Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

UAVs-based antenna arrays using time modulation

  • Published:
Telecommunication Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper applies time modulation to deal with the design of antenna arrays for UAVs formation flight using a rectangular micro-strip as antenna element in the frequency of 2.4 GHz. The motivation for this paper is to exploit the properties and advantages of time-modulated arrays in an interesting application: UAVs formation flight. This design considers the optimization of the position of the drones (or antenna elements) and the time switched sequences of the elements in a linear geometry. The design process to find the optimal positions of the drones for flight formation and the switch-on interval of each element is carried out by means of the methods of Particle Swarm Optimization and Invasive Weed Optimization. The main contribution to the field of this paper is a performance evaluation of the design problem for UAVs-based linear antenna arrays considering time modulation in terms of side lobe level (SLL) and sideband levels (SBLs). Simulation results are provided in terms of SLL, SBLs, switching time and positions of the drones. These simulation results illustrate that the time modulation could provide a SLL improvement with respect to previous results in literature.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  1. Bürkle, A., Florian, S., & Kollmann, M. (2011). Towards autonomous micro UAV swarms. Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems,61(1–4), 339–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Patrovsky, A., Sekora, R. (2010). Structural integration of a thin conformal annular slot antenna for UAV applications. In Loughborough antennas and propagation conference (pp. 229–232).

  3. Imai, S., Blasch, E., Galli, A., Zhu, W., Lee, F., & Varela, C. A. (2017). Airplane flight safety using error-tolerant data stream processing. IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine,32, 4–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Garza, J., Panduro, M. A., Reyna, A., Romero, G., & del Rio, C. (2016). Design of UAVs-based 3D antenna arrays for a maximum performance in terms of directivity and SLL. International Journal of Antennas and Propagation,2016, 1–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Breheny, S. H., D’Andrea, R., Miller, J. C. (2003). Using airborne vehicle-based antenna arrays to improve communications with UAV clusters. In Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE conference on decision and control (Vol. 4, pp. 4158–4162).

  6. Jan, S. S., Enge, P. (2000). Using GPS to synthesize a large antenna aperture when the elements are mobile. In Proceedings of the national technical meeting of the institute of navigation, Anaheim, CA (pp. 1–11).

  7. Chandra, R. S., Breheny, S. H., & D´Andrea, R. (2008). Antenna array synthesis with clusters of unmanned aerial vehicles. Automatica International Federation of Automatic Control,44, 1976–1984.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Namin, F., Petko, J. S., & Werner, D. H. (2012). Analysis and design optimization of robust aperiodic micro-UAV swarm-based antenna arrays. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,60, 2295–2308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Tonetti, S., Hehn, M., Lupashin, S., & D´Andrea, R. (2011). Distributed control of antenna array with formation of UAVs. In Proceedings of the 18th World Congress the IFAC (Vol. 44, pp. 7848–7853).

  10. Shanks, H. E., & Bickmore, R. W. (1959). Four-dimensional electromagnetic radiators. Canadian Journal of Physics,37(3), 263–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Kummer, W., Villeneuve, A., Fong, T., & Terrio, F. (1963). Ultra-low sidelobes from time-modulated arrays. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,11(6), 633–639.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Aksoy, E., & Afacan, E. (2014). A comparative study on sideband optimization in time-modulated arrays. Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Antennas and Propagation2014, 1–14, Article ID 290737.

  13. Yang, S., Gan, Y. B., & Khiang, T. P. (2003). A new technique for power-pattern synthesis in time-modulated linear arrays. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters,2(1), 285–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Ram, G., Mandal, D., Kar, R., & Ghoshal, S. P. (2015). Cat swarm optimization as applied to time-modulated concentric circular antenna arrays: analysis and comparison with other stochastic optimization methods. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,63(9), 4180–4183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Aksoy, E., & Afacan, E. (2010). Thinned nonuniform amplitude time-modulated linear arrays. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters,9, 514–517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Poli, L., Rocca, P., Manica, L., & Massa, A. (2010). Handling sideband radiations in time-modulated arrays through particle swarm optimization. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,58(4), 1408–1411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Reyna, A., Balderas, L., & Panduro, M. (2017). Time-modulated antenna arrays for circularly polarized shaped beam patterns. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters,16, 1537–1540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Yang, J., Li, W. T., Shi, X. W., Xin, L., & Yu, J. F. (2013). A hybrid ABC-DE algorithm and its application for time-modulated arrays pattern synthesis. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,61(11), 5485–5495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Rocca, P., Poli, L., Oliveri, G., & Massa, A. (2012). Adaptive nulling in time-varying scenarios through time-modulated linear arrays. IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters,11, 101–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Kennedy, J., & Eberhart, R. (2001). Swarm intelligence. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Robinson, J., & Rahmat-Samii, Y. (2004). Particle swarm optimization in electromagnetics. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,52(2), 397–407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Karimkashi, S., & Kishk, A. A. (2010). Invasive weed optimization and its features in electromagnetics. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,58(4), 1269–1278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Basak, A., Pal, S., Das, S., Abraham, A., & Snasel, V. (2010). A modified invasive weed optimization algorithm for time-modulated linear antenna array synthesis (pp. 1–8). Barcelona: IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Tong, Y. (2013) Time modulated linear arrays. Doctoral thesis in electronic and electrical engineering. The University of Sheffield.

  25. Balanis, C. (2005). Antenna Theory-Analysis and Design (3rd ed.). NY: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Pang, T. (2016). Design, prototyping and autonomous control of gasoline-engine variable-pitch quadcopter. Dissertation.

  27. Koziel, S., & Leifsson, L. (2013). Surrogated-based modeling and optimization. Applications in engineering (1st ed.). New York: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  28. Bray, M. G., Werner, D. H., Boehringer, D. W., & Machuga, D. W. (2002). Optimization of thinned aperiodic linear phased arrays using genetic algorithms to reduce grating lobes during scanning. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,50, 1732–1742.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Liu, Y., Jiao, Y. C., & Zhang, Y. M. (2015). A novel hybrid invasive weed optimization algorithm for pattern synthesis of array antennas. International Journal of RF and Microwave Computer-Aided Engineering,25(2), 154–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The research work presented in this paper has been supported by the Mexican Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT), under Grant No. 2016-01-1680.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, UAMRR-R, Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico

    Diana A. Jiménez, Alberto Reyna & Luz Balderas

  2. Radanter S.A. DE C.V, Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico

    Alberto Reyna

  3. CICESE Research Center, Ensenada, Mexico

    Marco A. Panduro

  4. Universidad Pública de Navarra, Campus Arrosadia, Pamplona, Spain

    Carlos del Rio

  5. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, NIT Warangal, Warangal, 506004, India

    Gopi Ram

Authors
  1. Diana A. Jiménez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alberto Reyna
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. Marco A. Panduro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  4. Carlos del Rio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  5. Gopi Ram
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  6. Luz Balderas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marco A. Panduro.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jiménez, D.A., Reyna, A., Panduro, M.A. et al. UAVs-based antenna arrays using time modulation. Telecommun Syst 74, 113–127 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-019-00640-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-019-00640-1

Keywords