A Two-Stage Optimization Approach to Suppression of Side Lobe and Sideband Levels in Time-Modulated Linear Arrays

Time modulated arrays (TMA) suffer from relatively low efficiencies due to radiations at different harmonics (sidebands) of modulation frequency in addition to main frequency. In order to increase this efficiency, optimization algorithms are usually used, but the performance and solution time of the optimizations must be studied. In this study, the two-stage optimization method is proposed for suppressing sidelobe level (SLL) and switching-induced sideband levels (SBL) in the time-modulated linear antenna array. It is shown through a sample scenario that the proposed method gives more effective results than the classical optimization approach.