Radiation pattern synthesis for conformal antenna arrays

The synthesis of conformal antenna arrays is complicated by the impossibility of factorizing the analytical expression for the power pattern into an element factor and an array factor. This article describes a general method of pattern synthesis that, given a well-defined single-element power pattern, is applicable to arrays of arbitrary geometry. Essentially, the method uses simulated annealing to optimize the excitation distribution so as to minimize the difference between the power pattern it generates and the desired power pattern.