A customized MOEA/D with active element pattern surrogate model for direction finding array design

This paper proposes a customized algorithm named MOEA/D-AEPM for direction finding array (DFA) design. The aim of DFA design is to search a set of optimal spacing between array elements that minimizes the direction finding error (DFE), the correlation peak ratio (CPR), and the active S-parameter, resulting in an expensive multiobjective optimization problem (EMOP). Different from traditional EMOPs with expensive objectives, an active element pattern (AEP) from electromagnetic simulation is added with Gaussian noise to simulate the received signals. To avoid the influence of noise level on DFE and CPR, an AEP surrogate model (AEPM) is built to reduce cost. The experimental results demonstrate that MOEA/D-AEPM achieved reasonably good results within a limited cost, together with effective AEPM prediction, which can also provide a deep insight into radiation knowledge for antenna experts.