Optimal design of broadband radome using particle swarm optimization

This paper presents an optimal radome design using particle swarm optimization (PSO) which has recently drawn considerable attention in a wide range of applications. The frequency characteristics of the transmission coefficient for the radome are adopted as the objective function, and the radome wall thickness and radome shape are optimized. Furthermore, in order to enhance the reliability of the original PSO, we introduce a concept analogous to ‘mutation’ in genetic algorithms. Numerical experiments reveal that the mutation operation is capable of considerably enhancing the stability and the reliability of the PSO. We also confirm that the PSO is successfully applied to the problem of a practical radome design, and the transmission coefficient attained by the PSO is above the targeted value of −1 dB for the entire frequency bandwidth and for all evaluated beam scan angles. © 2012 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.