Synthesis of Sparse Concentric Ring Arrays Based on Fitness-Associated Differential Evolution Algorithm

In this paper, fitness-associated differential evolution (FITDE) algorithm is proposed and applied to the synthesis of sparse concentric ring arrays under constraint conditions, whose goal is to reduce peak sidelobe level. In unmodified differential evolution (DE) algorithm, crossover probability is constant and remains unchanged during the whole optimization process, resulting in the negative effect on the population diversity and convergence speed. Therefore, FITDE is proposed where crossover probability can change according to certain information. Firstly, the population fitness variance is introduced to the traditional differential evolution algorithm to adjust the constant crossover probability dynamically. The fitness variance in the earlier iterations is relatively large. Under this circumstance, the corresponding crossover probability shall be small to speed up the exploration process. As the iteration progresses, the fitness variance becomes small on the whole and the crossover probability should be set large to enrich population diversity. Thereby, we construct three variation strategies of crossover probability according to the above changing trend. Secondly, FITDE is tested on benchmark functions, and the best one of the three strategies is determined according to the test results. Finally, sparse concentric ring arrays are optimized using FITDE, of which the results are compared with reference algorithms. The optimization results manifest the advantageous effectiveness of FITDE.