Synthesis of linear aperiodic array using Cauchy mutated cat swarm optimization

A novel Cauchy mutated cat swarm optimization (CMCSO) that features effective global search capabilities with fast convergence is introduced in this paper. The Cauchy mutation enables the cats of the cat swarm optimization (CSO) algorithm to seek their positions in directions that avoid the problem of premature convergence and local optima. In this communication, CMCSO is applied to the synthesis of linear aperiodic arrays for minimizing sidelobe level and controlling the null positions. Various synthesis examples are considered and the obtained results are compared with linear aperiodic array designs from literature. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to existing methods in terms of accuracy and convergence speed. Some of the synthesized aperiodic array designs are implemented with wire dipole antenna elements using a full-wave electromagnetic simulator. Furthermore, experiments are conducted on several standard benchmark complex multimodal problems to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The sensitivity analysis is performed on different parameters of CMCSO to demonstrate their influence on the overall performance of the benchmark and antenna array synthesis problems. (C) 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.