An overview of several recent antenna designs utilizing nature-inspired optimization algorithms

Many new, high-performance antenna designs have employed optimization strategies to tune their geometric parameters for optimal electromagnetic properties such as return loss and gain. Several antenna designs are presented here that demonstrate the ability of these optimization strategies to competently fulfill the designer's performance criteria. Designs such as the anisotropic zero-index and low-index metamaterial-enabled antennas illustrate the benefits of applying evolutionary strategies to create metamaterials for integration into classical antennas as well as tune the final, integrated antenna system. The folded meander-slot and embedded-element stacked patch antenna designs illustrate how the algorithms can be used to directly optimize antenna geometries for wide-band and multi-band purposes.