Computer-Automated Evolution of an X-Band Antenna for NASA's Space Technology 5 Mission

Whereas the current practice of designing antennas by hand is severely limited because it is both time and labor intensive and requires a significant amount of domain knowledge, evolutionary algorithms can be used to search the design space and automatically find novel antenna designs that are more effective than would otherwise be developed. Here we present our work in using evolutionary algorithms to automatically design an X-band antenna for NASA’s Space Technology 5 (ST5) spacecraft. Two evolutionary algorithms were used: the first uses a tree-structured generative representation for constructing the antenna and the second uses a vector of real-valued parameters. The highest-performance antennas from both algorithms were fabricated and tested and both outperformed a hand-designed antenna produced by the antenna contractor for the mission. Subsequent changes to the spacecraft orbit resulted in a change in requirements for the spacecraft antenna. By adjusting our fitness funct...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: EC
• Authors: Gregory Hornby, Jason D. Lohn, Derek S. Linden
• Keywords: Design, EC 2011, ECommerce, Evolutionary Algorithms, Spacecraft