A compact, metamaterial beamformer designed through optimization

Abstract

A compact, metamaterial-based antenna beam-former is presented. The design employs a new optimization technique that couples a custom finite-element method (FEM) electromagnetic solver to a constrained minimization algorithm. The optimization operates on a surrogate model of the beam-former composed of an inhomogeneous, anisotropic material. This technique is an alternative to transformation electromagnetics that offers improved flexibility and physical realizability. In particular, the technique offers device designs which transform stipulated input (incident) fields to prescribed output fields (with desired amplitude and phase distribution), while constraining the material parameters to realizable values.