Improving the radiation characteristics of a base station antenna array using a particle swarm optimizer

A particle swarm optimization based technique is applied on linear antenna arrays used by broadcasting base stations. Both the geometry and the excitation of the antenna array are optimized by a suitable algorithm under the constraints of the maximum possible gain at the desired direction and the desired value of side lobe level. The matching condition of the elements of the antenna array is also required by the algorithm. The technique has been applied to antenna arrays composed of collinear wire dipoles and seems to be very promising for improving radiation patterns of base station antenna arrays in many practical applications. (C) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.