Genetic algorithms based analyses of nonlinearly loaded antenna arrays including mutual coupling effects

In this paper, genetic algorithms are applied to the analyses of nonlinearly loaded antenna arrays including mutual coupling effects. Initially, the analysis of a single nonlinearly loaded antenna is transformed into a nonlinear microwave circuit with the circuit elements representing the antenna element and the lumped load. This equivalent circuit is then reformulated into an optimization problem which can be solved by genetic algorithms. The analyses can also be easily extended to finite and infinite nonlinearly loaded antenna arrays including mutual coupling effects. Numerical examples show that the results by genetic algorithms are consistent with those using the harmonic balance techniques. With the use of genetic algorithms, the analyses in this paper do not require a suitable guess of an initial solution and there exists no gradient operations in the iteration procedures. Therefore, the analyses in this study are suitable for problems of nonlinearly loaded antenna arrays with any types of lumped loads and the array mutual coupling effects are included.