Optimal Strategies for Antenna Array Design in Advanced Radar and Communications Systems through Convex Optimization

In this dissertation, convex programming (CP ) as applied to antenna array synthesis is proposed as a methodology for the optimal synthesis of phased array antennas, and timed/pulsed array antenna as well. In particular, array antenna synthesis in frequency and time domain is formulated as an optimization problem for different types of architectures, systems, and applications in the CP paradigm. In addition, the CP-based optimization has shown great performance with efficient computation for a variety of canonical array synthesis problems due to its convexity property. Furthermore, the jointly satisfying geometrical and operation constraints are also presented because nowadays applications require unconventional array antennas able to guarantee high performance requirements. Therefore, the introduction of optimal synthesis methodologies for the unconventional array is shown for different applications. In this framework, the thesis is aimed to study and develop innovative CP -based methodologies for the optimal synthesis of the unconventional array antennas (e.g., sub-arrayed, wide-band, reconfigure, timed arrays) for next-generation radar and wireless communication systems. A number of examples, including some requirements/constraints and realistic scenarios will be taken into account in order to numerically validate the proposed methodologies when considering both ideal and realistic antenna models.