Abstract
Interferometry in radio astronomy requires antenna arrays with good electromagnetic characteristics and array configurations that can provide adequate u–v coverage. The Transient Array Radio Telescope (TART) project aims to provide affordable, open-source radio astronomy instrumentation that uses patch antenna arrays operating at 1.575 GHz in the L1 band for radio interferometry. TART instruments currently deployed in most partner countries primarily use the spiral array configuration, which is not formally optimized using scientific optimization methods. This research presents the analysis and optimization of the TART spiral array configuration, which integrates a low-cost patch antenna designed as a right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP) GPS patch antenna using FR4 substrate. A complete TART spiral array configuration, consisting of 24 antenna elements, is simulated in FEKO and analyzed for array performance, with the u–v filling factor calculated using a 12-hour synthesis. Differential Evolution, well-suited to the non-smooth nature of the u–v coverage objective, is used as the multi-criteria optimization method, with weights of u–v coverage (45%), shape preservation (35%), and baseline diversity (20%), and with each antenna element constrained to remain within ±0.15 m of its original position for compatibility with existing TART hardware. This optimization yields a 1.0 percentage point gain in the u–v filling factor, from 58.8% to 59.8%, establishing the 5-arm spiral antenna array as near-optimal within the TART platform constraints, with the optimized positions providing a reference for future TART spiral array upgrades.