A hybrid optimization approach for suppressing sidelobe level and reducing transmission power in collaborative beamforming

Conventional collaborative beamforming with virtual node antenna array often results in high maximum sidelobe level (SLL) due to the unexpected node positions. In this paper, a hybrid optimization approach (HOA) for the SLL suppression and transmission power reduction is proposed. The proposed HOA organizes the node locations according to the concentric circular antenna array for location optimization. Then, a novel algorithm called variation particle chicken swarm optimization (VPCSO) is proposed to further optimize the transmission power weight of the selected array nodes. Simulations are conducted and the results show that the proposed location optimization approach is effective, and the maximum SLL of the beam patterns obtained by VPCSO is lower than that of other algorithms. Moreover, the overall transmission power weights obtained by the proposed VPCSO is the lowest among all the comparison methods.