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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY
Selection of Dominant Characteristic Modes
Sandip Ghosal , Student Member, IEEE, Arijit De, Member, IEEE, Alistair P. Duffy , Fellow, IEEE,
and Ajay Chakrabarty , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The theory of characteristic modes is a popular
physics-based deterministic approach, which has found several re-
cent applications in the fields of radiator design, electromagnetic
interference modeling, and radiated emission analysis. To apply
the characteristic mode analysis of a given structure, proper selec-
tion of significant modes is an essential requirement for the correct
conclusion of the resultant field. This paper reviews the develop-
ment of the conventional modal significance measure together with
other related significance criteria that have been proposed over
the last few decades. In particular, the thought process that re-
lates to the development of initial measures to the excitation of the
induced current vector will be explained. The common problems
with the existing measures will also be identified. Later a suitable
modal metric will be suggested and validated with an example. The
proposed measure will be further applied for approximating the
shielding response of the aperture examples for both the infinite
and finite cases.
Index Terms—Characteristic mode analysis, modal significance,
radiation, scattering, shielding effectiveness.
I. INTRODUCTION
S AN alternative to the conventional method-of-moment
A (MoM) technique [1], the theory of characteristic modes
(TCM) was introduced in [2] and [3] to determine the current
density vector induced by the incident excitation field. Instead
of initial decomposition of the far-field scattering matrix [4],
generalized eigen decomposition of the MoM impedance ma-
trix was followed to compute the characteristic current modes
and the eigenvalues of a given structure in [2] and [3]. Since
the total induced current vector is expressed as the weighted
sum of multiple eigencurrent modes, it is necessary to define
proper modal significance metric for predicting the contribution
of each mode in the resultant outgoing field. The development of
the modal significance measure has led to a number of similar
modal metrics used in the area of characteristic mode analy-
sis. It is important to recognize the effective contribution of
the characteristic modes in order to be certain that conclusions
about the resultant field can be correctly drawn. The modal
significance criterion is an indicator that can be very useful
when used correctly but very misleading when used incorrectly.
Manuscript received October 5, 2018; revised February 14, 2019; accepted
March 17, 2019. (Corresponding author: Sandip Ghosal.)
S. Ghosal, A. De, and A. Chakrabarty are with the Department of Elec-
tronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Techno-
logy Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India (e-mail:,sgmw@iitkgp.ac.in; arijit@
ece.iitkgp.ac.in; bassein@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in).
A. Duffy is with De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9B, U.K., and
also with the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150006, China (e-mail:,
apd@dmu.ac.uk).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEMC.2019.2909932
0018-9375 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
The initial development of the modal significance measures
originated from the need for a quantitative indicator for the
radiation-based applications such as antenna design [2], [5],
and [6]. Apart from the antenna design perspective, the TCM
has also been recently applied to determine the optimal place-
ment locations of the grounding, signal and power routing, and
impedance loading to reduce the radiated emission in digital sys-
tems [7]. As the TCM allows approximating the induced current
and radiated field by a relatively less number of variables, the
characteristic modes were used to quantify the radiated emission
in [8], [9] and [10]. Since the eigenmodes and eigenvalues are
independent of the excitation signal, the TCM was used to com-
pare the high intensity radiated field testing and direct current
injection techniques for the aircraft structure in [11].
For all such modal applications, a specific modal metric is fol-
lowed to determine the significant characteristic modes. Most
of the existing modal significance measures are based on only
the eigenvalue, which is independent of the incident signal. Al-
ternate measures used in [6] and [8] lie on the assumption that
the incident field vector is nonzero at a particular feed location
on the surface of the radiating structure. For scattering appli-
cations like in shielding analysis [12] and [13], the definition
of modal metric requires broader extension to include the dis-
tributed nature of the incident signal. In addition, the existing
modal measures are only applicable to the lossless structures.
But the lossy structures are also being analyzed using the char-
acteristic modes [14]. It has been found in [15] that finite loss
affects the nature of the current distribution and various radi-
ation parameters. So, the selection mechanism of significant
characteristic modes should be defined accordingly to fit for the
lossy structures too. Keeping this on mind, this paper follows
a constrained correlation approach to determine the effectively
dominant modes of a given structure. The proposed measure is
simultaneously applicable for both the lossy and lossless struc-
tures. The limitations of the existing measures have been ex-
plored and the proposed technique has been validated through
different examples.
This paper is organized as follows. With a brief recap of the
reported literature, Section II postulates the problem statement.
Section III initially discusses the existing measures. Later a
constrained measure has been proposed and validated with an
example of slot antenna structure. Later, the proposed method
has been utilized for predicting the shielding response of the
aperture structures in Section IV. Section V summarizes the
total paper.
II. REVIEW OF THE MODAL BACKGROUND
For the sake of generality, the formulation has been devel-
oped considering a finitely conducting object lying in the free
 i , and the
space with surface area S, incident electric field E
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY

corresponding induced electric surface current density J.  Con-

sidering no internal resonance, the continuity of the tangential
 i to J as [2] and [16]
electric field on the surface S maps E

n̂ × E  + Zs J
 i = −n̂ × L(J) (1a)

L(J(r)) 
= jωA(J(r)) 
+ ∇φ(J(r)) (1b)


A(J(r)) 
= μ J(r)G(r, r ) ds (1c)
S Fig. 1. Slot antenna with W = λ/2 , L = λ/4, L s = λ/6, and W s = λ/100.
 λ is the free-space wavelength at f = 0.5 GHz.
−1

φ(J(r)) = ∇ J(r)G(r,
 r ) ds (1d)
jω S

e−j k |r −r |
 The weighting coefficients’ column vector [I] of (2a) can
G(r, r ) = (1e) be expressed as a weighted sum of the column vectors [In ]
4π|r − r | of (4) as
   
4
1 jt2 t t

N
Zs = 1+ 2 +O if << 1 [I] = αn [In ].
σt 6s s s (6)
i=1
1+j −( 1 + j ) t

−2 t 
= 1 + 2e s +O e s otherwise.
2sσ
(1f)
The magnetic vector potential and the electric scalar poten-
tial are represented by A and φ, respectively. The parameters
μ, ω, and k denote the free-space permeability, frequency and
propagation constant. t, σ, and s indicate the thickness, conduc-
tivity, and skin depth of the conductor, respectively. The finite
surface impedance is approximated in (1f) using [16]. Applying
Galerkin’s type of MoM technique with N number of basis func-
tions, (1a) can be conformed to the equivalent matrix form as
[Z]N ×N [I]N ×1 = [Zpe + Zl ]N ×N [I]N ×1 = [V ]N ×1 (2a)
[Zpe ] = [Rpe ] + j[Xpe ], [Zl ] = [Rl ] + j[Xl ]. (2b)
The complex symmetric matrix [Zpe ] arises due to the electric
field integral equation (EFIE) operator in the lossless scenario
[2] and the additional loss operator incorporates the loss matrix
[Zl ]. The eigenmodes of the lossy objects can be computed using
any of the following two decomposition methods [14]
[Zpe + Zl ][U ]n = (1 + jζn )[Rpe + Rl ][U ]n (3a)
or ([Zpe + Zl ][I]n = (1 + jλn )[Rpe ][I]n . (3b)
It can be shown using the complex power balance relation
of [3] that the characteristic modes Un cannot diagonalize the
far-field scattering matrix. The situation is quite similar to the
formulation of lossy dielectric object in [3]. Hence, the far-field
eigen patterns cannot be characterized using the formulation of
(3a). So this paper considers the characteristic equation of (3b)
for analyzing the lossy structures. With further simplification
of (3b)
[Xpe − jZl ][In ] = λn [Rpe ][In ]. (4)
The orthogonal properties of the eigenvectors [In ] can be
defined as
[Im ]H [Rpe ][In ] = δm n (5a)
[Im ] [Xpe − jZl ][In ] = λn δm n
H
(5b)
where, δm n = 0 if m = n, else 0. (5c)
Following (5a)–(5c):
[In ]H [V ] [In ]H [V ]
αn = = . (7)
1 + jλn 1 − Im.(λn ) + j Re.(λn )
The Hermitian transposition operation “H” has been incor-
porated in the complex inner products of (5a), (5b), and (7)
considering the probable complex nature of the eigenmode [In ].
The real and imaginary parts of the complex eigenvalue λn
are denoted by Re.(λn ) and Im.(λn ), respectively. It can be
mentioned that the uniqueness of the eigenmodes have been de-
fined with the conventional assumption of unit modal radiated
power of [2] where [In ]H [Rpe ][In ] = 1. Otherwise, the modal
weighting coefficient αn needs to be modified as
[In ]H [V ]
αn = . (8)
(1 + jλn )[In ]H [Rpe ][In ]
For both the cases, the complex modal power of the nth
mode consists of three components, the radiative power (PR ,n ),
the lost power (PL ,n ), and the reactively stored power (PX ,n ),
which can be written using the orthogonality properties of (5a)–
(5c) as
PR ,n = |αn |2 , PL ,n = −Im.(λn ) |αn |2
and PX ,n = Re.(λn ) |αn |2 . (9)
For the lossless case, the Im.(λn ) = 0 and Im.([In ]) = 0.
In the next stage, the following fundamental issues have been
addressed:
1) How to determine the characteristic modes that will dom-
inantly contribute to the resultant outward field emerging
from a given structure?
III. MODAL SIGNIFICANCE MEASURES
It can be noted from the physics-based analysis of [17] that the
resultant electromagnetic radiation from an object depends on
both the radiative and reactive power. So, the effective excitation
of a characteristic mode is controlled by both PR ,n and PX ,n
of (9). The external resonance occurs when the reactive modal
power PX ,n becomes minimum.
Similarly for the maximum radiation at the resonating fre-
quency, the radiated modal power PR ,n needs to be maximum.
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GHOSAL et al.: SELECTION OF DOMINANT CHARACTERISTIC MODES 3

Fig. 2. First six eigencurrent modes (Jn ) of the plate of Fig. 1 at f = 0.5 GHz. Modes are sorted as per Λ n . (a) Mode 1: J1 . (b) Mode 2: J2 . (c) Mode 3: J3 .
(d) Mode 4: J4 . (d) Mode 5: J5 . (e) Mode 6: J6 .

Following (9) the ratio of the reactive and radiative power of the
nth mode can be written as
PX ,n
= Re.(λn ). (10)
PR ,n

If the parameter Re.(λn ) becomes very low small, there is the

possibility of the variables PR ,n and αn being simultaneously
high. In line with this logic, two different modal significance
measures Δn and Λn were used considering only the eigenvalue
in [5] and [6]
1 sorted as per Λ n .
Λn = 
[1 + [Re.(λn )]2 ]
1
and Δn =  . (11b)
1 + Re.(λn )
It has been studied in the succeeding discussion with the
example of a perfect electrically conducting (PEC) slot an-
tenna structure of Fig. 1 whether the metrics of (11a) and (11b)
can provide accurate prediction of the dominant characteristic
modes. The eigenmodes of Fig. 1 can be determined using ei-
ther EFIE-based formulation of (1a)–(4). In the next stage, the
eigenmode analysis of the rectangular plate of Fig. 1 has been
carried out with different modal measures for comparison. the
impedance matrix [Z] of the slotted geometry of Fig. 1 has been
calculated following the EFIE-based formulation of (1a)–(1f)
using [18] and [19]. The characteristic modes have been com-
puted using (4) in MATLAB [20]. To avoid the confusion, the
modes of all the example structures have been sorted in the
ascending order of the conventional measure Λn .
Following the modal sorting of (11b), the first six eigencur-
rent modes Jn of Fig. 1 are shown in Fig. 2(a)–(f). The nth
Fig. 3. Λ n of the slotted geometry of Fig. 1 at f = 0.5 GHz. The modes are
(11a)
characteristic mode Jn is related to the nth eigenvector [In ] as
N
Jn = In (i)fi (ri ), ri ∈ S. (12)
i=1
The ith basis function and the surface area of the radiating
structure are denoted by fi and S, respectively. Number of
basis functions used to discretize the structure is assumed to
be N in (12). The variation of the eigenvalue-based metric Λn
corresponding to the six modes of Fig. 2(a)–(f) is shown in
Fig. 3. The variation of Fig. 3 indicates that only Mode 1 of
Fig. 2(a) is the most dominant mode for the slotted structure
of Fig. 1. For verification, the structure has been simulated in
the finite element method based full-wave solver Ansys HFSS
[21] with the feed location in the center and the resultant current
distribution is shown in Fig. 4.
It is interesting to note that Fig. 4 has maximum similarity
to J2 and J6 of Fig. 2(b) and (f), instead of J1 of Fig. 2(a).
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY
Fig. 4. HFSS-based current distribution of the slotted rectangular plate of
Fig. 1 at f = 0.5 GHz.
TABLE I
EIGENVALUES OF THE PLATE OF FIG. 1 AT f = 0.5 GHZ
Thus, the eigenvalue-based modal measure of (11a) seems to be
inaccurate enough to predict the effective dominant mode of a
radiating structure. In the next stage, another metric Δn of (11b)
has been studied.
For verifying the suitability of Δn , the eigenvalues of the first
six modes of Fig. 2(a)–(f) are reported in Table I. It is obvious
from Table I that the measure of (11b) will be imaginary for
Mode 2, Mode 4, and Mode 5. In general, the measure Δn will
be imaginary for Re.(λn ) < −1. Thus, the measure of (11b) is
also found to be not suitable enough in identifying the significant
modes of a radiating element.
As shown in the previous two metrics of (11a) and (11b),
only the information of the eigenvalue cannot provide correct
prediction of the dominant modes. It can be noted from (6) that
the induced current density vector depends on all three param-
eters: the eigenvalue, the eigenmode, and the excitation vector.
As Re.(λn ) is a ratio of the radiated and reactive power, it can-
not provide individual characterization of PR ,n and PX ,n . The
smaller value of Re.(λn ) or higher value of Λn cannot ensure
that the corresponding eigenmode will possess necessary modal
power to be effectively excited. To overcome the limitation of
Λn , another metric was followed in [6] where the dominant
modes for maximum radiation were suggested to choose using
a relative measure of the radiated power PR ,n . Now, let the ob-
ject be discretized with N number of rao-wilton glisson basis
functions [18]. Then, the radiative power of the nth mode can
be written with the delta-gap approximation as
|[In (rf )]le |2
PR ,n = . (13)
[1 − Im.(λn )]2 + [Re.(λn )]2
The length of the edge of the basis closest to the feed location
(rf ) is denoted by le in (13). However, the incident field is not
concentrated in a particular location in the scattering problem.
Rather it covers a distributed region over the object’s surface. So
for the scattering applications, the general formulation of PR ,n
Fig. 5. P R , n of the slotted plate of Fig. 1 at f = 0.5 GHz. Modes are sorted
as per Λ n .
Fig. 6. Electric field along the X-directed observation line at f = 0.5 GHz.
Height along Z-axis: 3λ. The modes are sorted as per Λ n .
should be followed as:
|[In ]H [V ]|2
PR ,n = |αn |2 = . (14)
[1 − Im.(λn )]2 + [Re.(λn )]2
The radiative modal power of the six eigenmodes of Fig. 2(a)–
(f) are shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen from Fig. 5 that the mode
J2 and J6 seem to possess higher amount of radiated power
compared to the mode J1 . Fig. 5 indicates that both J2 and J6
are significant radiating modes of the slot antenna. For further
quantitative investigation, let us consider the transmitted field
coming out of the structure along a straight line parallel to
the X-axis and at the height of 3λ with respect to the z = 0
plane. The transmitted electric field contributed by of Mode 2
and Mode 6 have been compared to the total field computed
using conventional MoM technique along the observation line
in Fig. 6. It can be seen from Fig. 6 that the contribution of
J2 is higher to the resultant radiation, in comparison with the
mode J6 .
So, the question is whether the study of only the radiative
modal power can provide correct prediction of the dominant
modes in a radiating structure. The literature of [17] can shed
some light regarding this issue. Following [17], the energy flow
velocity seems to be one important factor for efficient radiation.
It physically indicates how the energy moves in a certain location
in space for a given radiating structure’s field distribution, which
is linearly related to the induced current density vector. It has
been found in [17] that the nonzero reactive power slows down
the velocity of instantaneous power flow. As a consequence, the
modes having higher amount of PX ,n cannot contribute signifi-
cantly to the power received at distant location. So the selection
of dominant characteristic modes should also consider the
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GHOSAL et al.: SELECTION OF DOMINANT CHARACTERISTIC MODES 5

Fig. 7. P X , n of the slotted plate of Fig. 1 at f = 0.5 GHz. The modes are
sorted as per Λ n .

corresponding reactive modal power PX ,n . Similar to PR ,n of

(13), the reactive modal power of the nth mode can be written as
Re.(λn ) |[In ]H [V ]|2
PX ,n = . (15)
[1 − Im.(λn )]2 + [Re.(λn )]2
As shown in Fig. 7, the reactive modal power of Mode 6
is quite high compared to Mode 2. The higher value of PX ,6
leads to its less contribution in the transmitted field of Fig. 6. It
can be seen from Figs. 5 and 7 that PX ,6 is significantly higher
with respect to its radiative component PR ,6 . It can explain
the higher similarity of Mode 2 of Fig. 2(b) to the HFSS-based
result of Fig. 4. The far-field power patterns have been compared
in Fig. 8(a)–(f) where also Mode 2 seems to show maximum
similarity to the resultant pattern computed using the MoM
technique.Thus, it can be concluded that the characterization
of only the radiated power PR ,n of (13) cannot assure proper
selection of the dominant modes.
With an objective to overcome the limitations of the pre-
viously reported modal measures, this paper introduces a con-
strained approach for identifying the group of modes dominantly
responsible for the radiated emission from a given structure.
The search of dominant modes at a particular frequency can be
defined as
maximize PR ,n = |αn |2
n ∈[1,N ]

1 (16)
subject to  ≥ Λthreshold .
[1 + [Re.(λn )]2 ]
To implement (16), first the modes are sorted in the ascending
order of Λn . The threshold parameter Λthreshold sets the level of
the reactively stored modal power compared to the correspond-
ing modal radiative power following (9) and (10). In the next
stage, the modes with sufficiently lower value of the reactive
power are sorted as per the ascending order of the radiative
modal power. The measure of (16) is mathematically complete
as it contains all the characterizing parameters of a structure,
i.e., the incident signal, the eigenvector, and the eigenvalue. To
verify the suitability of the proposed formulation of (16), let us
consider the same plate of Fig. 1. Sorting the modes as per (16),
the modal ranking has been compared with the previous mea-
sures in Table II. The constrained metric of (16) indicates mode
J2 as the most significant mode of the considered structure of
Fig. 1. The results of Fig. 4 and 6 also justify the suitability
of (16). However, for the near-field applications, only mode J2
fails to provide sufficient convergence as shown in the electric Fig. 8. Far-field power patterns of the plate of Fig. 1 at f = 0.5 GHz. The
field distribution at the vertical height of 0.5λ, shown in Fig. 9.  2 . (b) Mode 6: E
modes are sorted as per Λ n . (a) Mode 2: E  6 . (c) MoM: E
 MoM .
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY

TABLE II of Fig. 1. The modes belonging to the subspace R2 < r ≤ R1

COMPARISON OF MODAL RANKING have almost negligible contribution to the resultant current den-
sity and field vector. These can be termed as the non-significant
modes. The first-level sorting using Λn eliminates the non-
significant modes. The union subspace containing both the pri-
mary and secondary modes are selected by the modal criterion
Λn ≤ Λthreshold . Later, the correlation metric ρn determines the
set of primary modes. The boundary between the secondary
and non-significant modes should be carefully chosen by set-
ting the threshold level of Λthreshold , which has been considered
to be 1% in the present example. The succeeding discussion ex-
tends the proposed mode selection approach for the scattering
examples.

IV. APPLICATION: SHIELDING RESPONSE PREDICTION

Contrary to the antenna design examples, EMC and signal
integrity engineers are interested in either reducing the radiated
power from various printed circuit elements or in the predic-
tion of the shielding response of the electromagnetic structures.
For all such applications, the dominant modes are mainly de-
termined using the eigenvalue-based modal measure. It can be
Fig. 9. Electric field along the X-directed observation line at f = 0.5 GHz.
Height along Z-axis: 0.5λ. The modes are sorted as per Λ n .
seen in (11a) that the eigenvalue-based metric Λn does not hold
any information about the phase of the incident signal. For the
scattering applications, the polarization mismatch between the
incident vector [V ] and the nth mode [In ] reflected by the nu-
merator of αn can control the resultant scattered field, which
can be used in the shielding analysis. So, the inclusive measure
of (16) will be more accurate compared to the eigenvalue-based
measure of (11a) for analyzing the radio frequency (RF) expo-
sure in the objects. The RF exposure of some arbitrary shaped
apertures have been previously analyzed using computational
electromagnetic techniques in [12], [13], and [22], where also
the computation of the scattered field from the object of interest
is an essential requirement. In this regard, the present manuscript
utilizes the characteristic modes to relatively gauge the shielding
behavior. The shielding towards the incident RF signal is gener-
ally characterized by the parameter shielding effectiveness (SE)
Fig. 10. Decomposition of the total eigenspace. Primary modes: r ≤ R 3 , [13]
secondary modes: R 3 < r ≤ R 2 and non-significant modes: R 2 < r ≤ R 1 .
i|
|E
SE(dB) = 20log10 (17)
t|
|E
At some observation locations, the modal field computed with
i. E
The field incident on the object is denoted by E  t indicates
only mode J2 leads to erroneous conclusion in Fig. 9. Similar
convergence issue was also previously noticed in [5], which ad- the field emerging from the object. Following the TCM, the
dressed the problem by introducing an additional source mode  t can be expressed as the weighted sum of N
outgoing field E
concept. But, it is interesting to note in Fig. 9 that the vector n
number of characteristic field patterns E
sum of mode α2 E  2 and mode α6 E 6 can provide fair conver-


N
gence with the total field computed using MoM technique. So, t =
E n
αn E (18)
the accuracy of the modal convergence highly depends on the i=1
correct selection of the dominant modes.
For the sake of understanding, an equivalent two-dimensional If the amplitude of the incident signal is assumed as unity, the
(2-D) representation of the vector space containing the eigen- SE parameter can be written as
modes are shown in Fig. 10 where the largest circle with radius

N
r = R1 contains all the eigenvectors of a given structure. The  t | = −20log |
SE(dB) = −20log|E 10
 n |.
αn E (19)
set of mostly significant dominant modes belong to the inner- i=1
most circle of radius r = R2 . These modes can be termed as
 n is linearly related to the char-
Since the characteristic pattern E
the primary modes. For this particular example, mode J2 is a
member of this subspace. Other less significant modes required acteristic current mode Jn , the SE parameter can be relatively
to achieve improved convergence form the subspace with ra- gauged by the parameter αn Jn . At a particular frequency, the
dius R3 < r ≤ R2 . This set of modes can be designated as the resultant current density vector J or the outward field E  t is ex-
secondary modes, which contain mode J6 for the slotted plate pressed as the sum of the first few, say U number of dominant
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GHOSAL et al.: SELECTION OF DOMINANT CHARACTERISTIC MODES
Fig. 11. (a) Rectangular aperture in an infinite PEC plane and (b) its com-
plementary form. W = 0.5λ , L = 0.3λ. λ is the free-space wavelength at
f = 1 GHz.
modes. So, the following parameter SEJ,TCM can give a hint of
the shielding nature of the considered object towards the RF
exposure
U
SEJ,TCM (dB) = 20log10 | αn Jn |.
i=1
The dominant characteristic modes can be selected using the
proposed measure of (16). For the sake of comparing the con-
vergence performance, let us consider an equivalent MoM pa-
rameter SEJ,MoM
SEJ,MoM (dB) = 20log10 |JMoM |.
The induced current density vector using the conventional MoM
technique of [1] is represented by JMoM .
For validation purposes, an example of rectangular aperture
in an infinite PEC plane has been considered in Fig. 11(a). Due
to incidence of the incoming wave, it will induce equivalent
magnetic current density over the aperture are SA . Using the
magnetic field integral equation (MFIE), the magnetic eigen-
current modes can be determined following the characteristic
mode formulation of [23] and [24] as:
[B][Mn ] = βn [G][Mn ]
where [Y ] = [G] + j[B] is the MoM admittance matrix of the
MFIE. Considering Galerkin’s matching in (22), the eigenvalues
βn , and the magnetic eigencurrent modes [Mn ] will be real.
Following the duality principle of electromagnetism, an
equivalent representation of the Fig. 11(a) can be constructed
in its complimentary form as shown in Fig. 11(b). The equiv-
alent electric current density of Fig. 11(b) can be determined
following the standard formulation of (1a)–(4) over the surface
area of the rectangular PEC plate. As shown in [23] and [24],
the electric eigencurrent mode ([In ]) will be a scaled version
of the corresponding magnetic eigencurrent mode ([Mn ]) as
[In ] = 2/η0 [Mn ] where η0 is the free-space intrinsic impedance.
The EFIE-based eigenvalue λn will be identical to the MFIE-
based eigenvalue βn . A comparison of both the eigenvalues are
compared with the CST-microwave studio simulation values of
[25] in Table III.
First two equivalent electric eigencurrent modes of Fig. 11(b)
are shown in Fig. 12(a) and (b) where the modes are found to
be, respectively, X- and Y-polarized. To have a consistency with
the previous analysis, the modes are sorted in the descending
order of Λn at f = 1 GHz. In the next stage, Z-directed plane
wave incidence have been considered three different polariza-
7
TABLE III
COMPARISON OF THE EIGENVALUES
(20)
(21)
Fig. 12. First two equivalent electric eigencurrent modes of the rectangular
aperture at f = 1 GHz. The odes are sorted as per |Λ n . (a) Mode 1: J1a .
(b) Mode 2: J2a .
(22)
tion vectors ([ûp ]) of the Z-directed incident signal has been
considered as Case 1: [ûp ] = [1 0 0] and Case 2: [ûp ] = [0 1 0].
Corresponding variation of the current based shielding parame-
ters are shown in Fig. 13(a) and (b).
It can be noted that the parameter SEJ,TCM is directly related
to the modal current αn Jn . The eigencurrent Jn is indepen-
dent of the excitation vector. However, the modal coefficient
αn holds the information of the incident signal’s amplitude and
polarization. If the incident field orientation is parallel to the
characteristic current mode’s polarization, the coupling of the
corresponding mode to excitation vector will be maximum fol-
lowing (7). Henceforth, when X-polarized plane wave incidence
is considered, the X-polarized first mode of Fig. 12(a) becomes
the dominant one in Fig. 13(a). Similarly, when Y-polarized
plane wave falls upon the structure, the Y-polarized second mode
of Fig. 12(b) becomes mostly dominant in Fig. 13(b). Later, the
fields have been computed using [19] and the SE parameters
are compared in Fig. 14(a)–(b) at the observation distance of
λ from the aperture center, where λ is the free-space wave-
length at f = 1 GHz. Following (19) and (20), the field-based
response shows complimentary nature to the current-based re-
sponse. Thus, instead of computing the scattered field, one can
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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY

Fig. 13. SEJ, TCM and SEJ, MoM of the rectangular aperture. (a) With only J1a
Fig. 14. Shielding effectiveness parameter at λ distance of the rectangular
for the X-polarized incidence. (b) With only J2a for the Y-polarized incidence. aperture. (a) With only J1a for X-polarized incidence. (b) With only J2a for
Y-polarized incidence.

utilize the information of the dominant eigencurrent modes to

characterize the shielding response of a given structure. For the
2-D example of Fig. 11(a), only few dominant modes can pro-
vide sufficient convergence as shown in Figs. 13(a) and 14(b).
However, if there structure possess topological symmetry, there
may exist multiple number of dominant degenerate modes. In
the next discussion, two enclosure geometries with aperture have
been studied.
Initially, a PEC sphere with aperture has been considered in
Fig. 15. The meshing of the sphere has been obtained using the
distmesh function of [26] and [27]. Unite amplitude Y-polarized Fig. 15. Schematic of the slotted sphere. Radius and center of the sphere:
plane wave has been assumed to excite the sphere of Fig. 15. R 0 = λ/2 and (0,0,0). Radius and center of the spherical aperture: R 0 /3 and
(−R 0 , 0, 0). λ is the free-space wavelength at f = 1 GHz.
Following the similar way, the current-based shielding pa-
rameters with four dominant modes are shown in Fig. 16,
which show relatively lower convergence in comparison with
Fig. 13(b). However, frequency of maximum RF exposure is
found to be the same, i.e., f = 1.47 GHz, using both the MoM
and the TCM with four characteristic modes in Fig. 16. The
shielding response at the center of the sphere of Fig. 17 also
shows similar prediction of the maximum RF exposure.
The next example considers a PEC rectangular enclosure with
two apertures in Fig. 18. The shielding response of the rectan-
gular structure had been previously analyzed using either plane
wave incidence on the aperture [28], [29] or by considering
electric or magnetic current sources inside the enclosure [30].
This paper follows the first approach of plane wave incidence.
Total 868 number of triangles has been considered to discretize
the aperture box of Fig. 18. Unit amplitude X-directed plane Fig. 16. SEJ, TCM and SEJ, MoM parameters for the spherical enclosure.
wave excites the object where the polarization vector of the in-
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
GHOSAL et al.: SELECTION OF DOMINANT CHARACTERISTIC MODES
Fig. 17. SE parameters at the center of the spherical enclosure.
Fig. 18. Rectangular enclosure with two identical apertures. a = b =
300 mm, c = 120 mm, L a = 60 mm, W a = 20 mm, and d = 30 mm.
Fig. 19. SEJ, TCM and SEJ, MoM parameters of the rectangular enclosure.
cident wave is assumed as [ûp ] = [0 cos(π/3) sin(π/3)]. Using
6 dominant modes, the variation of the current based shielding
parameters are shown in Fig. 19 where the frequency of max-
imum RF exposure is found to be as 0.7 GHz. The shielding
effectiveness at the center of the enclosure is reported in Fig. 20
which also shows similar variation of the RF exposure. So, the
measure of (16) will be suitable not only for determining the
dominant modes in scattering, but also for correct prediction of
the RF exposure. Another beneficial contribution of the char-
acteristic mode theory is the parameter of (20). It can be noted
that the computation of SE using the conventional formulation
of (17) is necessarily a two-step process. The first step calcu-
lates the induced current density vector and in the succeeding
step, the outward field has to be computed. One main advantage
of (20) is that it conforms the SE prediction into a single-step
process with detailed insight of each individual mode. Specif-
9
Fig. 20. SE parameters at the center of the rectangular enclosure.
ically for the printed circuit design, once the dominant modes
are identified, the slot can be adjusted accordingly to optimize
the signal interference effects.
V. CONCLUSION
Following the recent interest of the theory of characteristic
modes in EMI/EMC applications, this paper explored the selec-
tion mechanism of dominant modes of a given structure by clas-
sifying the total set of eigenmodes into three categories–primary,
secondary, and non-significant eigenmodes. The primary modes
are the mostly significant ones, which have lowest amount of
reactive modal power and highest amount of radiative modal
power. The secondary modes contribute to improve the modal
convergence behavior. All the controlling parameters of the
modal information have been integrated to define a constrained
technique to determine the significant characteristic modes of a
given structure. Later, a modal approach has been introduced for
approximating the shielding response in terms of the induced
dominant characteristic current modes. The proposed theory can
be utilized in the design and analysis of the radiated emission
and RF exposure prediction.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank to the Reviewers and Editors
for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the
manuscript.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY
Sandip Ghosal (S’5) received the B.Tech. degree
in electronics and communication engineering from
Kalyani Government Engineering College, Kalyani,
India, in 2012, and the M.E. degree in microwave
communication from the Indian Institute of Engi-
neering, Science and Technology Shibpur, India, in
2014. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. de-
gree in characteristic mode theory with the Depart-
ment of Electronics and Electrical Communication
Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharag-
pur, Kharagpur, India.
His current research interests include the theory of characteristic modes and
its applications.
Arijit De (S’04–M’11) received the B.Tech. degree
from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur,
Kharagpur, India, in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree from
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA, in 2010.
He joined the Department of Electronics and Elec-
trical Communication Engineering, IIT Kharagpur as
an Assistant Professor in 2010, where he has been
working as an Associate Professor since 2016. He
has co-authored a book titled “Time and Frequency
Domain Solutions of EM problems Using Integral
Equation and a Hybrid Methodology” (Wiley and
IEEE Press in 2010). His current research interests include computational elec-
tromagnetics and radar signal processing.
Dr. De received the Young Scientist Award from URSI in 2011.
Alistair P. Duffy (M’93–SM’04–F’15) received the
B.Eng. (Hons.) degree in electrical and electronic
engineering and the M. Eng. degree from the Uni-
versity College, Cardiff, U.K., in 1988 and 1989,
respectively, the Ph.D. degree from Nottingham Uni-
versity, Nottingham, U.K., in 1993, and the MBA
degree from Open University, in 2003.
He is currently a Professor in electromagnetics
with De Montfort University, Leicester, U.K., the Di-
rector of the Institute of Engineering Sciences and a
Guest Professor with the Harbin Institute of Technol-
ogy, Harbin, China. He is the Author of more than 200 articles published in
journals and presented at international symposia. His research interests include
CEM validation, communications cabling, and technology management.
Prof. Duffy is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He
is the Vice President for Conferences in the IEEE EMC Society Board of Direc-
tors and Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC
COMPATIBILITY as well as Chair of the IEEE EMC Society Standards Develop-
ment and Education Committee. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of
the IWCS.
Ajay Chakrabarty (M’87–SM’90) received the
B.Tech (Hons.) degree in electronics and electri-
cal communication engineering, the M.Tech. degree
in microwave engineering, and the Ph.D. degree
from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur,
Kharagpur, India, in 1975, 1977, and 1982, respec-
tively.
He was with the Department of Electronics and
Electrical Communication Engineering, IIT Kharag-
pur, as a Lecturer in 1980. Since 1994, he has been
serving as a Professor with the same department. He
was a Visiting Faculty with Syracuse University, NY, USA, from 1990 to 1992.
His current research interest include antenna theory, slot and waveguide radia-
tor, phased array techniques, EMI/EMC, ESD, and numerical techniques.