Pulse splitting for harmonic beamforming in time-modulated linear arrays

A novel strategy for harmonic beamforming in time-modulated linear arrays is proposed. The pulse splitting technique is exploited to simultaneously generate two harmonic patterns, one at the central frequency and another at a preselected harmonic of arbitrary order, while controlling the maximum level of the remaining sideband radiations. An optimization strategy based on the particle swarm optimizer is developed in order to determine the optimal parameters describing the pulse sequence used to modulate the excitation weights of the array elements. Representative numerical results are reported and discussed to point out potentialities and limitations of the proposed approach.