Fast Null Placement in an Adaptive Planar Antenna Array

Unwanted interference signals have been a bottle-neck for many radar applications and satellite communications. Most of these interfering signals are usually from undesirable sources. A Schelkunoff polynomial nulling technique incorporated with a genetic algorithm is proposed in this paper, in order to place multiple nulls at the undesired directions where the interference signals are radiated. The genetic algorithm is employed to steer the radiation patterns nulls at the undesired directions and simultaneously optimizing a reduced number of the array elements excitations. This results in relaxing the complexity of the problem. The proposed technique has been validated by reducing the processing time by about 90% compared to the conventional optimization process with almost no effect on the required pattern specifications.