Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Background: With the advent of smart antennas, there has been a phenomenal technological development in wireless communications industry. They paved path to number of new inventions that gave a boost to mobile industry. In this paper a comparison on elliptical array and hexagonal array of uniformly excited isotropic antennas are studied. Methods: The configurations generate maximum directive beam with reduced side lobe level. Two optimization techniques were used, particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm. Both the arrays are evaluated in terms of efficient null placing and side lobe levels reduction using the algorithms taken into consideration. Findings: Hexagonal array using particle swarm optimization has better beam forming capabilities with reduced side lobe levels when compared elliptical array configuration. Applications: Smart antennas combat signal fading and suppress interfering signals from unwanted directions and thereby increase the capacity of wireless systems. 
Keywords: Array Synthesis, Elliptical Array, GA, Hexagonal Array, PSO, Smart Antennas