An Effective Approach for the Synthesis of Uniformly Excited Large Linear Sparse Array

A novel approach for the synthesis of large sparse linear arrays featuring a minimum sidelobe level is presented. The approach consists of two stages and has an efficient way in dealing with multiple constraints. An analytical approximation method, where a local optimum can be obtained, is carried out to generate the initial populations in the first step. Then, a population renewal strategy based on differential evolution and Lévy flight is applied to search the global optimal solutions. Numerical experiments are provided to validate the effectiveness and outperformance of the proposed method.