A Hybrid ABC-DE Algorithm and Its Application for Time-Modulated Arrays Pattern Synthesis

In this paper, a novel hybrid algorithm based on artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm and differential evolution (DE) algorithm called ABC-DE is proposed to inherit their advantages and overcome their drawbacks. In ABC-DE algorithm, employed bees employ the mutation and crossover strategies of DE to enforce their exploration ability while onlooker bees keep their original updating strategy to retain the exploitation ability. Classical test functions have been provided to testify the ABC-DE algorithm. Furthermore, ABC-DE is applied to different types of time-modulated arrays (TMAs) pattern synthesis problems, including the syntheses of low equal-ripple sidelobe level (SLL) pattern, deep null level pattern, multiple-beams patterns and satellite footprint pattern. Experiment results reveal that ABC-DE has a promising performance in the convergence rate and the exploration ability when compared with other improved evolutionary algorithms, which indicates that the proposed algorithm can be an effective approach for TMAs synthesis problems.