On nature-inspired design optimization of antenna structures using variable-resolution EM models

Numerical optimization has been ubiquitous in antenna design for over a decade or so. It is indispensable in handling of multiple geometry/material parameters, performance goals, and constraints. It is also challenging as it incurs significant CPU expenses, especially when the underlying computational model involves full-wave electromagnetic (EM) analysis. In most practical cases, the latter is imperative to ensure evaluation reliability. The numerical challenges are even more pronounced when global search is required, which is most often carried out using nature-inspired algorithms. Population-based procedures are known for their ability to escape from local optima, yet their computational efficiency is poor, which makes them impractical when applied directly to EM models. A common workaround is the utilization of surrogate modeling techniques, typically in the form of iterative prediction-correction schemes, where the accumulated EM simulation data is used to identify the promising regions of the parameter space and to refine the surrogate model predictive power at the same time. Notwithstanding, implementation of surrogate-assisted procedures is often intricate, whereas their efficacy may be hampered by the dimensionality issues and considerable nonlinearity of antenna characteristics. This work investigates the benefits of incorporating variable-resolution EM simulation models into nature-inspired algorithms for optimization of antenna structures, where the model resolution pertains to the level of discretization density of an antenna structure in the full-wave simulation model. The considered framework utilizes EM simulation models which share the same physical background and are selected from a continuous spectrum of allowable resolutions. The early stages of the search process are carried out with the use of the lowest fidelity model, which is subsequently automatically increased to finally reach the high-fidelity antenna representation (i.e., considered as sufficiently accurate for design purposes). Numerical validation is executed using several antenna structures of distinct types of characteristics, and a particle swarm optimizer as the optimization engine. The results demonstrate that appropriate resolution adjustment profiles permit considerable computational savings (reaching up to eighty percent in comparison to high-fidelity-based optimization) without noticeable degradation of the search process reliability. The most appealing features of the presented approach—apart from its computational efficiency—are straightforward implementation and versatility.