Six-Element Yagi Array Designs Using Central Force Optimization with Pseudo Random Negative Gravity

A six-element Yagi-Uda array is optimally designed using Central Force Optimization (CFO) with a small amount of pseudo randomly injected negative gravity. CFO is a simple, deterministic metaheuristic analogizing gravitational kinematics (motion of masses under the influence of gravity). It has been very effective in addressing a wide range of antenna and other problems and normally employs only positive gravity. With positive gravity the six element CFO-designed Yagi array described here exhibits excellent performance with respect to the objectives of impedance bandwidth and forward gain. This paper addresses the question of what happens when a small amount of negative gravity is injected into the CFO algorithm. Does doing so have any effect, beneficial, negative or neutral? In this particular case negative gravity improves CFO’s exploration and creates a region of optimality containing many designs that perform about as well as or better than the array discovered with only positive gravity. Without some negative gravity these array configurations are overlooked. This Yagi-Uda array design example suggests that antennas optimized or designed using deterministic CFO may well benefit by including a small amount of negative gravity, and that the negative gravity approach merits further study.

Central Force Optimization with Gravity <0, Elitism, and Dynamic Threshold Optimization: An Antenna Application, 6-Element Yagi-Uda Arrays

This paper investigates the effect of adding three extensions to Central Force Optimization when it is used as the Global Search and Optimization method for the design and optimization of 6-elementYagi-Uda arrays. Those extensions are Negative Gravity, Elitism, and Dynamic Threshold Optimization. The basic CFO heuristic does not include any of these, but adding them substantially improves the algorithm’s performance. This paper extends the work reported in a previous paper that considered only negative gravity and which showed a significant performance improvement over a range of optimized arrays. Still better results are obtained by adding to the mix Elitism and DTO. An overall improvement in best fitness of 19.16% is achieved by doing so. While the work reported here was limited to the design/optimization of 6- element Yagis, the reasonable inference based on these data is that any antenna design/optimization problem, indeed any Global Search and Optimization problem, antenna or not, utilizing Central Force Optimization as the Global Search and Optimization engine will benefit by including all three extensions, probably substantially.

On the Effects of Driven Element L/D Ratio and Length in VHF-SHF Yagi-Uda Arrays

While the Yagi-Uda array has been studied for decades, one issue appears to have received less attention than perhaps it should, namely, the effects on performance of the array’s driven element length and its length-to-diameter ratio. This paper looks at that question. It shows that decreasing the L/D ratio increases impedance bandwidth, but it may shift the IBW band sufficiently far from the design frequency that other parameters such as gain and front-to-back ratio probably are adversely affected. It also shows that array performance is not relatively independent of element diameters. This paper also investigates the effect of lengthening the driven element, which can substantially improve IBW. Several iterations of a 3-element prototype and improved arrays are modeled with the Method of Moments and discussed in detail. A five step design procedure is recommended and applied to a Genetic Algorithm-optimized 3-element Yagi at 146 MHz. This array exhibits excellent performance in terms of gain, front-to-back ratio, and especially impedance bandwidth (nearly 14% for voltage standing wave ratio ≤ 2:1 with two frequencies at which 50 ? is almost perfectly matched). While the analysis and recommended design steps are applied to cylindrical array elements, which commonly are aluminum tubing for stand-alone VHF-SHF Yagis, they can be applied to other element geometries as well using equivalent cylindrical radii, for example, Printed Circuit Board traces for planar arrays. One consequence of lengthening the driven element while reducing its L/D ratio is that some reactance is introduced at the array feedpoint which must be tuned out, and two approaches for doing so are suggested.