IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. A P - 3 4 , NO.

5 , MAY 1986

635

Application of FFT and the Conjugate Gradient Method for the Solution of Electromagnetic Radiation from Electrically Large and Small Conducting Bodies
Abstruct-A novel combination of the conjugate gradient ( C G ) method with the fast Fourier transform technique (FIT) is presented. With this Combination, the computational time required to solve large scatterer problems is much less than the time required by the ordinary conjugate gradient method and the method of moments. On the other hand, since the spatial derivatives are replacedwith simple multiplications some of the computational difficulties in the transformed domain, present in the ordinary conjugate gradient method and the method of moments do not exist here. Therefore, electrically small structures can also be handled more easily. Finally, since the method is iterative, it is possible to know the accuracy in a problem solution.Two types of scatterers are analyzed: wires (both very long and very short) and square plates (very large and small). The detailsof the computational procedure arepresented along with numericalresults for some of thescatterers analyzed.

I. INTRODUCTION
HE PROBLEMS OF electromagnetic scattering from wire antennas and conducting rectangular plates havebeen analyzed by many investigators. These problems are resolved here by a combination ofthe conjugate gradient (CG) method and the fast Fourier transform (FFT). The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the superior performance of this novel combination. The basic steps of the procedure are explained indetail, so that the reader may applythe method to other problems of interest. The approach basically consists ofsolving the original integrodifferential equation by the CG method. However, the FFT is utilized for efficient computations of certain terms required by the CG method. There are several advantages of this approach. For a problem of complexity N , the computational time required in the conventional CG method and the method of moments is proportional to N 3 , whereas for this new method, it is proportional to 4N (1 + logz N ) . Hence, electrically very large scatterers can now beanalyzed in a much shorter amount of central processing unit (CPU) time.
Manuscript received March 19, 1985; revisedJuly 8, 1985. This work was supportedbythe Office of NavalResearchunder Contract N00014-79-C0598. T. K. Sarkar w a s with the Departmentof E l e c t r i d Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY. He i s now with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13210. E. h a s and S. M. Rao are with the Department of E l e c t r i c a l Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623. IEEE Log Number 8407328.

On the other hand, since the derivatives with respect to the spatial coordinates are replaced with simple multiplications in the transformed domain, some of the computational difficulties do not exist here, and electrically small structures can be handled more easily. Finally, since the approach is iterative, it is possible to know the accuracy in the solution at each iteration. In Section I I , wire antennas of various lengths are considered. A brief review of Pocklingtons equation is presented for completeness along with the computational details of the procedure. It is shown that the singularity ofthe kernel is removed, thereby making the numerical computations much easier. It is also observed that the computational time is slightly greater (- 5 percent) when performing computations with the exact kernel instead of the reduced (thin wire) kernel. The details of the application of the new approach to the problem of electromagnetic scattering from conducting plates of different sizes is presented in Section m.

I I . SOLUTION OF POCKLINGTONS EQUATION

WIRE

FOR A

STRAIGHT

Consider a z-directed straight wire antenna oflength L and radius a, irradiated by an incident field of intensity E. By enforcing the total tangential electric field on the wire to zero, the well-known Pocklingtons equation is obtained:

where E L denotes the tangential component of the incident field on the wire, J is the unknown current distribution to be solved for, G(z, z ) is the Greens function given by

and k = 2n/X with h denoting the wavelength.

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wascomputed at the middleof each segment, calling the resulting function B(z,). Here zm denotes the midpoint of the mth segment, and Zi+ - Z i is the length of the ith segment and AJ= Y ( 5 ) Jh is the initial guess for the current over the ith segment. where J i s the unkpown to be solved for the known excitation Then the operator (kz + d2/dz2)was applied to B(z,) in a n Y = -j4oa~&7k, and A denotes the integrodifferential finite difference form to obtain AJo. Similar steps were used i the computations of the terms AP, , A*Rn, etc. So even operator of (1). Equation (1) has been previously solved by the CG method though at each iteration the computation of the above terms is [l], [Z].For this method one starts with an initial guess Jo and equivalent to computing the entire impedance matrix of the method of moments, the iterative method appears to be faster lets for large problems [l]. Po= -b-IA*Ro= -b-IA*(AJor). (6) It was observed that in the conventional CG method described briefly above, the bulk of the computational time is Here A* denotes the adjoint operator for A , and is defined by used up in computing the terms like AP, or A*R,, both of the following inner product: which require the spatial derivative of a convolution integral. (Au, u ) =(u, A*u). (7) It is known that a convolution is transformed into a simple multiplication in the transformed domain. Similarly, derivaAt the nth iteration the CG method develops the following: tives transform into simple multiplications in the transformed domain. Hence in computing AJo (for example), it would be 1 computationally more efficient first to take the Fourier transform of both Jo and G (to obtain Jo and G, respectively, where the tilde represents the transformed quantities), multiply them in the transform domain (which results in the transform of the convolution integral given in (15)), and then multiply this result by k2 - k : . The resulting expression is the transform of AJo and will be denoted by AJo.AJo can be obtained from AJo by simple inverse Fourier transformation. This is the procedure adopted inthis paper. The application of FFT to electromagnetic scattering problems was first used in [3] where it was called the K-space approach. The norm in (8) or (11) is defined as The Fourier transform of the function J&) and the Greens function G are defined as follows: The integrodifferential equation (1) can be rewritten in a compact form as

and the overbar represents the complex conjugate. The explicit expression for the adjoint operator A* is given by V I , P I

In the usual CG method, (1) is solvedby the iteration defined in (8)-(12). The computations are performed as follows. The wire is divided into N segments and the current is assumed to be a constant over each segment. The values of these constants obtained at the nth iteration are stored in the column vector J,. Hence the ith element of JO is the initial guess for the current over the ith segment. The computation of the term AJo, required in (6), can be performed in different ways. In the conventional CG method utilized in [11, [2], AJo was computed as follows. First the convolution integral

Observe that the expression for the transform of the Greens function is obtained in a closed form in terms of the zeroth order modified Bessel functions of the first and second kind [4, p. 1381, denoted by Io and KO,respectively. It is important to point out that the transform of the reduced kernel is given by r 4 ,P. 1071 exp ( - j / & G ? ) Gd(kz) = - w

1
*

exp (- jkzz) dz

=KO[mKq].

SARKAR el al.: ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION

637

the Greens function (observe the Greens function is Hence, the utilization of the exact kernel in the computations of introduces the additional factor l o [ a d q ] Also . note that complex for k, > k ) . Equations (8)-(12) are applied in a routine fashion till the boththe exact and the reduced kernel transforms havea logarithmic (log) singularity as witnessed by the term desired error criterion is satisfied. In our case, the error criterion is defined as Ko[a@=7]. It is obvio;s then that, with the exactkernel used, the transform of the entire term AJo becomes

At this point it and AJosimply isthe inverse transform of is important to point out two interesting properties of (19), namely the following. 1) The log singularity no longer exists with (19), because (k2 - k i ) cancels the log singularity of ~ ~ ~ a - 1 , (as x log x + 0 for x + 0)). 2) No finite difference derivative calculation is necessary. We feel this is a great advantage, particularly for the solution of electromagnetic scattering from electrically small structures. This is because the round-off error in the finite difference approximation for the double derivative no longer exists! The numerical error comes from thefactthat one subtracts a large number from another large number to yield a small number,

aJ0.

We stop the iteration when (20) is satisfied. The concept of utilizing FFT can be found in the works of Bojarski [3], Borup and Gandhi [6], and Bokhari and Balakrishnan [7]. In [6], the FFT has been utilized in conjunction with the method of steepest descent [SI for twodimensional electromagnetic (TM) scattering problems. We propose to replace the method of steepest descent with the conjugate gradient method-which has a faster rate of convergence. In [7], the spectral iterative method has been utilizedto achievethe same goal. We propose to replace the spectral iterative method by the conjugate gradient method, because the spectral iterative method does not always converge [9].

ILI. NUMERICAL RESULTS FOR WIRE ANTENNAS

As a first example consider thesolutionof the current d2x- x n + ~ - k n + x n - l distribution on a straight wire of 100 X long and 0.007 X in -dz2 radius illuminated by a broadside incident field of amplitude 1 (AZ) V/m. With ten expansion functions per wavelength, we would The next question that arises is how to take the Fourier be solving for 1000unknowns. The CPU time required to transform. This can efficiently be accomplished by utilizing a solve this problem with an accuracy of in the normalized fast Fourier transform algorithm. So both the forward and the residuals IIAJ, - Yll/ll Y(I was 6 h (utilizing the exact inverse transforms are computed utilizingthe FFT. However, kernel). This is in contrast to the original version of unless careful attention is paidintheapplicationof F F T , computation by the conjugate gradient methodof 30 CPU serious aliasing could voidthe computation. The evaluation of h(utilizing the reduced kernel). The method of moments with Gaussian elimination (utilizing reduced kernel) took 45 AJo is now summarized as follows. CPU h. All computations are performed on a VAX 111782. Step 1 Divide thewire into N segments with N unknowns As a second example consider the electromagnetic scatterfor the current. Then the array Jo is of dimension ing from a 1600 X wire antenna with a 0.007 X radius N. illuminated by a broadside incident field of amplitude 1 V/m. Step 2 Pad the array Jo, with zeros so that the modified With tenexpansion functions per wavelength, the total number array Jo is of dimension M . We select M to be a of unknowns would be 16 O O O . The CPU time taken by this composite number of two (Le., M = 2 m and M > method to solve the problemwithanaccuracyofin the 2*N). normalized residuals was eight hours, and for an accuracy of Step 3 Take the Fourier transform of the modified array in the normalized residuals, it was 10 h. We have also by the FFT algorithm, yielding jo(kz). been able to solve for current distribution on a 3400 A antenna this transform Jo by ( k 2 k - :) Step 4 Multiply with a 0.007 X radius. By utilizing ten unknowns per - Z o [ a & ~ o [ a The ~ .Bessel funcwavelength,thiswouldamount to solving for 34 OOO untions are computed numerically [ 5 ] . knowns. Step 5 Take the inverse transform of the product utilizing As a final example consider the solution of the electromagthe FFT algorithm and divide each element of the netic scattering from a 0.007 X long antenna with a radius array by M. The division by M is necessaryto get 0.0001 X irradiated by a plane waveofamplitude1 V/m the correct result. incident parallel to the wire antenna. Wechoose ten expansion first N elements of theabove array. Step 6 Select only the functions for this problem and the solution is given in Table I step 7 The first N elements yield an estimate for AJo, (utilizing the exact kernel). without muchaliasing. (The zero padding in step 2 The accuracy in the solution is with IIAJ,, - Yll/ll Y I I I is necessary to reduce the aliasing error.) With conventional methods it is very difficult, ifnot The computation for A*Ro is done ina similar fashion. impossible, to solve for the current with ten unknowns on a Except that in step (4) we multiply by the complex conjugate 0.007 X antenna.

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.132 x 0.973 x 0.924 x 0.627 x 0.153 x 0.174 x 0.588 x 0.797 x 0.123 x 0.161 x

10-l2 10-l2 10-12 10-l2 10-l2

10-l2

10-I2 1O-l2 1O-I2 10-I2

0.939 x 0.164 x 0.210 x 0.240 x 0.255 x 0.255 x 0.240 x 0.210 x 0.164 x 0.939 x

10-6

10-6 10-6 10-6 10-6 10-6

so the first step in computing AJo in the conjugate gradient method is performed in the transform domain as follows:
JJo= k2[fJxo8 +9JyoG]+ [j?(jk,) +9(jky)]LjkxJAG+jk,JyoG]. (25)

IV. ELECTROMAGNETIC SCATERING FROM A FLAT RECTANGULAR

PLATE

We then obtain the function by taking the inverse transform of of separately. The two-dimensional Consider a flat rectangular plate of size L1X L2 located in each component the x - y plane and irradiated by an incident field of intensity inverse transform is defined by E'. By forcing the total tangential electric field on the surface m of the plate to be zero, we obtain the following electric field AJo=A exp (+jk,x)dk, integral equation: 47r -m

--OD

! O D

k2 [2

r1 r2
d w '
0
0

exp ( +jk,y) dkyJJo. (26) The rest of the computations in (8)-(12) are carried out accordingly and each vector component is treated separately. The iterations are continued till the following error criterion is satisfied

dy'J,(x', y')G(x, y )

IIAJn - YII I 10-4. II YII

V. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES FOR SCATTERING FROM A
PLATE

= -jw4~o[fE,""( y) ~ ,+ ~ E ? ( x , y)]

(21)

where E: and E:, respectively, denote the x and y component of the incident electric field, and G(x, y ) denotes the Green's function defined as

Here
R = ~ ( x - x ' ) ~ + ( J - ~ '.) '

(23)

We now solve (21) by the conjugate gradient method described by (8)-(12). The FFT is utilized in the computation of the convolution ofthe Green's function with J,, Jy,aJ,/ax and aJ,/ay. The following procedure is used. We first discretize the plate, assume certain number of unknowns for both JJx, y ) and Jy(xy y ) . We then pad the array of J, and Jy with zeros so that we have atwo-dimensional array, either dimensionof which is a composite number of two. We then take the twodimensional FFT for both J, and Jy yielding J, and Jy.The

As a first example consider a 1 .O h square plate irradiated by a normally incident field of intensity377 V/m. We assume nine unknowns per wavelength, so that the total number of unknowns we are solving for is 162. The results for the two cuts for J, are shown in Fig. 1, when the incident field is xoriented. The agreement between Rao's triangular patch modeling [101 and the conjugate gradient method appears to be quite reasonable. As a second example, we consider electromagnetic scattering from a 7 X by 7 h rectangular plate. By utilizingten unknowns per wavelength, this would amount to 2 x 10 x 7 x 10 x 7 = 9800 unknowns. In this case, we chose M' = 256 and N' = 256 (i.e., 256 X 256 point FFT). In Table I t we summarize the results obtained for different degree of accuracy and number of iterations. It is quite gratifying to see that a 0.1 percent accuracy canbe obtained in only 410 iterations when we are solving for 9 8 0 unknowns. Also, we have solved the problem of electromagnetic scattering from a 0.005 A square plate, with seven expansion functions for each x and y direction variation (therefore, we have 2 x 7 x 7 = 98 unknowns) by utilizing the same computer program and just changing the dimensions of the plate. In this case, wechose M' = 64 and N' = 64 (i.e., 64 x 64 point FFT). So, from these limited numerical computations, it is clear

SARKAR el al.: ELECTROMAGNETICRADIATION

639
approximately equal to

TCGFFT=P * (8W 00g2 (2N) + 0-251 .

- Rao et a1.(32 Patches)

Tmdtiply.

(28)

---

C.G. Method ( 6 4 Square patches)

This estimate comes from performing four FFTs per iteration in the computation ofA*R, and AP,, on a 2N array. In addition one needs to compute two inner products for llA*R,+ 111 and IIAP,,II, which require N multiplications. Leaving behind the set up time required to compute all the matrix elements, which itselfis quite big, we see thatfor N > 64, the FFT procedure becomes faster than the application of the conjugate gradient method to the solution of matrix equations.
W. CONCLUSION

The method of conjugate gradient along with the fast Fourier transform technique is utilized to solve for the current distribution on electrically very large and electrically very Fig. 1. Comparison of surface electric current distributioni n a 1 .OX square small straight wire antennas without running into numerical plate illuminated by a normally incident plane wave. instability. With this method current distributions on a 3400 X wire antenna and on a 0.007 X wire antenna have been solved. The number of unknowns was 34 000 for the former and 10 TABLE II ACCURACY IN THE SOLUTIONVERSUSNUMBER OF ITERATIONS for the latter. We have also been able to solve for the current distribution on a 7 X square plate with 9800 unknowns. T h i s IIJ+l - JI12/11J112 Number of Iterations combination of FFT and the conjugate gradient method has proven to be very accurate and efficient. 0.001 26 As a further epilogue, one should not be prejudicial o.ooo1 71 unfavorably by the large CPU time taken by our method when o.oooo1 150 0.000001 410 we consider the architecture of the VAX 11/782 system. Our account had an active memory of only 0.5 mbytes. Since the V M V M S operating system is a virtual memory system, we that by utilizing the FFT and CG method, it is possible to solve actually could store larger arrays than our active memory is for the currents on the surfaces of conducting plates which are capable of. Therefore, when we are addressing an element in a electridly large and small without running into computational large array, and particularly two-dimensional one, the cominstabilities. puter goes to the storage disk to look for it, since the active memory is relatively small. This results in pagefaults. When a VI. EPILOGUE page fault occurs, the central CPU stops all processing. It has The claim made in this paper is that the application of the been our experience that if the same programs are run with a FFT and theconjugate gradient method is far more superior in much larger active memory, then one could reduce the CPU performance thanevenapplying the methodofconjugate time by as much as a factor of four or more. gradient to the solution of the matrix equations. This is ACKNOWLEDGMENT because the total time taken to solve the problem by matrix methods in p iterations is equal to Grateful acknowledgment made is to Dr. Bruce Z.
0.0

0.5

Tm,=
where

TL up +P * N2 .

Tmultiply

(27)

Hollmann andR. M. Bevensee for suggesting waysto enhance the readability of the manuscript.
REFERENCES [I] T. K. Sarkar and S. M. Rao, The application of the conjugate gradient method for the solution of electromagnetic scattering from arbitrarily oriented wire antennas,IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,vol. Ap32, pp. 398-403, Apr. 1984. 121 T. K.Sarkar, The applicationof the conjugate gradient method for the solution of operatorequationsarisinginelectromagneticscattering from wire antennas, Radio Sci., vol. 19, no. 5 , pp. 1156-1 172, Sept. 1984. [3] N. N. Bojarski, K-space formulation of the electromagnetic scattering problem, Tech. Rep. AFAL-TR-71-5, Mar. 1971. [41 F. Oberhettinger, Fourier Transforms of Distributions and Their Inverses. New York: Academic, 1973. [51 T. K. Sarkarand J . E. Lewis, Accurate generation of realorderand

set up time required to compute N2 elements of the matrix. P number of iterations required to solve the problem to a desired degree of accuracy. N number of rows (or columns) of the matrix equation to be solved for. Tmultiply time taken by the computer to perform a multiplication.

T,, up

In contrast, the time taken to solve the operator equation directly by the FFT and the conjugate gradient method is

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[6]

[7]

[8] [9]

argument Bessel andmodifiedBessel functions, Proc. Inst. Elec. Eng., p. 34, Jan. 1973. D. Borupand 0. P. Gandhi, Faster Fourier aansform method for calculation of S A R distribution in finelydiscretizedinhomogeneous models of biological bodies, IEEE Tram. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-32, Apr. 1984. S. A. Bokhari andN. Balakrishnan,Analysis of cylindricalantennas-A spectral iteration technique, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., V O ~ .AP-33, pp. 251-258, Mar. 1985. T. K. Sarkar and S. M. Rao, An iterative method for solving electrostatic problems, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP30, pp. 611-616, July 1982. D. C. Youla, Generalized image restoration by the method of alternating orthogonal projections, IEEE Trans. Circuit Syst., vol. CAS-25, pp. 694-702, Sept. 1978.

[lo] S. M.Rao et al., Electromagnetic scattering by surfaces of arbitrary shape, IEEE Trans. AntennasPropagat., vol. AP-30, pp.409-418, May 1982. Tapan K. Sarkar (S69-M76-SMSl), for aphotograph and biography please see page 539 of the May 1985 issue of this TRANSACTIONS. Ercument Anas, for a photographand biopphy please see page 724 of the September 1983 issue of this TRANSACTIONS. Sadasiva M.Rao, for a photographand biography pleasesee page 418 of the May 1982 issue of t h i s TRANSACTIONS.

Variational Reaction Formulation of Scattering Problem for Anisotropic Dielectric Cylinder:

RUEY-BEE1 WU
AND

CHUN HSIUNG CHEN

In recent years, the finite element method has received Abshuct-The variational reaction theory is applied to obtain the (Ez, H z ) formulation for the scattering problem when a plane wave is much attention in handling scattering problems. The general obliquely incident upon an inhomogeneous and anisotropic dielectric approach is to enclose the scatterer by an artificial boundary. cylinder. The variational equation is then solved by the finite element The field inside the boundary, the interior field, is tackled by a method together with the frontal solution technique. Numerical results is obtained from the operator LiNb03 cflidersare included variational formula which for scattering cross sections of anisotropic to discuss the influence due to material anisotropy and oblique incidence. equation. The field outside the boundary, the exterior field, is Also depicted is the guiding characteristics of thecylinderwhen the tackled by the eigenfunction expansion methodor the Greens inhomogeneous wave is considered. In addition, the formulas of function technique which may modelthe outgoing characterisscattering cross sections at low frequencies are derived and compared with tics of the scattered field. Finally the problem is solved by the numerical results.
I.
INTRODUCTION

imposing continuity conditions along the artificial boundary. For the scattering problem of an isotropic cylinder iUumiXCEPT FOR SOME special structures for which nated by a normally incident wave, the operator equation is closed-form solutions exist [l], general scattering self-adjoint andthe boundary conditions are of theDirichlet or problems have to be dealt with by numerical methods. The Neumann type. Chang and Mei [lo] make use of the extended boundary condition method, originally developedby unimoment method in which the exterior field is expanded in Waterman [2], is effective in handling homogeneous and terms of Hankel functions. Marin [l 1 3 adoptsanonlocal isotropic dielectric objects [3], [4] or several specific aniso- boundary conditionin which the exterior field is characterized tropic cylinders [5]. The integral equationformulation for by an integral equation. Jeng and Chen [12] apply the equivalent polarization current isfrequentlyused to solve variational electromagnetics to give an E-field formulation scattering problems [6]-[8]. This formulation can be applied with natural boundary conditions such that the radiation to tackle inhomogeneous cylinders but requires the inversion condition at infinityand the continuity conditions over the of a large full matrix [6]or a presumedsurface impedance [7]. boundary can be satisfied automatically. The- analytic continuation methodtailored by Wiltonand When the incident wave is obliquely incident or the cylinder Mittra [9] is verycomplicatedandis difficult to applyin consists of anisotropic materials, the operator equation is no general. longer self-adjoint and the boundaryconditions are mixed. The solution of this general problem is of great interest and Manuscript received January 28, 1985; revised June 24, 1985. This work was supported bythe National Science Council, Republic of China, under finds application in plane-wave scattering and in computing G m t NSC-74-0608-E002-02. the radiation patterns of surface-wave antennas. It is thus The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National worthy of separate consideration. Although the E-principle Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. [12] can be employed in this problem, it requires, for each IEEE Log Number 8407329.

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