Design of ultra-wideband, aperiodic antenna arrays with the CMA evolutionary strategy

Recently, the covariance matrix adaption evolutionary strategy (CMA-ES) has received attention for outperforming conventional global optimization techniques such as the genetic algorithm (GA) or particle swarm optimization (PSO), often used in electromagnetic designs. Here, CMA-ES is first applied to the design of ultra-wideband aperiodic arrays using realistic spiral radiating elements. To improve the axial ratio of the array, optimization was extended to incorporate a mechanical rotation of each spiral element. This novel strategy of optimizing both the location and rotation of each element provides noticeable improvement in both the axial ratio and sidelobe level performance.