Robust Near-field Circular Beamformer with Artificial Intelligence Based Side-lobe Reduction Technique

Efficiently scanning for space signals and accurately detecting them from noisy environment is essential in space communication. Various unwanted interferences also present in space that may hamper the perfect detection process. This paper proposes a novel near-field circular beamformer (NCB) that will perfectly detect the desired source signal from any direction and position in space. To improve the robustness of NCB against Direction of Arrival (DOA) error, distance error, unwanted interferences and noises, this work also offers robust NCBs (RNCB) using robust Optimal Diagonal Loading (ODL) and Variable Diagonal Loading (VDL) techniques. While searching for wanted signal, the beamformer provides a primary lobe at the look direction and shows some secondary unwanted side lobes for noise and interference. Sometimes these undesired side lobe levels (SLL) become so severe that it may create conflict in locating the precise position of the desired source. To reduce these SLL, Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) techniques have been applied to RNCB. The simulation results show that the optimized RNCB significantly diminishes the objectionable SLL of non-optimized RNCB by choosing appropriate weight vector of antenna array without affecting the other antenna parameters. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) have also been used to predict the weight vector for minimum SLL.