Application of Machine Learning to Antenna
Design and Radar Signal Processing: A Review
Youngwook Kim
Electrical and Computer Engineering, California State University, Fresno, 2320 E. San Ramon Ave, Fresno, CA93740
Abstract — Recently, machine learning has received a great
deal of attention thanks to its success in a range of applications
in engineering science, medicine, and economics. The new
technology has also been gaining popularity in electromagnetics.
In this paper, the application of machine learning algorithms,
for antenna design and radar signal processing, is reviewed.
Index Terms — Machine learning, Deep learning, Antenna
optimization, Radar signal processing, Deep convolution neural
networks, Transfer learning, Classification.
1. Introduction
Machine learning is one of the rapidly emerging
disciplines that can be widely applied in the fields of
engineering, science, medicine, and economics, to name just
a few. The area is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses
computational statistics to find a mathematical model
describing input and output data. The constructed
mathematical model, referred to as a data-driven archetype,
can offer a substitute for an analytical counterpart. Because
the data-driven model can interpolate output based on
unknown input, it can solve regression problems. With
classification problems sharing the same fundamental basis
as regression, machine learning has been used intensively for
classification problems such as image recognition, speech
recognition, and target classification [1].
Recently, the application of machine learning has also
been extended to electromagnetics (EM). Thanks to the
advancement of machine learning algorithms, especially
deep-learning technology that enables the modeling of high-
level abstractions in data, many antenna parameter
optimization and radar target classification problems could
be revisited. Antenna optimization, which requires high
computational complexity, can be addressed by machine
learning algorithms to reduce the time cost involved. Rather
than employing a computationally expensive EM simulator,
machine learning, such as that found in artificial neural
networks, can substitute the EM simulator following training
[2]. In addition, target classification, based on radar
measurement, has been a significant topic of machine
learning for defense and surveillance purposes for decades
[3–5].
In this paper, we review the applications of machine
learning in the EM field, in particular antenna design and
radar target classification. The basic concepts of machine
learning and deep learning are discussed, and their
applications for antenna geometric parameter optimization
and target classification, based on radar imagery, are
addressed.
2. Machine Learning Algorithms
When the analytical model of a system is not available,
while input and output data can be measured or simulated,
machine learning can be an alternate tool to explain the
system via mathematical equations. The mathematical model
includes numerous parameters that can be optimized to
approximate the system transfer function. The determination
of the parameter is referred to as a training process that
searches for parameters that make the model best fit the data.
Among machine learning algorithms, the neural network
is one of the most famous mathematical structures to have
become a foundation of the data-driven model [6]. The
neural network consists of several layers, each of which is
composed of several perceptrons. The perceptrons of one
layer are connected with those of another layer via weighting
factors. In the perceptron, a non-linear function, known as
the activation function, is embedded to enable the nonlinear
description of the system. The structure of the neural
network is shown below.
Fig. 1. Structure of neural networks.
Conventionally, a single inner layer has been used because
this has been proven sufficient to approximate any non-linear
systems. In addition, multiple layers induce more parameters
to be found, meaning that the computational complexity and
limited memory size are the main restrictions on its
feasibility.
3. Deep Learning
The difference between general machine learning and deep
learning is that the latter uses multiple layers to enable more
powerful abstractions and generalization. The conventional
use of neural networks requires a prior feature extraction
process to reduce the networks’ computational burden. If the
features need to be extracted inside the neural networks, they
will require a large network size with powerful training
capability. Thus, the chance of successful training was not
high, considering a practical computational power and
memory size. Recently, advances in computer power and
larger memory sizes have enabled the successful training of
large networks. In deep learning, feature extraction and
classification/generalization can be performed in a single
network, leading to remarkable improvement. Various deep
learning technologies have seen success, including deep
neural networks, deep convolutional neural networks
(DCNN), and deep recursive neural networks (DRNN), to
name a few. In particular, DCNN has obtained great
popularity in image classification, while DRNN has shown
its capability in time-domain signal processing.
4. Application to Antenna Design
Because antenna design is involved with a
computationally expensive EM simulator, the simulation
time ranges from a few seconds to a few days, depending on
the size of the antenna, operating frequency, and
computational power. In particular, because the antenna
needs to be optimized to maximize the performance while
reducing the size, rapid optimization techniques are highly
desirable. Rather than using an EM simulator, machine
learning algorithms can work as an alternative to the general
optimization techniques such as genetic algorithm, particle
swarm optimization, and simulated annealing. For example,
the relationship between the size of the patch antenna and its
resonant frequency is trained by neural networks, allowing
the size to be immediately determined through the trained
machine [2]. Another approach is to estimate the parameter
for the model of the antenna parameter using the machine
learning technique. The antenna characteristics, which can be
expressed by a mathematical model, can be determined if the
model parameters are known [7]. Array antenna designs have
also been addressed by neural networks [8].
5. Application to Radar Signal Processing
One of the purposes of radar signal processing is to
identify and recognize the measured target. The latter’s
features, such as RCS, range profile, and radar imagery, offer
a possibility of target recognition. Conventionally, the
classifiers based on machine learning algorithms, such as
neural networks and support vector machines, have been
used for target recognition problems. In particular, DCNN
has recently garnered significant attention in image
classification problems, with its success encouraging its use
for radar imagery. Convolutional filters extract features and
the fully connected layers construct a class boundary in a
single neural network. As such, DCNN has been applied to
micro-Doppler signatures. Human activities, hand gestures,
aquatic activities, drones, and vehicles are measured using
radar, and the corresponding spectrogram is classified using
DCNN. Another notable advance was made in synthetic
aperture radar (SAR) images for automatic target recognition.
This not only allowed the SAR image classification to be
improved, the whole process can now be handled by DCNN
rather than the traditional routine of detection, discrimination,
and classification.
One of the bottlenecks of using deep learning for radar
imagery is the lack of training data. Unlike with optical
camera images, high costs are involved in obtaining the radar
images, meaning that the number of images is not sufficient
to train large networks. To overcome this issue, transfer
learning has been suggested, which has shown great
improvement [4]. By borrowing the pre-trained
convolutional neural networks, such as AlexNet and VGG16,
only the last stage, the fully connected layer, needs to be re-
trained.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 2. (a) DCNN for micro-Doppler processing and (b) DCNN for SAR
classification [9].
6. Conclusion
In this paper, we briefly reviewed the applications of deep
learning to the applied EM. Greater advances in machine
learning algorithms would benefit other areas, including EM.
Although a distinct improvement could have been found in
the radar image classification, it is expected that its use could
augment the antenna design area, such as helping in the
design of conventional antennae by non-experienced
engineers or identifying new antenna structures.
References
[1] G. James, D. Witten, T. Hastie, and R. Tibshirani, An Introduction to
Statistical Learning (with applications in R), Springer, 2013.
[2] M. Singhal and G. Saini, “Optimization of antenna parameters using
artificial neural network: A review,” International Journal of
Computer Trends and Technology, vol. 44, 2017.
[3] Y. Kim and T. Moon, “Human detection and activity classification
based on micro-Dopplers using deep convolutional neural
networks,” IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, vol. 13, pp.
2–8, Jan. 2016.
[4] J. Park, J. Rios, T. Moon, and Y. Kim, “Micro-Doppler based
classification of human activities on water via transfer learning of
convolutional neural networks,” Sensors, vol. 16, pp. 19–90, Nov.
2016.
[5] S. Chen and H. Wang, “SAR target recognition based on deep
learning,” International Conference on Data Science and Advanced
Analytics (DSAA), Nov. 2014.
[6] C. Bishop, Neural Network for Pattern Recognition, Clarendon Press,
Jan. 1996.
[7] Y. Kim, S. Keely, J. Ghosh, and H. Ling, “Application of artificial
neural networks to broadband antenna design based on a parametric
frequency model,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,
vol. 55, pp. 669–674, Mar. 2007.
[8] A. Rawata, R. N. Yadavb, and S. C. Shrivastavac, “Neural network
applications in smart antenna arrays: A review,” International
Journal of Electronics and Communications, Vol. 66, May 2012.
[9] C. Danilla, “Convolutional neural networks for contextual de-noising
and classification of SAR images,” M.S. Thesis, University of
Twente, 2017.