Linear array thinning using iterative FFT plus soft decision

Array Thinning is the procedure of reducing the number of elements in such a way that leads to low sidelobe level and narrow beamwidth. Main motivations of array thinning are reduction in weight and cost of antennas array. W.P.M.N. Keizer has presented a new approach for the synthesis of thinned uniformly spaced linear arrays featuring a minimum sidelobe level. The method is based on the iterative Fourier technique to derive element excitations from the prescribed array factor using successive forward and backward Fourier transforms. Array thinning is accomplished by setting the amplitudes of the largest element excitations to unity and the others to zero during each iteration cycle. In this paper a thinning array method using iterative FFT technique plus soft decision is presented, where in each iteration cycle part of elements with largest element excitations are set to unity, part of elements with smallest element excitations are set to zero and the other elements are remained unchanged. Effectiveness of algorithm is proved through simulation results.