the waterfilling procedure with a 20 dB SNR, for a
2×2 MIMO dipole system with a fixed link distance of 100λ0 and various interelement
distances at the transmitting and receiving arrays (same for both). Again, it is seen how
as the interelement distance increases both models are in good agreement, since mutual
coupling becomes less relevant. For very short interelement distances, the proposed model
rigorously takes coupling effects into account to yield lower capacity values than those
predicted by the model in (Jiang and Ingram, 2005). Finally, we consider equal arrays at
the transmitter and the receiver with a fixed length of 5λ0 . Figure 8.4 shows the open-loop
capacity, for a 20 dB SNR, obtained from the proposed model and the model in (Jiang
and Ingram, 2005) for a link distance of 100λ0 when the number of antennas is increased
and therefore interelement distance becomes smaller. As stated in (Janaswamy, 2002), it
can be seen how increasing the number of antennas above a given threshold (in this case,
about 12) is futile since the capacity actually drops with respect to the case where mutual
coupling is not taken into account.
these studies are limited to certain antenna configurations or scenarios. More importantly,
many measurement campaigns focus primarily on simulation validation rather than the
study of different MIMO systems and therefore are not conclusive.
A great number of antenna and propagation prediction models for MIMO wire-
less communications is currently available. Current computational techniques allow the
evaluation of complex phenomena, such as multi-path propagation. Network models for
MIMO systems have already been proposed in the literature for path-based channels
(Waldschmidt et al., 2004; Wallace and Jensen, 2004). In both cases a general frame-
work for the use of scattering parameters was presented for computation of the system
capacity focusing on mutual coupling effects. As a result, processing of all paths for each
antenna type under study was required. When considering a small number of antennas or
for propagation channels with few propagation paths, doing so poses no problem. How-
ever, in the case of multiple channel realizations (i.e. multiple links per channel), of several
thousands paths each, the computational cost of extensive antenna evaluations becomes
steep. To address this need, the inclusion of a modal expansion of the fields of the anten-
nas is proposed. In this manner multipath processing becomes significantly reduced and
study of multiple antennas and/or orientations becomes feasible.
with N and M being the number of receiving and transmitting antennas for the system
under test.
Transmitter Transmit Antenna m Physical Channel Receive Antenna n Receiver
With this model it is possible to take into account effects like signal correlation or
antenna coupling for capacity computations and, in addition, consider additional compo-
nents such as matching networks (Wallace and Jensen, 2004). However, in order to use the
previous model an accurate description of all S-Parameters needs to be given. In the case
132 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
of the antennas and the physical channel, this can only be done through measurements
or use of numerical methods that deterministically model the interaction between the an-
tennas and the scenario. This is only possible, however, with a path-based description of
the propagation, which results in a great computational cost and significant complexity.
Therefore, in order to simplify the understanding of the whole transmission chain, it makes
sense to use a joint network for the antennas and channel, as done in (Waldschmidt et al.,
2004), resulting in the extended channel of Figure 8.6.
Figure 8.6: Signal Flow Graph of Generalized Network Model in its compact form, i.e. transmit
antennas, physical channel and receive antennas merged into one network.
This compact form of the generalized network model results from two assumptions:
(1) there is no back transmission S21 Ĉ = 0, i.e. unilateral propagation channel, and (2)
there are no scatterers in the proximity of both the transmitting and receiving antennas,
STxA
22 = 0 and SRxA
22 = 0 respectively. It thus follows that, after some algebraic transfor-
mations of the original model (Figure 8.5), the merged inner network can be expressed
as
!
C STxA
11 0
S = TxA Ĉ RxA RxA . (8.10)
S21 S21 S12 S11
Here, the term SC TxA Ĉ RxA results from the transmission coefficients be-
21 given by S21 S21 S21
tween all transmitting and receiving ports and constitutes the transmission submatrix of
the extended channel scattering matrix SC .
For the case of a signal transmitted from port m to port n under matched conditions
S21,nm yields the channel matrix H, i.e. the ratio between the voltage VnRx induced by
C
the incoming field E~ m and the excitation voltage V Tx , according to Figure 8.7, and with
m
antenna gains Gn and Gm :
s s s
Z0,m VnRx ℜ{ZnA }
C wn Z0,m λ
Hnm = S21,nm = = = G G
A} n m
γnm (8.11)
υm Z0,n VmTx Z0,n ℜ{Zm 4π
P
~ Rx (θ Rx , ϕRx ) · Πp · C
~ Tx (θ Tx , ϕTx )
X
γnm = C n p,n p,n m p,m p,m (8.12)
p=1
where the sum is done over the total number of P paths of the link. In (8.12), C ~ nRx and
~m
C Tx are the normalized patterns of both the receiving antenna n and the transmitting
Rx , ϕRx and θ Tx , ϕTx are the directions of arrival and departure for
antenna m, while θp,n p,n p,m p,m
every path p and antennas n and m.
Finally, Πp in (8.12) is known as the full polarimetric transmission matrix (Wald-
schmidt et al., 2004), and it is usually a result of a numerical method (i. e. ray tracing)
or a measurement campaign.
To simplify the analysis, a plane-wave front is assumed since the receiver is supposed
far away from the transmitter and from scatterers and viceversa. In this way, (8.12) is
rewritten as:
P
~ Tx (θ Tx , ϕTx ) exp ψ(θ Rx , ϕRx )ψ(θ Tx , ϕTx )
~ Rx (θ Rx , ϕRx ) · Πp,nm · C
X
γnm = C n p,n p,n m p,m p,m p,n p,n p,m p,m
p=1
(8.13)
with:
2π
ψ(θ, ϕ) = ((x − xp ) cos ϕ sin θ + (y − yp ) sin ϕ sin θ + (z − zp ) cos θ) (8.14)
λ
where x, y, z is the position of the antenna (mth transmitter or nth receiver) and xp , yp , zp
the point where the path p departs/arrives.
Eqs. (8.11) and (8.13) shows together with Figure 8.7 that once a certain physical
Ĉ
channel S12,nm , expressed here through the full polarimetric transmission matrix Π, is
known for a certain nm communication link, the gains Gn and Gm and the radiation
patterns C ~ n and C~ m of both receive antenna n and transmit antenna m at the direction
of arrival and the direction of departure have to be included for every path p. Therefore,
for each combination of antenna types, orientations or polarizations of interest a new SC
has to be calculated. The latter greatly limits the amount of possible configurations that
can be studied and thus represents a great bottleneck common to both simulations and
measurements when dealing with multi-path propagation channels.
134 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
R
~ Rx(θ, ϕ) =
X
Cn cRx
r,n~
er (θ, ϕ) (8.15a)
r=1
Q
~ Tx (θ, ϕ) =
X
Cm cTx
r,m~
eq (θ, ϕ) (8.15b)
q=1
In this way the radiation patterns of both the transmitting and receiving antennas
in (8.11) can be rewritten according to (8.15) thus resulting in the following expression
C
for S21,nm and the link transmission coefficient γnm of the extended channel
C
S21,nm = κnm γnm (8.16)
Q
R X
X
γnm = cRx Tx
r,n cq,m γ̌rq,nm (8.17)
r=1 q=1
where γ̌rq,nm constitutes the rq subfunction of the link γnm defined as
P T
eθ,r (θpRx , ϕRx
p ) eθ,q (θpTx , ϕTx
p )
X
Rx
, ϕRx Tx Tx
γ̌rq,nm = Πp exp ψ(θp,n p,n )ψ(θp,m , ϕp,m )
p=1
eϕ,r (θpRx , ϕRx
p )
Tx Tx
eϕ,q (θp , ϕp )
(8.18)
where eθ and eϕ are the θ and ϕ polar components of the normalized spherical wave
functions, and
s s
Z0,m ℜ{ZnA }
λ
κnm = G G
A } n m 4π
(8.19)
Z0,n ℜ{Zm
is a multiplicative factor resulting from (8.11).
It follows from (8.16) that through the use of spherical wave functions, a pseudo
modal expression for the transmission coefficient of the extended channel has been found,
where the γ̌rq,nm functions build the scenario-dependent basis set. As a result, the extended
channel transmission coefficient of any desired antenna pair can now be expressed as a
weighted sum of basis functions for the specific scenario considered, assuming the number
of modes R and Q accurately describe the field of the antennas to be studied.
With this modal network model it is now possible to save valuable time in otherwise
very lengthy simulations and, more importantly, significantly increase the number of con-
figurations that can be studied. As the calculation of functions γ̌rq,nm, which is the main
8.2 Modal network model for MIMO systems 135
computational burden, is carried out only once and then these functions are stored, every
change in the antenna configurations only requires the computation of coefficients cRx
r,n or
Tx
cr,m and then the evaluation of (8.16).
R
X Pl
X
C
S21,nm = κnm cRx
r,m γ̌r,nm = (8.20)
r=1 p=1
R P T
eθ,r (θpRx , ϕRx
p ) Cθ,m (θpTx , ϕTx
p )
X X
bRx Rx
, ϕRx Tx Tx
κnm r,m Rx Rx
Πp Tx Tx
exp ψ(θp,n p,n )ψ(θp,m , ϕp,m )
r=1 p=1
eϕ,r (θp , ϕp ) Cϕ,m (θp , ϕp )
where Cθ and Cϕ are the θ and ϕ components of the normalized radiation pattern of the
base station.
As an example, the effect of mobile station placement and polarization in an urban
scenario for ideal dipoles at the mobile station is investigated. In (Hansen, 1988) the
modal expansions of the radiated fields of dipoles oriented along the x, the y and the z
axis are given. Out of it, the coefficients needed to express an arbitrary oriented dipole
can be deduced to be:
√
2
c2 (σ, β) = sin(σ) (sin(β) + j cos(β)) (8.21a)
2√
2
c6 (σ, β) = −j sin(σ) (sin(β) − j cos(β)) (8.21b)
2
c4 (σ) = cos(σ) (8.21c)
ci = 0, i 6= 2, 4, 6 (8.21d)
where σ is the rotation angle with respect to the z axis, i.e. rotation angle in elevation,
and β is the rotation angle with respect to the x axis, i.e. rotation angle in azimuth.
Thus, for the ideal dipole, the nm link in (8.16) can be written as a function of σ and β as
well, i.e. γnm (σ, β), for which only three modes are needed in order to consider all possible
orientations, i.e. polarizations. Moreover, for the specific case of a vertically oriented
dipole, α = 0, only one mode is needed, as seen from (8.21).
As for the base station, the complex measured pattern a commercial antenna of the
antenna manufacturer Kathrein will be used for the investigation of optimum antenna
placement: the 742215 vertically polarized antenna. A 2x2 MIMO system is considered,
where the antennas inter element spacings at the base station dTx and mobile station dRx
are simultaneously varied between 0.5, 1, 2 and 5 λ.
In order to compute the full polarimetric transmission matrix, a double-directional
3-D ray tracing model based on a ray-tracing approach (Fugen et al., 2006) is used. The
model has been validated with wide-band channel measurements at 2 and 5.2 GHz showing
high accuracy for fixed to mobile and mobile to mobile communications in macrocell
136 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
scenarios. For the simulation, a digital description of the city of Karlsruhe by means of a
vector database will be used containing the exact position and size of buildings, trees and
other objects. It is generated based on two-dimensional plan information of the buildings
along with a digital height profile of the environment. For brevity only one base station
location is considered, which corresponds to a current location of a German provider. The
simulated area spans about 1 km in each direction. The base station antenna is positioned
30 m above street level. Mobile station locations, on the other hand, are given by a
17.7 × 17.7 m grid rotated 45◦ , enough for statistical purposes.
Three different power schemes: waterfilling, uniform power distribution and beam-
forming, will be used. In all cases the relative ergodic capacity gain with respect to a
SISO configuration will be investigated for a fixed SNR of 10 dB with channel matrices
normalized with respect to a reference MIMO system:
√
MN
Hnorm = H (8.22)
kHref kF
in order to fairly compare the different antenna setups regardless of received power. Where
kHref kF in (8.22) denotes the Frobenius Norm of the reference system, chosen here to be
the same 2x2 system under study but based on ideal omnidirectional radiating sources
instead.
Figure 8.8 shows the ergodic capacity gain in percentage vs varying dTx for all dRx
and all power schemes for two 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antennas at the base
station with two vertically polarized dipoles at the mobile unit, i.e. only one spherical mode
is used as explained in the previous section. Out of it, considering that no mutual coupling
effects are taken into account, three main conclusions can be drawn: 1) relative capacity
gain is in general insensitive to changes in dRx , whereas bigger inter-element spacings
at the base station result in higher capacities, 2) increased base station spacing results
in greater signal decorrelation at the mobile station and is relevant only at dTx = 5λ,
2) a beamforming scheme where only the best available subchannel is used yields no
improvement regardless of dTx and dRx , whereas a uniform power distribution departs
from a beamforming-like performance at small dTx spacings towards an optimum power
allocation for increased base station spacings.
Now, the relative capacity gain plotted against rotation angle α for the base station
antennas will be shown, together with the two different mobile station antenna setups
seen in Figure 8.9: a) two parallel dipoles rotated with respect to the z-axis and b) two
perpendicular dipoles rotated with respect to their starting position as vertically and
horizontally polarized dipoles.
In Figure 8.10 the 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antenna is studied together
with two parallel dipoles rotated around the z-axis. It is seen that there is a cosine-like
dependence on the angle α resulting in decreased capacity gain for all angles greater than
0◦ . Nevertheless, no significant influence of rotation angle on the behavior of dTx and
dRx is seen. In Figure 8.11 the same base station antenna with two perpendicular dipoles
is studied. In this case, the capacity dependence on varying dTx and dRx also remains
constant, but in addition almost no dependence with respect to rotation angle α is seen.
Figure 8.8: Relative Ergodic Capacity Gain vs horizontal antenna inter element spacing at the
base station for two 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antennas and two vertically oriented
dipoles
station in order to investigate different antenna types. This poses one major problem:
base stations are usually big antennas, so the number of spherical modes needed to have
their radiated field rigorously characterized may be prohibitive (Hansen, 1988; Rubio et al.,
2005) to be inserted into the proposed network model. In order to overcome this problem,
we can take advantage of the knowledge of some base station configurations, such as the
one of Kathrein, to expand the base station field into a number of pseudomodes. Here,
the main objective is to obtain a main beam width as close as possible to the measured
pattern. In this case, the major variation of the field from the base station will be in the
elevation plane, as it is mainly given by the array factor. In this section we will focus
on the modal representation of the field of the 742445 vertically polarized base station
antenna. Given the fact that this antenna consists of 10 dipole pairs arranged vertically
and separated approximately by 0.8λ, in front of a a metallic plane, we can carry out the
expansion of the radiated field by focusing on the radiation pattern of one dipole pair.
Therefore, our task consists of finding a modal representation for the field of a single
antenna element (dipole pair) for a later multiplication with the antenna array factor. For
this, the elevation radiation pattern of one λ/2 dipole in front of an infinite ground plane
is used
π
cos 2 cos(θ)
Cθ (θ) = , (8.23)
sin θ
whereas in the azimuthal plane, the direct measured plane from the base station (for
example, in the broadside direction) is used to synthesize the necessary coefficients. By
138 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
(a) (b)
Figure 8.9: Mobile station antenna setups. (a) Two parallel dipoles rotated with respect to the
z-axis and (b) two perpendicular dipoles rotated with respect to their starting position as vertically
and horizontally polarized dipoles.
applying a projection synthesis method it follows that the coefficients that reproduce the
radiated pattern of one antenna element of the base station can be synthesized from their
projection on the set of normalized outgoing spherical wave functions:
Z 2π Z π
~ ϕ) · ~e∗ (θ, ϕ) sin θdθdϕ
C(θ, q
ϕ=0 θ=0
cTx
q = Z 2π Z π (8.24)
~eq (θ, ϕ) · ~e∗q (θ, ϕ) sin θdθdϕ
ϕ=0 θ=0
In our case, 35 spherical modes are needed to satisfactorily represent the single antenna
configuration. At this point, to get the base station radiation pattern from these coeffi-
cients, the spherical modes must be multiplied by the array factor in order to obtain the
“pseudomodal” representation of the base station. Figure 8.12 shows the elevation and
azimuth plane patterns achieved with this procedure, compared to the measured patterns
from the vertically polarized Kathrein base station antenna. As can be seen, a good degree
of compliance is reached.
In order to see the real benefits of this approach, in Figure 8.13 the relative ergodic
capacity gain for a 2x2 MIMO configuration based on the newly synthesized antennas is
shown. Remarkably, little difference with respect to Figure 8.8 is seen. This shows the
great potential for MIMO system analysis behind the modal expansion of the radiated
fields of the antennas, even if it is not accurately described as in this case. In addition, it
opens a significant window of opportunity since different antenna sectorizations can also
be considered for improved statistics.
8.2 Modal network model for MIMO systems 139
(a)
(b)
Figure 8.10: Relative capacity gain of 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antenna for two
parallel dipoles with varying rotation angle α
140 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
(a)
(b)
Figure 8.11: Relative capacity gain of 742445 vertically polarized Kathrein antenna for two
perpendicular dipoles with varying rotation angle α.
8.2 Modal network model for MIMO systems 141
(a)
(b)
Figure 8.12: Comparison of the synthesized radiation pattern (—–) and the 742445 vertically
polarized Kathrein radiation pattern (- - -) in (a) azimuth and (b) elevation.
142 Modelling MIMO systems with a hybrid spherical-mode-based approach
Figure 8.13: Relative ergodic capacity gain vs horizontal antenna inter element spacing at the
base station for two vertically polarized synthesized antennas and two vertically oriented dipoles
Chapter 9
Conclusion
143
144 Conclusion
sources have been considered in several examples. The results evidence that different
optimized array configurations are achieved with each type of the proposed thinning
options when MC is relevant. A higher degree of thinning with respect to uniform
array excitations at the expense of a weighted distribution has been confirmed.
• A model to rigorously characterize line-of-sight MIMO systems has been introduced.
It is based on the GSM of each antenna, considered as isolated, and rotation and
translation coefficients of spherical modes. The resulting channel matrix rigorously
includes the exact spherical vector nature of electromagnetic propagation, MC ef-
fects and real antenna reflection, transmission, reception and scattering features.
Therefore, it is especially suited for short-range communications, where the spheri-
cal vector nature of the propagating field plays a major role, in the case MC effects
are significant at the transmitting and/or receiving arrays and eventually when the
antennas are in the proximity of scatterers.
• A modal network model for multiple antenna systems has been introduced and ap-
plied to an urban scenario with measured antenna data. The model is based on
the spherical mode expansion of the fields of both the receiving and the transmit-
ting antennas. In this manner a significant simulation time reduction is achieved
which allows an efficient computation of statistical results based on extensive de-
terministic propagation models. In this manner exhaustive simulations, otherwise
computationally restrictive, for 2x2 MIMO systems in urban scenarios with varying
antenna types, spacings and orientations have been done.
9.3 Framework
The work reported in this Ph. D. dissertation has been carried out at the Departamento
de Electromagnetismo y Teorı́a de Circuitos, in the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros
de Telecomunicación of the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid.
Part of the work reported in this Ph. D. dissertation (specifically, Chapter 8) was car-
ried out within a research period at the following foreign institution: Institut für Hochfre-
quenztechnik und Elektronik, Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany.
The research projects for which the work reported in this Ph. D. dissertation has
generated results are:
• Project title: Nuevas herramientas software para CAD de antenas. Financial in-
stitution: Plan Nacional de Investigación Cientı́fica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tec-
nológica 2004–2007. Research institutions: E.T.S.I. Telecomunicación, Universidad
Politécnica de Madrid. Duration: December 2004 - December 2007. Researcher in
chief : Juan Zapata Ferrer.
• Project title: Antenna Centre of Excellence 2 (ACE-2). Financial institution: Eu-
ropean Comission. VI Framework Programme. Research institutions: 45 European
research institutions. Duration: January 2006 - December 2007. Researcher in
chief : Bruno Casali.
• Project title: Diseño de antenas y agrupaciones de antenas mediante técnicas de seg-
mentación. Financial institution: Plan Nacional de Investigación Cientı́fica, Desar-
rollo e Innovación Tecnológica 2008–2010. Research institutions: E.T.S.I. Telecomu-
nicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Duration: January 2008 - December
2010. Researcher in chief : Juan Zapata Ferrer.
The main financial support for the development of this Ph. D. has come from a grant
of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. This grant was directly associated to
the first of the aforementioned research projects.
9.4 Publications
This Ph. D. dissertation has given rise to the following publications:
9.4.2.2 National
• J. Córcoles, M. A. González, and J. Rubio, “Sı́ntesis de Fourier para agrupaciones
lineales de antenas reales y acopladas,” in XXIV Simposium Nacional de la Unión
Cientı́fica Internacional de Radio - URSI 2009, Santander, Cantabria, Spain, Sept.
16–18, 2009.
• J. Córcoles, M. A. González, and J. Zapata, “Diseño automatizado de antenas de
parches apilados en cavidad mediante descomposición de dominio en el MEF, re-
des neuronales y optimización global,” in XXIII Simposium Nacional de la Unión
Cientı́fica Internacional de Radio - URSI 2008, Madrid, Spain, Sept. 22–24, 2008.
148 Conclusion
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