Investigation of Near-Field Contribution in SBR For Installed Antenna Performance

DEGREE PROJECT IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING,
SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2019
Investigation of Near-Field
Contribution in SBR for Installed
Antenna Performance
HARALD HULTIN
KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE
Investigation of Near-Field Contribution
in SBR for Installed Antenna Performance
by
Harald Hultin
June 2019
Master of Science Thesis

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
SE-100 44 STOCKHOLM
Undersökning av Närfältsbidrag
vid SBR-beräkning av
Installerad Antennprestanda
av
Harald Hultin
Juni 2019
Examensarbete
Skolan för Elektroteknik och Datavetenskap
KTH Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
SE-100 44 STOCKHOLM
Master of Science Thesis
Investigation of Near-Field Contribution in

SBR for Installed Antenna Performance
Harald Hultin
Examiner: Supervisor:
Lars Jonsson Henrik Frid
Commissioner: Contact person:
Saab Henrik Frid
Abstract
To investigate near-field contributions for installed antennas, an in-house code is
written to incorporate near-field terms in Shooting and Bouncing Rays (SBR). SBR
is a method where rays are launched toward an object and scatter using Geomet-
rical Optics (GO). These rays induce currents on the object, from which the total
scattered field can be found.
To gauge the effect of near-field terms, the in-house code can be set to exclude
near-field terms. Due to this characteristic, the method is named SBR Including
or Excluding Near-field Terms (SIENT). The SIENT implementation is thoroughly
described. To make SIENT more flexible, the code works with triangulated meshes
of objects. Antennas are represented as near-field sources, allowing complex an-
tennas to be represented by simple surface currents. Further, some implemented
optimizations of SIENT are shown.
To test the implemented method, SIENT is compared to a reference solution and
comparable commercial SBR solvers. It is shown that SIENT compares well to the
commercial options. Further, it is shown that the inclusion of near-field terms acts
as a small correction to the far-field of the installed antenna.
Keywords: Shooting and Bouncing Rays, Geometrical Optics (GO), Physi-

cal Optics (PO), antenna modeling, computational electromagnetics (CEM), CST,
dipole, ray tubes
i
Examensarbete
Undersökning av Närfältsbidrag
vid SBR-beräkning av
Installerad Antennprestanda
Harald Hultin
Examinator: Handledare:
Lars Jonsson Henrik Frid
Uppdragsgivare: Kontaktperson:
Saab Henrik Frid
Sammanfattning
För att undersöka närfältsbidrag för installerade antenner, har en kod skrivits för
att ta med närfältstermer i Shooting Bouncing Rays (SBR). SBR är en metod där
strålar (”rays”) skjuts mot ett object och sprids via Geometrisk Optik (GO). Dessa
strålar inducerar strömmar på objectet, från vilka det totala sprida fältet kan hittas.
För att undersöka bidraget från närfältstermer, så kan koden exkludera dessa. På
grund av denna karaktär, kallas koden SBR Including or Excluding Near-field Terms
(SIENT). Implementationen av SIENT beskrivs utförligt. För att göra SIENT mer
flexibel, arbetar SIENT med triangulerade nät av objekt. Antenner representeras av
närfältskällor, vilket låter komplexa antenner representeras med enkla yt-strömmar.
Implementerade optimeringar av SIENT visas också.
För att testa den implementerade metoden, jämförs SIENT med en referenslösning
och jämförbara kommerciella SBR-lösare. Det visas att SIENT överensstämmer bra
med kommerciella alternativ. Det visas också att närfältstermer agerar som en
mindre korrektion till fjärrfältet av den installerade antennen.
Nyckelord: Geometrisk Optik, Fysikalisk Optik, antennmodellering, elektro-

magnetism, CST, dipol
ii
Acknowledgments
I want to start by thanking my family, for their immense support in everything I
do. Second, I thank my supervisor Henrik Frid for not only supporting me with the
thesis, but also for introducing me to SAAB. For this, I also wish to thank Johan
Malmström, who have acted as a second supervisor.
I am also grateful to Lars Jonsson, my examiner, for introducing me to electro-
magnetics three years ago, and for his feedback.
Finally, big thanks goes to Saab and the section of Microwave & Antennas for
giving me the opportunity to make this thesis.
Harald Hultin
iii
Contents
Abstract i
Sammanfattning ii
Acknowledgment iii
Nomenclature vi
List of Variable Definitions vii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Purpose & Research Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Ethical Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Theory 5
2.1 Shooting and Bouncing Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Huygens’ Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 Field Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3.1 Full Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3.2 The Far Field Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3.3 Discretization of the Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Far Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3 Methodology 13
3.1 Triangulation of Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2 Detecting Bounces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 Rays and Ray Tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.1 Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.2 Ray Tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.3 Surface Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.4 Partially Intersecting Ray Tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3.5 Current Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3.6 Divergence Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3.7 Detecting Caustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.8 Saving Ray Tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3.9 Enforcing Huygens’ Surface Boundary Condition . . . . . . . . 21
3.4 Surface Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.4.1 Huygens’ Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.4.2 Surface Current Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
iv
3.5 Simplifying the Huygens’ Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.6 Far Field Phase Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.7 Space Partitioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.8 Ray Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.9 Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.10 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4 Results & Analysis 27

4.1 Verification: Far Field from Huygens’ Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2 Verification: FIT Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.3 Simplified Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.4 Test Case: Cut Cylinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.4.1 Reference Solution from CST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.4.2 Convergence Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.4.3 Far Field Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4.4 Surface Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.5 Space Partitioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.6 Test Case: Corner Reflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.7 Test Case: Simplified SAAB 37 Viggen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.8 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.9 Other Test Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5 Discussion & Conclusion 59

5.1 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.2 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6 Recommendations for Future Work 61
References 62
Appendix 65
A Divergence Factor from Interpolated Curvature 65
B Other Simulation Example 66
v
Nomenclature
CAD Computer Aided Design
FDTD Finite-Difference Time-Domain
FEM Finite Element Method
FF Far-Field
FIT Finite Integration Technique
GO Geometrical optics
IH In-House
NF Near-Field
PEC Perfect Electrical Conductor
PFI short for CST option ”perform full integration close to structure”
PO Physical Optics
RAM Random Access Memory
RMS Root Mean Square
RMSD Root Mean Square Deviation
SBR Shooting and Bouncing Rays
SENT SBR Excluding Near-field Terms
SIENT SBR Including or Excluding Near-field Terms
SINT SBR Including Near-field Terms
vi
List of Variable Definitions
k̂ direction of propagation
n̂ normal vector
r̂ unit vector in r-direction
λ wavelength
E electric field strength
F far-field amplitude
H magnetic field strength
J electric current density
Jm magnetic current density
m magnetic dipole moment
p electric dipole moment
r vector pointing to observation point
r0 vector pointing to source point
∇ nabla operator, x̂∂/∂x + ŷ∂/∂y + ẑ∂/∂z
θ Angle in spherical coordinate system, defined as θ = arccos(z/(x2 + y 2 + z 2 ))
φ Angle in spherical coordinate system, defined as φ = arctan(y/x)
ejωt time convention in this thesis
G− Green’s function for an outwards propagating wave
k wavenumber
vii
viii
Introduction
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
When designing or buying antennas, the performance is usually defined for the
antenna in isolation. However, once an antenna is placed on a platform, the perfor-
mance changes. Because of this, investigations of Installed Antenna Performance are
required. One common case is to find the radiation pattern of an installed antenna
[1], [2]. This could be the case for e.g. an airplane communicating with something
on the ground. In these cases, it is common to use a blade antenna, which is the
antenna used throughout this thesis.
Another example is direction finding, where correct phase is important [3]. But
installing the antenna on a platform will affect the phase and thus the direction
estimation. Apart from performance in the far-field, antenna isolation is also a
problem in installed antenna performance [4]. For small platforms, these cases can
be simulated using full-wave simulations. Full-wave simulations are an important
tool in antenna design, since early prototypes can be replaced by a simulated model.
However, they have their limitations. As an example, take the Finite Integration
Technique (FIT) or the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) methods. For
decent accuracy far from exited sources, mesh elements must be on a scale of a
fraction of the wavelength [5]. Close to sources and boundaries, this can increase to
20 or more mesh cells per wavelength.
On electrically large platforms, such mesh densities will result in a large amounts
of cells which must be stored in memory. As an example, take a 15 m long fighter
aircraft with a 8 GHz radar. Say the region simulated is 20 m × 20 m × 10 m. As-
suming each cell is a cube with a side of 0.2λ (7.4 mm) on average, which is a
relatively sparse mesh, this would require 1010 cells. Further, assume both electric
and magnetic field are stored as 32 bit float values in each cell, totaling 64 bits or
8 bytes per cell. The total amount of memory required is thus approximated to
80 GB. Moreover, it would take significant computational time to find the solution
as the solver iterates over these cells.
As an alternative to full wave simulations, there are high frequency approxima-
tions, such as Physical Optics (PO) and Geometrical Optics (GO) [6]. Further, such
methods can be incorporated into Shooting and Bouncing Rays (SBR) [7]. Here,
GO rays are launched from a source and scatter on the surface of the object. Assum-
ing the body is a Perfect Electrical Conductor (PEC), these scattered fields induce
currents on the surface. From these currents, the scattered field can be computed
by PO, assuming the surface curvature is large compared to the wavelength [6], [8].
To compute fields in between rays in this thesis, ray tubes are tracked similar
to [9]. The advantage of using SBR compared to full wave simulations is the ability
to efficiently simulate multiple reflections on electrically large, complex geometries.
Another method for multi-bounce geometries is Iterative Physical Optics (IPO) [10].
1
Introduction 1.1
Further, there exists geometries where SBR alone does not take critical effects in
consideration. One such effect is edge diffraction, which be resolved with e.g. Phys-
ical Theory of Diffraction (PTD) [11]. Another is creeping waves, which can be
solved with e.g. Uniform Theory of Diffraction (UTD) [2].
Originally, SBR was a method for determining Radar Cross Section (RCS) [7].
The excitation is in that case a radar far away, modeled as an incoming plane wave.
However, when investigating installed antennas this model is not applicable. One
way of adapting the model is to represent it by a far-field source. A far-field source
is a point source with the same far-field as the antenna to be installed. The issue
with this model is the lack of near-field contributions. Taking the example of the
radar on a fighter from above, assume the radars largest dimension D to be 0.25 m.
The Fraunhofer distance,
2D2
df = , (1)
λ
gives a measure of how far the near-field has a substantial effect. In this case,
df = 3.4 m. As parts of the aircraft are inside this distance, higher order, near-field
terms must also be considered.
To an extent, near-field effects can be taken in to account by a near-field source.
A near-field source is a bounding box surrounding the antenna on which the complete
fields are given by the equivalence principle [12]. However, if the fields from this
source are evaluated using the far-field approximation [12], higher order terms will
be neglected.
Commercial SBR solvers for installed antenna performance are available, where
CST Microwave Studios (CST MWS) and HFSS SBR+ (previously Savant) are two
examples. The exact implementation of these SBR solvers is not described in the
literature, but both claim to take near-field effects into account. Describing this
is one novel aspect of this thesis, as the whole process of implementing SBR is
described. The literature found is usually papers of a few pages, describing parts
of, or improvements to, SBR. CST has an option named perform full integration
close to structure or PFI for short. This option includes radial parts of the field
impinging on the scatterer, if the source is closer than λ to the target [13]. Savant
always includes higher-order terms by default from version 19.1 [14].
The goal of this thesis is to apply a SBR method to solve a scenario like the fighter
airplane described above. Using this method, near-field contribution is investigated.
Functionality will be implemented and verified gradually. The near-field source is
imported from CST MWS.
The work on this thesis has consisted of many, smaller challenges. Each of
these challenges are described in the subsections of Section 2: Theory and Section
3: Methodology. Further, the subsections are mostly in the chronological order in
which their challenge occurred. The first challenge was to understand what SBR is.
Following this, the challenge was to import an antenna as some sort of source and
2
Introduction 1.2
describing the near-field of this source. With a source in the form of a Huygens’
surface and the complete field using the dipole discretization, the source was placed
on a platform. Section 3.3 is the most important part of the methodology. Here,
the challenge was in ray tracing and ”visibility”. While a ray in itself is simple
(defined by a starting point and direction), the whole system of ray tracing a field
becomes complex. While the method is the larger part of this thesis, the numerical
investigations in Section 4: Results & Analysis are necessary to prove that the
method works. As above, the subsections are chronological.
1.2 Purpose & Research Question

The first priority is to get a working SBR code that can take near-field into ac-
count. A working SBR code will track rays from a source and bounce them on a
body. At each bounce, the surface current is saved. From this surface current, the
corresponding far-field is determined. If the implementation is inaccurate, that is
also seen as an result. This has been broken down to two main research questions,
stated below.
As the implementation is compared to commercial software, it may give insight
to if and how such software take near-field in to consideration. This understanding
is not a primary goal and is rather included as a secondary research question.
Main Research Questions:
1. How can the SBR method be implemented for installed antenna performance?
2. What is the error for installed antenna performance SBR when neglecting
near-field contributions?
Secondary Research Question:
1. Does commercial SBR software take near-field contribution into account? If

so, how?
1.3 Limitations
In Computational ElectroMagnetics (CEM), SBR is a large field of study. This field
can not be covered completely in a master thesis. The following limitations will be
set to give the thesis a clear scope:
1. Importing CAD models is not a requirement. The code will accept a triangu-
lated surface, i.e. a triangular surface mesh. These meshes must have correct
normals. Meshes shall be supplied from another software.
2. Taking edge diffraction into account is not a requirement.
3
Introduction 1.4
3. Concave surface reflections are difficult to implement as the curvature infor-

mation of the surface is necessary to get a correct phase [15]. Concave parts
of the surface have a focal point where the reflected rays may intersect. If this
occurs, the fields phase shift as described in [15]. If these phase shifts prove
too difficult to implement, they may be omitted.
4. The code will be tested against reference solutions.
5. The code will work for a source box, which is simulated to be on an infinite
ground plane. Any errors due to in-homogeneous surroundings are ignored.
The effect of this is studied in [16].
6. Basis functions will be constant. Accuracy may be improved by implementing

RWG [17] or rooftop [18] basis functions.
1.4 Ethical Aspects

The thesis work in itself is quite harmless. It is carried out by simulations and
calculations on a computer, not having much of an effect on the outside world
except for some energy consumption.
However, the results are very versatile as they concern a method of installed
antenna performance evaluation. This evaluation is an important part in the defense
industry, which is why the thesis is carried out at SAAB. This means that the results
can contribute to the development of defense materials.
One potential customer is Försvarsmakten (the Swedish armed forces), but the
defense material may be exported to other nations. For this export to comply with
any ethical regulations, the author trust the Swedish government through Försvarets
Materielverk (FMV) and the Inspectorate of Strategic Products (ISP), which are
responsible for regulating and controlling this export [19] [20].
While the connection to the defense industry is clear, the results of this thesis
can be used in other sectors as well. For example, installed antenna performance is
important on civilian airplanes, cars, trucks and antenna masts.
Further reading on military funded research and ethics can be found in [21].
4
Theory
2 Theory
2.1 Shooting and Bouncing Rays
Shooting and Bouncing Rays (SBR) is a high frequency approximation in CEM.

The term was first coined in [7]. Using GO, rays are shot toward an object. If a
ray intersects with the body, it bounces following PEC boundary conditions. This
bounce creates a new ray, which is tracked in the same manner. Once all bounces
(or a set amount of bounces) have occurred, the resulting excitation is evaluated.
In this thesis, the excitation is the induced surface current. However, it can also be
the fields of an aperture [7] for example.
In [7], the fields of an aperture were evaluated to find the Radar Cross Section
(RCS) od a cavity. It has since also been used for installed antennas [1]. SBR is
based on geometrical and physical optics which are described in e.g. [6] and [8].
2.2 Huygens’ Surface
In this work, a method to represent an antenna shown in [16] will be used. The
antenna is bounded by a box. Using Huygens’ principle [12], the equivalent electric
and magnetic surface currents J and Jm are found on this box. These currents
create a Huygens’ surface, which is used as the source for SIENT. One advantage of
using a Huygens’ surface to represent the antenna, is that more complex geometries
like Figure 9 can be represented by simple surface currents. A downside is the error
this causes as described in [16].
To find the currents, the antenna in the bounding box is simulated using the
FIT solver from CST on an infinite ground plane1 . Thus, we consider the fields E
and H to be known on the surface. Inside the box (denoted by index 2) there are no
fields, i.e. E2 = 0 and H2 = 0. Outside (denoted by index 1), E1 = E and H1 = H.
With the normal n̂ pointing out of the box, the boundary conditions [6] are
n̂ × (E1 − E2 ) = −Jm , n̂ × (H1 − H2 ) = J. (2)
Thus, with the above assumptions E2 = 0 and H2 = 0,
n̂ × E = −Jm , n̂ × H = J. (3)
Note that different methods of handling the boundary condition at the PEC
surface with a Huygens’ surface exist. These are described in Figure 1.
1
A method for curved ground planes exists in Savant (now HFSS SBR+).
5
Theory 2.3
Huygens’
surface
Figure 1: Different placements for a Huygens’ surface on a ground plane. Savant

uses the dashed line, where the Huygens’ surface is placed a small ε above the ground
plane [14]. Another method is to place it on the ground plane, giving no magnetic
current Jm on the bottom. In SIENT and CST the dotted line is used, where the
box is placed such that the bottom face is a small ε inside the ground plane, giving
no currents on the bottom face.
2.3 Field Integrals
2.3.1 Full Fields
We name the Huygens’ surface S. From the surface currents on S, we want to calcu-
late the fields everywhere in space. Consulting [6] and [8], taking normal direction
into account, fields excited by the surface can be written as
ZZ
η − 0 0 0
−j ∇× ∇× G (r, r , k)(n̂ × H(r ))dS
k S

ZZ E(r), r outside S
− 0 0 0
+∇× G (r, r , k)(n̂ × E(r ))dS = (4)
S 0, r inside S
and
ZZ
1 − 0 0 0
j ∇× ∇× G (r, r , k)(n̂ × E(r ))dS
kη S

ZZ H(r), r outside S
− 0 0 0
+∇× G (r, r , k)(n̂ × H(r ))dS = (5)
S 0, r inside S.
Here, η is the wave impedance and G− (r, r0 , k) is the Green’s function for an
outwards propagating wave [6]:
0
− 0 e−jk|r−r |
G (r, r , k) = . (6)
4π|r − r0 |
Inserting the boundary conditions (3) in (4) and (5) gives
6
Theory 2.3
ZZ
η − 0 0 0
−j ∇× ∇× G (r, r , k)J(r )dS
k S

ZZ E(r), r outside S
−∇× G− (r, r0 , k)Jm (r0 )dS 0 = (7)
S 0, r inside S
and
ZZ
1 − 0 0 0
−j ∇× ∇× G (r, r , k)Jm (r )dS
kη S

− 0 0 0
+∇× G (r, r , k)J(r )dS = (8)
S 0, r inside S.
Consider the H-field from an electric surface current, i.e. Jm = 0. Using the
identity
∇ × (ab) = ∇a × b + a∇ × b, (9)
the first term in (8) vanishes, giving


0 H(r), r outside S
ZZ
− 0 0 − 0 0

∇G (r, r , k) × J(r ) + G (r, r , k)∇ × J(r ) dS =
S 0, r inside S.
(10)
∇ can be moved inside the integral for smooth enough sources [6]. The absolute
position of the source does not vary with the position of the observer, i.e. J(r0 ) does
not depend on r. Thus ∇ × J(r0 ) = 0, simplifying (10) to

− 0 0 0
∇G (r, r , k) × J(r )dS = (11)
S 0, r inside S.
The gradient of the Green’s function is known to be
r − r0

− 0 1
∇G (r, r , k) = − + jk G− (r, r0 , k). (12)
|r − r0 | |r − r0 |
Assuming r is outside S,2 the H-field becomes
r − r0
ZZ
1 − 0
− 0|
+ jk G (r, r , k) 0|
× J(r0 )dS 0 = H(r). (13)
S |r − r |r − r
2
I.e. we say implicitly that H(r) = 0 inside S.
7
Theory 2.3
2.3.2 The Far Field Approximation
Now, use the far-field approximation [8]. Far away from the source, it holds that
r − r0
k|r − r0 | 1, ≈ r̂ and r r0 . (14)
|r − r0 |
p p
This implies that k̂ ≈ r̂. Rewrite |r−r0 | as (r − r0 ) · (r − r0 ) = r2 + r02 − 2rr0 cos θr ,
where θr is the angle between r and r0 .
If ε is small, approximate
(1 + ε)p ≈ 1 + εp. (15)
This gives
r
r02 r0 r0 1 r02
p
r2 + r02 − 2rr0 cos θr = r 1 + 2 − 2 cos θr ≈ r 1 − cos θr + . (16)
r r r 2 r2
Taking only the leading terms gives
|r − r0 | ≈ r − r0 cos θr . (17)
Similarly,
−1/2
r02 r0 r0 1 r02

1 1 1 1
0
= 1 + 2 − 2 cos θr ≈ 1 + cos θr − 2
≈ . (18)
|r − r | r r r r r 2r r
Now, (13) can be approximated as

0
e−jk(r−r cos θr )
ZZ
H(r) = −jk r̂ × J(r0 )dS 0 , (19)
S 4πr
which is the far-field expression in [6] and [8]. This can be rewritten as
0
e−jk(r−r̂·r )
ZZ
H(r) = −jk r̂ × J(r0 )dS 0 . (20)
S 4πr
In the far-field region E can be found as
E(r) = −η(k̂ × H(r)), (21)
where k̂ is the propagation direction. Analogously, the fields can be found for an
electrical current density via (7). However, in this thesis the far-field approximation
can not be made as parts of the platform of the installed antenna may violate the
assumptions made in (14). This has two consequences,
1. more terms than just leading order must be considered,
8
Theory 2.3
2. Equations (20) and (21) are not valid.
Hence, (20) and (21) will not be used. Instead, (7) and (8) will be evaluated
numerically without the far-field approximation.
2.3.3 Discretization of the Source
To discretize the problem, S is approximated by small, planar unit cells. The surface
currents on these cells is assumed to be constant over the cells area.
Assuming each cell is sufficiently small, it can be modeled as a dipole. This is
a method used for near-field analysis [22], [23] and installed antenna performance
[24]. The method also seems similar to the method described in the Savant (now
HFSS SBR+) documentation [14].
From [12], it is known that the electric dipole moment p is
Z
1
p= J(r0 )dV 0 (22)
jω V
For the case with the planar unit cell number i, this can be rewritten as
ZZ
1
pi = Ji dS 0 (23)
jω Si
We use a constant basis functions to model the currents. Hence Ji is constant

within each mesh element. Moving Ji out of the integral gives
1
pi = Ji A i , (24)
jω
where Ai is the area of element i.

In [6], magnetic current density is defined as Jm = jωµ0 M. [12] gives the mag-
netic dipole moment as
Z
m= MdV 0 . (25)
V
Analogous to the electric dipole, the magnetic dipole moment becomes
1
mi = Jm,i Ai . (26)
jωµ0
For oscillating dipoles, the complete fields are known [12]. For an electric dipole,
the fields are
ck 2 e−jkr

1
H(r) = (k̂ × p) 1+ (27)
4π r jkr
and
1 e−jkr
i 1
2
h jk
E(r) = k (k̂ × p) × k̂ + 3k̂(k̂ · p) − p 2
+ . (28)
4πε0 r r r
9
Theory 2.4
Note that this is an expression for a dipole in origo, i.e. we replace r → |r − r0 |.

Also note that Equations (27) and (28) are the full fields, without any far-field
approximation. For the magnetic dipole,
1 e−jkr
i 1
2
h jk
H(r) = k (k̂ × m) × k̂ + 3k̂(k̂ · m) − m + (29)
4π r r2 r
and
ηk 2 e−jkr

1
E(r) = − (k̂ × m) 1+ . (30)
4π r jkr
Now, using Equations (24), (26), (27), (28), (29) and (30), the field excited by J
and Jm can be approximated as
X 1 Ai e−jk|r−r0i |
1

2
Htot (r) ≈ ck (k̂ × Ji ) 1 + +
i
4π jω |r − r0i | jk|r − r0i |
i !
1 2
h 1 jk
k (k̂ × Jm,i ) × k̂ + 3k̂(k̂ · Jm,i ) − Jm,i + (31)
µ0 |r − r0i |2 |r − r0i |
and
X 1 Ai e−jk|r−r0i | ηk 2

1

Etot (r) ≈ − (k̂ × Jm,i ) 1 + +
i
4π jω |r − r0i | µo jk|r − r0i |
i !
1 h 1 jk
k 2 (k̂ × Ji ) × k̂ + 3k̂(k̂ · Ji ) − Ji + . (32)
ε0 |r − r0i |2 |r − r0i |
Here, r0i is the vector pointing to the center of cell i. Equations (31) and (32) can be
read as the summation of fields from several electric and magnetic dipoles positioned
at r0i , using Equations (24) and (26) to describe the dipole moments.
One can also observe that taking the leading order term for electric current, i.e.
that of order |r − r0i |−1 , gives
X 1 Ai e−jk|r−r0i |
Htot (r) ≈ 0
(ck 2 (k̂ × Ji )) (33)
i
4π jω |r − ri |
which is a discretized form of Equation (20). Thus, we identify the leading order
terms of Equations (31) and (32) as far-field terms. By including higher order terms,
we say that we include the near-field terms.
2.4 Far Field

With a known surface current on discrete elements, we want to calculate the far-field.
Using the same discretization as earlier, rewrite (33) using the far-field approxima-
10
Theory 2.4
tion, giving
0
ck 2 e−jk(r−r̂·r )
Hf (r) = (k̂ × p) . (34)
4π r
Compared to Equation (27), r0 is included as the dipole position. However, using
the far-field approximation r0 only affects the phase. The electric field is found by
using Equation (21). For the magnetic dipole,
0
ηk 2 e−jk(r−r̂·r )
Ef (r) = − (k̂ × m) . (35)
4π r
Taking the dipole moment expressions from Equations (24) and (26), the total
electric field from all elements is then
X ηk 2 Ai −jk(r−r̂·r0 )
1 e i
Etot,f (r) = − ck̂ × (k̂ × Ji ) + k̂ × Jm,i . (36)
i
4π jω µ0 r
[4] defines the far-field amplitude F(r̂) as
rejkr
F(r̂) = lim E(r), (37)
r→∞ V0
where V0 is a normalization factor with unit volt. Define the radiation intensity U
as
r2
U (r̂) = lim |E(r)|2 . (38)
r→∞ 2η0
Realized gain G is then found by
U (r̂)
G(r̂) = 4π , (39)
Ps
where Ps is the stimulated power of the antenna. Ps is kept as its default value in
CST, 0.5 W [13]. Expressing G in terms of F gives
|V0 |2 |F(r)|2
G(r̂) = 4π . (40)
2η0 Ps
By setting r
η0 P s
V0 = , (41)
2π
the realized gain G is found as
G(r̂) = |F(r̂)|2 . (42)
11
Theory 2.4
Then the far-field amplitude becomes

X ηk 2 Ai 1

0
Ftot (r̂) = − cr̂ × (r̂ × Ji ) + r̂ × Jm,i ejkr̂·ri . (43)
i
4πV0 jω µ0
12
Methodology
3 Methodology
3.1 Triangulation of Surface
To triangulate, or mesh, the surface Gmsh is used. Gmsh is an open source meshing
tool intended for FEM and is available at [25].
For the models used in this thesis, the maximum allowed size3 of a cell is set to
0.1λ and the minimum to 0.01λ if nothing else is stated.
For simulation efficiency, the triangulation is divided into several partitions. This
is described in Section 3.7.
3.2 Detecting Bounces

Detecting if a ray intersects the surface can be formulated as follows:
• Take a triangular mesh cell.
• This mesh cell has three vertices, P1 , P2 , P3 .
• Does a ray from origin O, in direction D, intersect the triangle spanned by

P1 , P2 , P3 ?
An efficient method to test the intersection criteria above is described by Möller in

[26]. This has been implemented for Matlab by [27]. For a triangulated surface, test
all triangles for intersection of a ray. If multiple intersections exist, select the closest
one.
Determining if a triangle can be intersected before testing can have a big impact
on computational time. Therefore, two different tests are performed before testing
triangle intersection.
1. All triangles are divided into several partitions. The algorithm tests which
partitions that are intersected by the ray, then test the triangles in these.
This is described in depth in Section 3.7.
2. The element must face O, i.e.
n̂ · D < 0, (44)
where n̂ is the face normal going out of the body. If this is not fulfilled, the
face is facing away from O.
Further efficiency can be achieved by e.g. storing triangles in hierarchical trees

as in [28].
3
Maximum side length of triangle.
13
Methodology 3.3
3.3 Rays and Ray Tubes

3.3.1 Rays
From each equivalent dipole on the surface, rays are launched in all directions. In
other words, iterate with dipole positions as O. How dense the rays are launched
is configurable, see Section 3.3.8. As a ray bounces on the object, the following is
saved:
• the equivalent dipole location r0 ,
• the original direction,
• reflected directions,
• distance between intersections.
Bounces are modeled as a plane wave impinging on a planar PEC surface. [9]
gives
k̂R = k̂I − 2(k̂I · n̂)n̂. (45)
where k̂R and k̂I are the directions of propagation for the reflected and incoming
plane wave.
Any intersection can now be found. For the first intersection, take the first
distance in the original direction. From r0 , this vector points to the first intersection.
For the second intersection, take the second distance in the first reflected direction.
This vector points to the second intersection from the first intersection.
3.3.2 Ray Tubes
To track the field in-between rays, let a group of three adjacent rays create a ray
tube, as described by [9]. This is illustrated in Figure 2. The ray tube size is
determined as described in Section 3.2.
3.3.3 Surface Illumination
To find illuminated mesh cells for each dipole, i.e. cells in the ray tube, a recursive
algorithm is used. In order to avoid elements being excited by two adjacent ray
tubes, the center of the mesh cell must be inside the tube. An example of finding
illuminated elements is illustrated in Figure 3.
First, find where the three rays spanning the tube intersect the surface. Then
let the three intersect points of the ray tube rays span a triangle T . Lastly, take
a mesh cell tn . If a ray from the origin to the center of tn intersects with T , tn is
illuminated.
As a preprocessing step, a built-in Matlab function is used to make a list of all
neighboring elements of all cells. Each element on the body is assigned a tri-state
14
Methodology 3.3
Figure 2: Illustration off a ray tube (blue) spanned by three rays (red).
variable. This variable has the values of illuminated, non-illuminated or un-tested.

The basic function of the algorithm is as follows:
1. Pick an element
2. if illuminated:
(a) set element to illuminated

(b) reset search depth
(c) run algorithm on neighbors that are un-tested
3. else:
(a) set element to non-illuminated

(b) decrease search depth by 1
(c) if search depth = 0, return
(d) else, run algorithm on elements that are un-tested.
The first element tested is the one intersected by the mean ray. Here, the mean
ray is an average of the three rays spanning the tube, defined in [9]. Search depth
sets how long the algorithm searches. Take Figure 3c as an example. The four
bottom illuminated cells are connected. These cells can be found with a search
depth of 1, assuming one is the first element tested. On all adjacent cells ta , search
depth is set to 0 and the search stops. If the search depth is set to 2, all triangles
adjacent to ta are searched as well, which includes the last illuminated cell.
If the mean ray misses the surface, the search is initiated in the three hit points.
15
Methodology 3.3
(a) Three rays intersect the (b) The three points span (c) Triangles with a center
triangulated surface. a triangular ray tube, cre- inside the tube are illumi-
ating the triangle T on the nated.
surface.
Figure 3: Demonstration of illuminated triangles.
3.3.4 Partially Intersecting Ray Tubes
A ray tube may partially intersect the body, i.e. one or two of the three rays
spanning the tube intersect the body. Due to this, the mean ray from [9] can not
be calculated.
To find illuminated surface elements, the mean ray is replaced by a substitute
mean ray. If only one ray intersects the surface, this replaces the mean ray. If two
rays intersect the surface, the mean of these rays replace the mean ray of the ray
tube.
In order to span the ray tube in Figure 3, substitute points are created for rays
that miss the body. Take the length lm of substitute mean ray. For each missed ray
with a direction r̂r , the substitute point is given by the vector lm r̂r .
Say the rays emanate from origo. Two rays, R1 and R2 intersect the scatterer.
The third ray in direction r̂3 misses. Then the substitute mean ray is
1
M = (R1 + R2 ) (46)
2
and the substitute ray becomes
1
R3 = |R1 + R2 |r̂3 . (47)
2
In the current implementation, ray tubes are not tracked after a partial intersect.
As these ray tubes likely illuminate an edge, their detection could be a step in a
future implementation of edge diffraction. However, this detection does not take in
to consideration how acute the edge is, which is required in e.g. PTD.
3.3.5 Current Evaluation
For all triangles illuminated by the ray tube, we wish to find the induced current on
the body JB using JB = 2n̂ × H. This current is saved as three complex variables
for each face of the platform. These three variables represent the surface current
16
Methodology 3.3
density in x̂-, ŷ- and ẑ direction.

In this thesis, all bodies are assumed to be PEC. Consequently, no magnetic
current is induced on the body, JB,m = 0. Thus, tracking the H-field is sufficient.
Substituting
|r − r0 | → R. (48)
H is found from the source similar to (31),
1 A e−jkR

2 1
H(R, k̂) = ck (k̂ × J) 1 + +
4π jω R jkR
i 1 !
1 h jk
k 2 (k̂ × Jm ) × k̂ + 3k̂(k̂ · Jm ) − Jm + (49)
µ0 R2 R
Here, the full expressions are used when calculating H and JB from J and Jm .
This is what we denote including near-field terms. If the higher order terms are omit-
ted, the same far-field approximation as in [9] is used. When the field is evaluated,
R should be the total mean distance from the source. For subsequent reflections, the
total distance is the sum of all previous mean ray distances and the distance between
the current intersection and the last Mi . For example, the distance of R1 = |R01 |
in Figure 4 is used for the first intersection. For the second intersection, use the
distance R2 = |R01 | + |R12 |.
Figure 4: Example of ray intersecting with and reflecting off a surface
To approximate how the rays traveled before the reflection, the mean ray method
from [9] is used. For the incoming ray tube, find the mean intersection Mi . Then,
assume all reflections emanate from Mi , with the reflected coefficients aH , bH and
cH . Illuminated elements also trace back to this mean point.
17
Methodology 3.3
Introducing the coefficients aH , bH and cH , rewrite Equation (49) as
!
1 A −jkR 1 1 jk
H(r) = DF e aH 1 + + bH + cH + . (50)
4π jω jkR R2 R
DF , the divergence factor, is explained in Section 3.3.6. For a spherical wave,

DF = 1/R. Reflections are modeled as a plane wave impinging on a planar, PEC
surface. This model assumes that the curvature of the surface is smaller than the
wavelength. With subscript I as incoming and subscript R as reflected, [9] gives
HR = HI − 2(HI · n̂)n̂ (51)
As the coefficients aH , bH and cH describe the fields by a linear combination,

the boundary conditions in (51) can operate on aH , bH and cH instead. At the first
intersection, aH , bH and cH can be found by comparing Equations (49) and (50).
For subsequent intersections, reflections must be considered.
3.3.6 Divergence Factor
The divergence factor DF describes how a ray tube ”opening angle” changes when
reflected on a curved surface. A first approach for implementing the divergence
factor was to interpolate the surface similar to [29] and from that get the curvature
and divergence factor as in [7] and [15]. However, the implementation of this was not
accurate enough when using ray tubes as T became large. This resulted in erroneous
surface currents, several magnitudes higher than adjacent ones. The implementation
is described in Appendix A.
Instead, differential ray tubes are tracked similar to [9]. If all rays of the tube
intersect the surface, save the area of the triangle T spanned by the points D1 ,
E1 and G1 defined in [9] and illustrated in Figure 5. If the reflection intersects
an element at point P, the equiphase plane cutting this point is at a distance of
(P − M1 ) · R̂m1 [9]. Name the reflected directions at D1 , E1 and G1 as R̂D1 , R̂E1
and R̂G1 .
Now the equiphase triangle T2 at P is approximately spanned by
D2 = D1 + ((P − M1 ) · R̂m1 )R̂D1 , (52)

E2 = E1 + ((P − M1 ) · R̂m1 )R̂E1 , (53)
G2 = G1 + ((P − M1 ) · R̂m1 )R̂G1 . (54)
These points are also shown in Figure 5. Let A1 denote the area of T1 and A2 the
18
Methodology 3.3
D2
G2
RD1
E2
Rm1
RG1
D
RE1
G1
D1
O
E,E1
Figure 5: Definition of points along the ray tube.
area of T2 . As in [9], the Divergence Factor DF1,2 between these is approximated by

r
A1
DF1,2 = . (55)
A2
Further, save the divergence factor DF m for each mean point. Note that all
triangles for each illumination by the ray tube has a separate DF , DF m is one of
these. At the first intersection, DF1 = 1/R. For intersection n, the total divergence
factor is given by
DF = DF1m DF1,2
m m
DF2,3 m
. . . DFn−2,n−1 DFn−1,n . (56)
As mentioned in [7], this method alone may miss phase shifts due to caustics.
Thus a method for detecting caustics is proposed in the following section.
3.3.7 Detecting Caustics
If the rays spanning a ray tube cross, the crossing point is a caustic. These caustics
introduce effects such as phase shifts to the field [15]. To detect caustics, one can
consider how the surface area spanned by the ray tube varies. It is shown in [15]
that:
1. ray tubes have a zero area in focal points,
2. the ray tube surface area varies as a quadratic equation.
Say the surface area Amn between intersection m and n = m + 1 is described by

the equation
Amn = c1 x2 + c2 x + c3 , (57)
19
Methodology 3.3
where x is the distance traveled from m. If there is a caustic between m and n, Amn
will become zero before the distance traveled becomes the distance between m and
n. Solving the equation, one can find the distance to the focal points df the two
solutions to
s 2
c2 c2 c3
df = − ± − (58)
2c1 2c1 c1
If one positive real value of df is smaller than the distance between m and n,
caustic has been passed. If two positive real values of df are smaller than the distance
between m and n, two caustics have been passed. Otherwise, no caustic has been
passed. As the curvature has two focal planes, the maximum number of caustics
that can be passed are 2 [15].
To find the coefficients in Equation (57), sample Amn for three values of x and
solve the equation system.
3.3.8 Saving Ray Tubes
In order to track a ray tube, it is necessary to discern which rays that were launched
adjacent to one another.
To group rays that span a ray tube together, a method similar to that in [30]
and [31] is used. Around points from which rays should be launched, a triangulated
sphere is placed centered. Rays are then launched in the directions corresponding
to the vertices of the sphere, where faces represent the ray tubes. Now, first trace
all rays. Save the information in a table with the same indices as the vertices. Next,
iterate over all faces on the surface of the sphere, i.e. the ray tubes spanned by the
three rays with the same index as the vertices of the face. An illustration of this,
for a single face, is shown in Figure 6.
To get a homogeneous density of rays, the sphere is created with the Matlab
library4 available at [32]. This function returns a tessellated icosahedron5 , with a
positive, non-zero input FACTOR deciding how many vertices the surface will have.
The number of vertices NV is given by
NV = 12 + 30(F ACT OR − 1) + 10(F ACT OR − 2)(F ACT OR − 1) (59)
and determines how many rays are launched from each source.
4
More specifically, the function sphere imp gridpoints icos1.
5
An icosahedron is a Platonic solid with 20 faces of equally sized equilateral triangles. Tessela-
tion is the process of tiling these faces with smaller, equilateral triangles.
20
Methodology 3.4
Figure 6: Ray launching sphere where vertices represent rays and faces represent ray
tubes. An example ray tube is spanned by the dotted line between three launched
rays. The surface setting is F ACT OR = 3, giving 92 rays.
3.3.9 Enforcing Huygens’ Surface Boundary Condition
As stated in Section 2.2, SIENT and CST assume the bottom of the Huygens’ surface
to be inside PEC. Thus, the fields on the bottom are set to zero when generated by
CST. When evaluating the surface currents, this condition may be broken due to
numerical errors. To avoid this, the surface elements directly under the Huygens’
surface are set to have no induced current for the first intersection. However, if a
ray reflects off a surface and then illuminates this part, it is allowed to induce a
current.
Coordinates are given as float values. This may introduce errors in determining
whether a point lies on a plane. To remove these errors, the bottom of the Huygens’
Surface is represented by a thin box rather than a plane. Any point inside of this
box is said to lie on the bottom of the surface. In the current implementation, the
thickness of this thin bottom box is set to 1 mm.
3.4 Surface Area

3.4.1 Huygens’ Surface
On the Huygens’ surface, the current densities are defined in discrete points. How-
ever, to assign dipole moments to these points, an area is required as shown in e.g.
Equation (24). To this end, each node is designated a rectangular area. This area
has its boundaries half way to the closest neighboring node in that direction, see
Figure 7. Edge elements are cut as the area should not extend outside the surface.
21
Methodology 3.5
Figure 7: Division of the Huygens’ surface into elements. Points are the given
coordinates and dashed lines outline the are assigned to the points. Pictured is the
lower left corner of a surface.
3.4.2 Surface Current Density
On the triangulated surface, a current density J is defined on each triangular cell

as described in Section 3.3.3. Thus, in Equations (24) and (26), the area of the cell
can be used.
3.5 Simplifying the Huygens’ Surface

As the near-field source is imported from CST, the surface element size is inherited
from the FIT mesh. The FIT mesh is denser around complicated parts of the
simulated structure inside the Huygens’ surface. However, the field is not necessarily
strongest there. Take Figure 8 for example. The field is stronger toward the edges
in x. But as the antenna simulated in FIT is positioned around x = 0 and y = 0,
the mesh is finest there.
Figure 8: Real part of Jx , i.e. x.component of J, on an imported Huygens’ surface.

Note that mesh density does not correlate with current strength.
The issue with a dense mesh is the computational cost. For the sums in Equation
22
Methodology 3.6
(31) and (32), weak contributions from these small cells with low field strength does
not necessarily increase accuracy.
To simplify the Huygens’ surface and decrease computational cost the following
method is used:
1. Specify a maximum allowed size.
2. Go through each surface, bundling together elements to cells smaller than the
maximum size.
3. Calculate area of new cells.
4. Calculate new surface currents for cells.

The point representing the new cell will be the center point. Taking all elements
l in a bundle and consulting (31), the new surface currents are
jkr̂·r0l
X Al
Jbundle = Jl (60)
l
Abundle
and X Al 0
Jm,bundle = Jm,l ejkr̂·rl , (61)
l
Abundle
where Abundle is the sum of the area of all the bundled elements. This simplifica-
0
tion is dependent on r̂. To avoid this, assume each bundle is small, thus ejkr̂·rl ≈ 1.
Now, each bundle is used as a cell, following the theory in Sections 2.3 and 2.4.
3.6 Far Field Phase Reference

Calculating the far-field is described in Section 2.4, with the element area given
in Section 3.4. However, to get a comparable phase, one must consider the phase
center. For example, in CST it is the center of the bounding box by default and is
changed to the origin.
Also, CST normalizes phase to a distance of 1 m, while SIENT takes the actual
value. To compensate for this, Equation (43) is multiplied by e−jk·1 m giving
X ηk 2 Ai 1

0
Ftot (r̂) = − cr̂ × (r̂ × Ji ) + r̂ × Jm,i ejk(r̂·ri −1 m) . (62)
i
4πV0 jω µ0
3.7 Space Partitioning

To make the code more efficient, the scattering surface is partitioned. The basis for
this partitioning is the Matlab code from [33]. This code partitions space heuristi-
cally6 with Axis Aligned Bounding Boxes (AABB). The definition of an AABB can
6
Heuristic is here used in a computer science context. In short, a heuristic solution is a fast
solution but not the optimal one.
23
Methodology 3.8
be found in [34]. A maximum number of triangles per AABB is set, with two other
restrictions. The minimum side of the AABB is not allowed to be smaller than a
factor 3/4 of the maximum side and a split will still occur if the volume can be
reduced by 90 %.
Note that the tree-creating algorithm takes a maximum amount of triangles. If
a bounding box already contains less than this, but can be split without violating
the other restrictions, it will be split. Without restrictions, the algorithm will create
many small partitions which increases simulation time.
p
Each box is set to contain a maximum of NT triangles, where NT is the total
amount
p of triangles. With this setting, the amount of boxes should be close to
NT . Now, using the ray-AABB intersection from [34], test which AABB that are
intersected by the ray. The triangles contained in these boxes can then be tested
for intersections.
This partitioning can be motivated by the reduction of test required. Only testing
the triangles requires NT tests. With partitioning, the AABB test requires around
p
NT tests and will hit M boxes. Now, the set of triangles that may be intersected
has been reduced to those contained in these M boxes. The p following triangle
p containing approximatelyp NT triangles. Thus
intersection will test M boxes, each
the triangle intersection takes M NT test. In total, (M + 1) Np T tests. Assuming
the partitioning has suitable settings, M should be smaller than NT , reducing the
amount of tests by a factor
Nwp p p
= (M + 1) NT /NT = (M + 1)/ NT , (63)
Nnp
where Nwp and Nnp are the number of test with partitions or with no partitions
respectively.
3.8 Ray Density
As stated by the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, the current on the surface of

the model must be sampled with λ/2 spacing to give a correct representation. With
the backward tracing in Section 3.3.5, the mesh will define this. However, the rays
must still be dense enough to discern the object. This required accuracy will set the
ray density. Consider a sphere with radius Rm centered on the Huygens’ surface,
which encloses the whole platform. This sphere has a surface area of
2
As = 4πRm . (64)
Now, say that on this sphere, the rays should be spaced with a Fa λ distance. As
the rays are launched in a pattern of equilateral triangles, this is fulfilled if the side
24
Methodology 3.9
length of the triangles is Fa λ. The equilateral triangle will then have an area of
√
3 2 2
At = F λ. (65)
4 a
The number of ray tubes Ntubes required can then be approximated by
2
As 16πRm
Ntubes ≈ =√ . (66)
At 3Fa2 λ2
Looking back at the icosahedron in Section 3.3.8, the number of faces, which is
equal to Ntubes , is given by
Ntubes = 20(F ACT OR)2 . (67)
Equating Equations (66), (67) and solving for F ACT OR gives

&s '
4π Rm
F ACT OR = √ . (68)
3 · 5 Fa λ
The ceiling operator dxe is used to keep F ACT OR as an integer.
3.9 Validation
To validate SIENT, it will be compared to CST solutions. Comparisons are made to
both the FIT and asymptotic solver. In some cases, it is also compared to ANSYS
Savant, another SBR solver. If the problem is electrically large, the FIT mesh
density is reduced which will reduce the accuracy of the solution.
To find an approximation of the CST simulation error, convergence analysis
is performed. This is done by increasing accuracy until the Root Mean Square
Deviation (RMSD) in a region of interest is below a desired threshold. The region
of interest varies, in the ray tracing case it is set as the non-shadow region. In the
region of interest, a subset of directions is chosen. When applicable, this subset is a
cut of the main lobe. On this subset, the RMSD of far-field amplitude and phase is
evaluated.
For small problems, it can then be evaluated how FIT, asymptotic (with/without
PFI) and SIENT compares for installed far-field calculations. Once the accuracy of
the code has been validated on small problems, it is validated against the asymptotic
solver on large problems. The FIT solution is also included, but with a coarser mesh.
3.10 Summary
SIENT is can either include near-field using (50) or exclude near-field by only taking
the leading terms. To simplify the referencing to these, the nomenclature SBR
Including Near-field Terms (SINT) and SBR Excluding Near-field Terms (SENT)
25
Methodology 3.10
is used in Section 4.
26
Results & Analysis
4 Results & Analysis

4.1 Verification: Far Field from Huygens’ Surface
In a first step to verify the code, the far-field from a Huygens’ surface is examined.
The blade antenna in Figure 9 is simulated in CST FIT solver. Loss-less FR-4 with
εr = 4.3 is used as dielectric. From this, a near-field source is exported. The source
is exported for a frequency of 400 MHz and is used in all test cases. A blade antenna
is interesting from an installed antenna perspective as it is placed on a surface,
generating surface currents. Other antennas, mounted in e.g. wing tips, are not as
influenced by the surface on which it is mounted.
Figure 9: Blade antenna used at 400 MHz. Dielectrics are made transparent for
visualization, PEC is shown as gray and the red cone at the bottom is a discrete port.
The square meshed bottom boundary is an infinite ground plane. The square PEC
element is 150 mm × 150 mm. The radome has an oval footprint of 50 mm × 200 mm
and a height of 180 mm.
Second, this near-field source is simulated alone in the asymptotic solver of CST.
This gives the far-field of the equivalent surface currents. The phase center is set to
origo.
Third, the source is imported to Matlab. Using the method in Section 2.4, the
far-field is calculated. Directivity is normalized such that the maximum of the CST
simulation and the Matlab simulation are the same.
The resulting directivity is shown in Figure 10 and the phase in Figure 11.
For both directivity and phase the in-house code get similar results to CST.
Between 5° and 175° the root mean square deviation (RMSD) is 0.11 dBi for the
directivity and 0.36° for the phase. RMSD DR between series A and series B is
defined as
v
u
u1 X N
DR = t (A(i) − B(i))2 , (69)
N i=1
where N is the length of A and B.
27
Results & Analysis 4.1
10
CST
0 in-house
Directivity/dBi
−10
−20
−30
−40
−50
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 10: Directivity for Huygens’ surface of a blade antenna, φ = 0°, θ polarization.
For CST asymptotic solver and in-house simulation. Note that the Huygens’ surface
is placed in free space. Deviations close to 0° and 180° come from sampling density.
CST
180◦ in-house
135◦
Phase
90◦
45◦
0◦
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 11: Far field phase for Huygens’ surface of a blade antenna, φ = 0°, θ
polarization. For CST asymptotic solver and in-house simulation. Note that the
Huygens’ surface is placed in free space. Deviations close to 0° and 180° come from
sampling density.
28
4.2 Verification: FIT Simulation

With a small modification to the code used in Section 4.1, It can be tested against
the FIT solver in CST. In the FIT simulation, the boundary condition for z = 0
is n̂ × E = 0, i.e. PEC. This boundary condition can be achieved by mirroring
the currents on the Huygens’ surface in the z = 0 plane, i.e. using image theory
[35]. For electric currents, parallel components are duplicated to the mirror point
and change polarity. Normal components are duplicated and keep their polarity.
Mirrored magnetic currents normal component changes polarity and the parallel
components keep their polarity.
To summarize, the following is done for each surface element:
1. copy the element, all operations will act on the copy
2. set z → −z
3. set Jx → −Jx , Jy → −Jy
4. set Jm,z → −Jm,z
5. set nz → −nz , where nz is the z-component of the normal.

Further, the normalization voltage V0 is used to evaluate realized gain. This is
compared to the realized gain from CST in Figure 12. A phase comparison is made
in Figure 13. As image theory has been used, the solution is only valid for θ < 90°.
To avoid any errors due to the null at 0°, the solutions deviation is evaluated in the
range θ ∈ [5°, 90°].
10
CST
0 in-house
Realized gain/dB
−10
−20
−30
−40
−50 ◦
0 30◦ 60◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 12: Realized gain of blade antenna for FIT and image theory in-house soft-
ware. φ = 0°, θ polarization. Deviation close to 0° due to sparse sampling.
Between 5° and 90°, the RMSD of realized gain is 0.02 dB and 0.15° for phase.
With the small error between the in-house code and commercial options in Sections
4.1 and 4.2, we conclude that this part of the code is functional.
29
240◦
CST
in-house
235◦
Phase
230◦
225◦
220◦ ◦
0 30◦ 60◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 13: Phase in the far-field of blade antenna for FIT and image theory in-house
software. φ = 0°, θ polarization. Deviation close to 0° is due to sparse sampling.
4.3 Simplified Mesh

Simplifying the mesh as described in Section 3.5, the mesh in Figure 14 is obtained.
The maximum side of an element is set to 0.05 m (0.07λ). Another mesh is also
made, with a maximum size of 0.15 m (0.2λ).
These different meshes are evaluated using the in-house code and the results are
compared. All errors are taken between 5° and 175° to avoid nulls. In Figure 15,
the directivity has a RMSD of 0.03 dBi for the 0.07λ mesh and 0.3 dBi for the 0.2λ
one. The phase, which is more sensitive to position, is shown in Figure 16. It has a
RMSD of 0.14° for the 0.07λ case and 3.4° for 0.2λ.
While the results do differ, the amount of mesh cells has decreased from 16500 to
3114 for the 0.07λ simplification. Calculation time for the original mesh is around
7 s, while it is around 1.5 s for the 0.07λ mesh. The amount of mesh cells decrease
further to 306 and the time to 0.3 s for the 0.2λ mesh. Note that the error may be
larger in the near-zone. Overall, this simplification should be applicable as long as
the mesh size is set correctly.
An anomaly in Figure 16 is that the error increases toward 0° and 180°. This
0
is likely from the simplification of ejkr̂·rl ≈ 1 in Section 3.5. Consider the antenna
inside the box, a monopole. In the coordinate system used, the electric current will
only have a z-component. This in turn causes the electrical currents on the Huygens’
surface to be mainly in the z-direction.
Now consider the case in Figure 17. On the left, there are four dipoles. On the
right, a simplified version. Here, the positions is the mean of the two pairs and the
amplitude is the sum. In the solid red direction, nothing will change for the phase
in the far-field as the distance to the source does not change.
However, in the dashed direction the distance and thus phase changes. This
30
Figure 14: Simplified version of current in Figure 8. Maximum mesh cell size set
to 0.07λ. When bundling elements together, gaps appear in the corners due to plot
points moving.
change could be a cause of the phase error.
4.4 Test Case: Cut Cylinder

As a simple 3D test case, a cut cylinder is used. It is 4000 mm, 5.3λ at 400 MHz,
long with a radius of 500 mm. To have a locally flat ground plane, a plane is cut
on a radius of 300 mm. This gives the geometry in Figure 18. The blade antenna
Huygens’ surface from Section 4.1 is used as the source at 400 MHz. For SIENT,
the mesh used for the geometry in Figure 18 has 48948 mesh cells.
4.4.1 Reference Solution from CST
To get results to validate the SBR code against, the FIT and SBR solver in CST
is used. To make the FIT solution more comparable, it uses the same Huygens’
surface as the SBR solvers as a source. The CST SBR solver will be run twice in
addition to convergence tests. Once with the setting ”perform full integration close
to structure” (referred to as PFI ) on and once with it off. In both cases, ”include
metallic edge diffraction” is turned off as SIENT does not have this implemented.
The field source setting Rays in CST is also disabled. Other settings are listed in
Table 1, Case 2. Note that the Rays option in the CST asymptotic solver is very
important. It seems to override other settings, causing no difference with or without
PFI when enabled. This has been reported to CST, who are investigating the issue.
While the cut cylinder is a simple shape, some difference between FIT and SBR
is expected. Cutting the cylinder creates sharp edges, which will radiate due to edge
31
5
original mesh
max size 0.07λ
Directivity/dBi 0 max size 0.2λ
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 15: Directivity of Huygens’ surface for different mesh sizes using in-house
software. φ = 0°, θ polarization.
original mesh
180◦
max size 0.07λ
max size 0.2λ
135◦
Phase
90◦
45◦
0◦
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 16: Phase in the far-field of Huygens’ surface for different mesh sizes using
in-house software. φ = 0°, θ polarization.
(a) Higher resolution. (b) Lower resolution.
Figure 17: On the left, a higher resolution case with four dipoles (black). On the
right, a simplified case. Red arrows point to two possible observation directions.
32
Figure 18: Dimensions of the cut cylinder. The box containing the antenna (blue)
is centered on the top surface.
diffraction. Further, to get the complete surface current, creeping waves must be
included, which could be achieved with e.g. Uniform Theory of Diffraction (UTD)
[2].
4.4.2 Convergence Analysis
To ensure correct results in CST, a convergence analysis is performed. The settings

that differ from defaults are listed in Table 1. RMSD is evaluated for φ = 90°, i.e.
the yz-plane in Figure 18.
Setting Case 1 Case 2

Include metallic edge diffraction disabled disabled
Far field accuracy factor 100 200
Sub source reduction error 0 0
Smallest sub source in wavelengths 0.1 0.05
Ray spacing 1λ 1λ
Adaptive ray sampling enabled enabled
Table 1: Settings for convergence analysis on cut cylinder using CST SBR solver.
First, convergence for the case with PFI disabled is analyzed. The resulting
directivity is shown in Figure 19 and phase in Figure 20. The RMSD of directivity
between 5° and 175° is 0.019 dBi and 0.044° for the phase.
With PFI, directivity is shown in Figure 21 and phase in Figure 22. The RMSD
of directivity between 5° and 175° is 0.0077 dBi and 0.089° for the phase.
Convergence for the reference solution using FIT is also analyzed. Settings are
listed in Table 2 and directivity and phase are plotted in Figures 23 and 24. RMSD
of directivity and phase for θ ∈ [0°, 180°] is 0.12 dBi and 1.8° respectively.
33
Case 1
Directivity/dBi
5 Case 2
0
−5
−10
−15
−20
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 19: CST Far field convergence for cut cylinder without PFI, φ = 90°, θ
polarization. Shadow region shadowed gray. For settings see Table 1.
270◦ Case 1
180◦ Case 2
90◦
Phase
0◦
−90◦
−180◦
−270◦
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 20: CST far-field phase convergence for cut cylinder without PFI, φ = 90°,
θ polarization. Shadow region shadowed gray. For settings see Table 1.
10
Case 1
Directivity/dBi
5 Case 2
0
−5
−10
−15
−20
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 21: CST far-field convergence for cut cylinder with PFI, φ = 90°, θ polariza-
tion. Shadow region shadowed gray. For settings see Table 1.

Cells per wavelength near model 15 25
Cells per wavelength far from model 15 25
Cells per max model box edge, near model 20 20
Cells per max model box edge, far from model 1 1
Accuracy −40 dB −40 dB
Table 2: Settings for convergence analysis on cut cylinder using CST FIT solver.
34
270◦ Case 1
180◦ Case 2
90◦
Phase
0◦
−90◦
−180◦
−270◦
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 22: CST far-field phase convergence for cut cylinder with PFI, φ = 90°, θ
polarization. Shadow region shadowed gray. For settings see Table 1.
10
Case 1
Directivity/dBi
5 Case 2
0
−5
−10
−15
−20
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 23: CST FIT far-field convergence for cut cylinder, φ = 90°, θ polarization.
For settings see Table 2.
270◦ Case 1
180◦ Case 2
90◦
Phase
0◦
−90◦
−180◦
−270◦
0◦ 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 24: CST FIT far-field phase convergence for cut cylinder, φ = 90°, θ polar-
ization. For settings see Table 2.
35
4.4.3 Far Field Comparison
The resulting far-field from different simulations for φ = 90° can be seen in Figures
25 and 26. RMSD is only evaluated between 5° and 90°. This removes the null
and the shadow region from evaluation. The comparisons of realized gain, far-field
amplitude and phase between different simulations are tabulated in Tables 3, 4 and
5. The same comparison was made for the cut of φ = 0°, with similar deviations.
As expected, the SBR solvers differ from FIT when looking at Table 5. This is
likely due to edge diffraction.
10
CST no PFI
5 CST PFI
SENT
Realized gain/dB
0 SINT
−5
10 FIT
−10
−15
5 5
Realized gain/dB
−20 ◦
45◦ 90◦ 135◦ ◦
0
θ
0 180 0
−5 -5
45°
Figure 25: Realized gain for cut cylinder, φ = 90°, θ polarization. With/without
−10
PFI is the CST asymptotic solver. For with/without PFI and FIT, realized gain is
taken as directivity minus total losses. Shadow region shadowed gray.
SENT
SINT
0.68 1.3
−15
CST no PFI CST PFI
1.5
CST FIT
1.6
SINT 1.3 1.3 1.7
CST no PFI 0.55 2.7
CST PFI −20 ◦ ◦ ◦ 2.8
0 45 90
Table 3: RMSD of realized gain in dB between simulations on cut cylinder. Evalu-
ated in the range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 90°.
θ
4.4.4 Surface Currents
From both the FIT solver and SIENT, one essential result is the surface current on
the body. For CST FIT solver, it is shown in Figure 27. For SIENT, SENT is used
36
360◦
330◦ CST no PFI
300◦ CST PFI
270◦ SENT
240◦ SINT
210◦ FIT
Phase
180◦
150◦
120◦
90◦
60◦
30◦
0◦ ◦
0 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 26: Far field phase for cut cylinder, φ = 90°, θ polarization. With/without
PFI is the CST asymptotic solver. Shadow region shadowed gray.
SINT CST no PFI CST PFI CST FIT

SENT 0.080 0.16 0.23 0.16
SINT 0.11 0.16 0.20
CST no PFI 0.089 0.29
CST PFI 0.35
Table 4: RMSD of absolute value of far-field amplitude (see Equation (37)) between
simulations on cut cylinder. Evaluated in the range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 90°.

SENT 14° 6.2° 15° 14°
SINT 8.1° 2.3° 12°
CST no PFI 10° 13°
CST PFI 14°
Table 5: RMSD of phase between simulations on cut cylinder. Evaluated in the

range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 90°.
37
in Figure 28 and SINT in Figure 29. In Figure 30 the difference between SENT and
SINT is calculated. In all cases, the real part value of the current is shown. While
Figures 28 and 29 are similar, one can see the difference close to the source.
In Figure 27, two observations can be made when comparing to the SIENT
results. At the edges of constant x, the edge is not very sharp, causing creeping
waves to occur on the curved part of the cylinder. Further, the current directly
below the source is not zero. Due to the shape of this current, it is likely that the
edges along constant x, which are closer to the source than those of constant y, cause
diffraction which induce a notable current.
Figure 27: Real part amplitude of surface current on cut cylinder from CST FIT
solver.
Figure 28: Real part amplitude of surface current on cut cylinder from SENT.
In Figure 30, the difference between the far-field approximation and near-field
38
Figure 29: Real part amplitude of surface current on cut cylinder from SINT.
inclusion is shown. The difference ∆A is found by
∆A = 20 log10 (|<(JSIN T − JSEN T )|), (70)
where JSIN T and JSEN T is the surface current for SINT and SENT. Real part is
plotted to include the wave pattern in the current.
Figure 30: Real part of the difference between SENT and SINT.
4.5 Space Partitioning

To test the speed increase from partitioning, the cut cylinder case is used. The field
evaluation part of the code is disabled, i.e. only ray tracing is performed. In both
cases the accuracy factor Fa is set to 1/2.
39
As described in Section 3.7,

p the time reduction should be of the same magnitude
p √
as NT . For the cylinder, NT = 8954 ≈ 95.
Running without the partition code takes 1785 s. With the code, it decreases to
94.22
p s. This is a reduction by a factor of around 19. The reduction is a fifth of
NT , which is expected due to the (M + 1) term in Equation (63).
The partitions generated is shown in Figure 31.
Figure 31: Partitions of the cut cylinder (yellow, translucent boxes).
4.6 Test Case: Corner Reflector

As a difficult test, the antenna is placed close to the corner of a corner reflector as
shown in Figure 32. The same blade antenna Huygens’ surface at 400 MHz as earlier
is used as the source. The SIENT mesh has 19118 mesh cells. With a lot of sharp
edges, it is an example of where edge diffraction is important. Further, it should
gauge how the SBR solvers handle a platform which is not locally flat close to the
antenna.
First, the CST convergence without PFI is analyzed. Settings for this is shown in
Table 6. The resulting directivity is shown in Figure 33 and phase in Figure 34.
The RMSD of directivity between 5° and 90° is 0.34 dBi and 2.1° for the phase.
For CST with PFI, the same settings in Table 6 are used. Directivity is shown
in Figure 35 and phase in Figure 36. The RMSD of directivity between 5° and 90°
is 6.4 dBi and 54° for the phase. Thus it is decided that the solver with PFI is not
converging.
For FIT, the same settings as in Table 2 are used for convergence analysis. This
gives the plots in Figures 37 and 38, with a RMSD of 0.11 dBi for directivity and
0.82° for the phase.
40
Figure 32: Geometry of corner reflector
Setting Case 1 Case 2 Case 3

Include metallic edge diffraction disabled disabled disabled
Calculate far-fields for PO disabled disabled disabled
Far field accuracy factor 200 400 600
Sub source reduction error 0 0 0
Smallest sub source in wavelengths 0.1 0.05 0.03
Ray spacing in wavelengths 0.5 0.25 0.1
Adaptive ray sampling on on on
Table 6: Settings for convergence analysis of corner reflector.
10
Case 1
Directivity/dBi
5 Case 2
0
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 33: CST far field convergence for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization
without PFI. Settings are given in Table 6.
41
240◦
Case 1
210◦ Case 2
180◦
Phase
150◦
120◦
90◦
60◦ ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 34: CST phase convergence for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization without
PFI. Settings are given in Table 6.
20
15 Case 1
Directivity/dBi
10 Case 2
5 Case 3
0
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 35: CST far field convergence for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization with
360◦◦ Case 1
300◦
240◦ Case 2
180◦ Case 3
Phase
120◦
60◦
0
−60◦◦
−120◦
−180◦
−240
0◦ 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 36: CST phase convergence for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization with
42
15
Case 1
Directivity/dBi 10
Case 2
5
0
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 37: CST far field convergence for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization for
FIT. Settings are given in Table 2.
585◦
Case 1
540◦ Case 2
495◦
Phase
450◦
405◦
360◦
0◦ 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 38: CST phase convergence for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization for
FIT. Settings are given in Table 2.
43
Plotting the CST solutions together with the SIENT results yields Figures 39 and
40. Their RMSD together with RMSD for the linear far-field amplitude is shown in
Tables 7, 8 and 9.
The PFI solution differs from all other solutions, which is expected as the solution
does not converge. For realized gain, the solution most similar to FIT is CST without
PFI. Some similarities between FIT and SIENT can be seen.
Looking at the phase, SIENT is closer to FIT.
20
CST no PFI
15 CST PFI
SENT
Realized gain/dB
10 SINT
5 FIT
0
−5
−10
−15 ◦
0 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 39: Realized gain for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization. With/without
PFI is the CST asymptotic solver. For with/without PFI and FIT, realized gain is
taken as directivity minus total losses. Shadow region shadowed gray.
210◦ CST no PFI

CST PFI
180◦ SENT
SIENT
150◦
FIT
Phase
120◦
90◦
60◦
30◦
0◦ ◦
0 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 40: Far field phase for corner reflector, φ = 0°, θ polarization. With/without
PFI is the CST asymptotic solver. Shadow region shadowed gray.
44

SENT 1.5 4.0 11 4.4
SINT 3.8 11 3.9
CST no PFI 8.2 1.7
CST PFI 7.7
Table 7: RMSD of realized gain in dB between simulations on corner reflector.

Evaluated in the range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 0°.

SENT 0.18 0.50 2.2 0.75
SINT 0.39 2.1 0.61
CST no PFI 1.8 0.33
CST PFI 1.7
simulations on corner reflector. Evaluated in the range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 0°.

SENT 9.9° 29° 190° 26°
SINT 31° 190° 19°
CST no PFI 200° 32°
CST PFI 190°
Table 9: RMSD of phase between simulations on corner reflector. Evaluated in the

range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 0°.
45
For the corner reflector, there are clear differences between FIT and SIENT. The
FIT solver current in Figure 41 has no currents on the corner in the z-direction.
This is not the case for SIENT in Figures 42 and 42. The interference patterns also
differ. The difference between SENT and SINT can be seen in Figure 44. The noisy
character of the current from SIENT seem to occur for high ray density. This should
be investigated further.
Figure 41: Surface current on corner reflector from CST FIT solver.
Figure 42: Surface current on corner reflector from SENT.
46
Figure 43: Surface current on corner reflector from SINT.
Figure 44: Surface current difference on corner reflector between SENT and SINT.
47
4.7 Test Case: Simplified SAAB 37 Viggen

To get a test case similar to a real implementation without too much detail, a model
of SAAB 37 Viggen from [36] is used. The model is shown in Figure 45. For this
test case, HFSS SBR+ (previously known as Savant) is used for comparison as well
as CST. The Huygens’ surface in Section 4.1 is used as the source at 400 MHz. For
SIENT, the geometry in Figure 45 is meshed with 375253 mesh cells.
Figure 45: A simplified model of Viggen with a blade antenna on the wing, repre-
sented by a Huygens’ surface.
For the CST ray solver, the settings in Table 6 are used. Without PFI, plots are
shown in Figures 46 and 47. Comparing case 2 and 3, the RMSD between 5° and
90° is 1.0 dBi for the directivity and 4.6° for the phase. With PFI, plots are shown
in Figures 48 and 49. Except the similarities in phase between case 1 and 3, the
solution does not seem to converge.
10
Case 1
Directivity/dBi
5 Case 2
0 Case 3
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 46: CST far field convergence for viggen without PFI, φ = 90°, θ polarization.
See Table 6 for settings.
48
270◦ Case 1
180◦ Case 2
90◦ Case 3
Phase
0◦
−90◦
−180◦
−270◦
0◦ 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 47: CST far-field phase convergence for viggen without PFI, φ = 90°, θ
polarization. See Table 6 for settings.
15 Case 1
Directivity/dBi
10 Case 2
5 Case 3
0
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 48: CST far field convergence for viggen with PFI, φ = 90°, θ polarization.
See Table 6 for settings.
180◦ Case 1
0◦ Case 2
−180◦ Case 3
Phase
−360◦
−540◦
−720◦
0◦ 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 49: CST far-field phase convergence for viggen with PFI, φ = 90°, θ polar-
ization. See Table 6 for settings.
49

Fa 1 0.5
Body mesh max size 0.2λ 0.1λ
Maximum bounces 3 3
Table 10: Settings for SINT convergence analysis on viggen. Fa is described in

Section 3.8.
SIENT convergence is shown in Figures 50 and 51. With the maximum size set
to 5 m, the settings in Table 10 were used. Convergence analysis is performed with
SINT, as this should include the SENT results
The body mesh density was also increased, but caused Matlab to run out of
memory on a machine with 128 GB of RAM during the recursive search described
in Section 3.3.3. Overall, the higher settings together with this large mesh seems to
be close to the limit of what SIENT can handle.
10 Case 1
Realized gain/dB
5 Case 2
0
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 50: Far field convergence for viggen with SINT, φ = 90°, θ polarization.
Settings in Table 10.
Case 1
180◦
Case 2
0◦
Phase
−180◦
−360◦
0◦ 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦

θ
Figure 51: Far field phase convergence for viggen with SINT, φ = 90°, θ polarization.
Settings in Table 10.
The convergence of savant is demonstrated in Figures 52 and 53, with the settings
in Table 11. Between case 3 and 4, RMSD of realized gain is 0.77 dB and 7.6° for
the phase.
50
15 Case 1
Realized gain/dB 10 Case 2
5 Case 3
0 Case 4
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 52: Far field convergence for viggen with savant, φ = 90°, θ polarization. See
Table 11 for settings.
180◦ Case 1
0◦ Case 2
−180◦ Case 3
Phase
−360◦ Case 4
−540◦
−720◦
−900◦ ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 53: Far field phase convergence for viggen with savant, φ = 90°, θ polariza-
tion. See Table 11 for settings.
51
Setting Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4

Sample density 15 20 20 30
Ray density 8 12 20 30
Table 11: Settings for convergence analysis of viggen using savant.
Overall, all solvers are slow to converge. Due to this a hypothesis was stated:
as this geometry contains many corners and shadowed areas, SBR converges slowly
due to not including edge effects (edge diffraction, creeping waves, etc.). To test
this, PTD was enabled in the savant solver Changing no other settings, case 1 and 2
in table 11 were evaluated including PTD. The resulting plots are shown in Figures
54 and 55. While similar to the plots in Figures 52 and 53, including PTD seems to
increase convergence. The RMSD in phase between case 1 and case 2 is 32° without
PTD. With PTD, the RMSD in phase between case 1 and 2 decreases to 11°.
15 Case 1
Realized gain/dB
10 Case 2
5
0
−5
−10
−15
−20 ◦
0 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 54: Far field convergence for viggen with savant including PTD, φ = 90°, θ
polarization. See Table 11 for settings.
180◦ Case 1
0◦ Case 2
−180◦
Phase
−360◦
−540◦
−720◦
0◦ 15◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 75◦ 90◦
θ
Figure 55: Far field phase convergence for viggen with savant including PTD, φ =
90°, θ polarization. See Table 11 for settings.
52
Plotting the CST solutions together with the SIENT and Savant7 results yields
Figures 39 and 40. Their RMSD in gain, linear far-field amplitude and phase are
shown in Tables 7, 8 and 9.
A lot of the behavior seen in the corner reflector case can also be seen in the
viggen case. CST with PFI does not converge, and gives very erroneous values,
while the solver without PFI performs very well, even better than SIENT. The
added savant solver predicts the far-field pattern well, but seems to fail for the
phase. Note that the FIT solution may not have converged. It is set to the highest
mesh possible with 128 GB of RAM, 15 cells per wavelength.
One observation is that the near-field contribution to the phase seems to decrease
with increased platform size. RMSD for SIENT is shown in Table 15. As the size
increases from the cut cylinder to viggen, the phase RMSD seems to decrease. While
this is not proven, a hypothesis is the differing area radiating. For the cut cylinder,
almost all of the surface with currents in Figure 28 also has currents in Figure 30.
However, in Figure 61, the area with currents is much smaller than that in Figure 59.
Thus the near-field terms should have a relatively larger effect for the cut cylinder
compared to the Viggen.
10
CST no PFI
5 CST PFI
SENT
Realized gain/dB
0 SINT
−5
10 Savant
FIT
−10
−15
5 5
Realized gain/dB
−20 ◦
45◦ 90◦ 135◦ ◦
0
θ
0180 0
−5 -5
45°
Figure 56: Realized gain for viggen, φ = 90°, θ polarization. With/without PFI is
−10
the CST asymptotic solver. For with/without PFI and FIT, realized gain is taken
as directivity minus total losses.
7
without PTD −15
53
−20 ◦
0 45◦ 90◦ 1
360◦
CST no PFI
180◦ CST PFI
SENT
0◦ SINT
Savant
Phase
−180◦ FIT
−360◦
−540◦
−720◦ ◦
0 45◦ 90◦ 135◦ 180◦
θ
Figure 57: Far field phase for viggen, φ = 90°, θ polarization. With/without PFI is
the CST asymptotic solver.
SINT CST no PFI CST PFI Savant CST FIT

SENT 0.87 4.7 10 3.4 3.9
SINT 4.9 10 3.6 3.7
CST no PFI 9.2 3.6 3.9
CST PFI 8.7 8.5
Savant 3.3
Table 12: RMSD error of realized gain in dB between simulations on viggen. Eval-
uated in the range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 90°. Note that only the green cell has two
convergent solutions.

SENT 0.04 0.31 1.3 0.26 0.33
SINT 0.33 1.3 0.27 0.34
CST no PFI 1.2 0.19 0.27
CST PFI 1.3 1.2
Savant 0.25
simulations on viggen. Evaluated in the range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 90°. Note that
only the green cell has two convergent solutions.
54

SENT 4.8° 294° 310° 201° 121°
SINT 294° 311° 201° 124°
CST no PFI 565° 142° 286°
CST PFI 142° 399°
Savant 279°
Table 14: RMSD error of phase between simulations on viggen. Evaluated in the
range θ ∈ [5°, 90°] for φ = 90°. Note that only the green cell has two convergent
solutions.
As for the corner reflector, there are clear differences between FIT and SIENT for
viggen. The FIT solver current in Figure 58 is continuous and is clearly present on
the front wing, which shadows GO rays. In Figures 59 and 60, the current is missing
in shadowed areas around the fin, the nose and the front wing. This can be solved
by including edge diffraction and creeping waves as in [2].
Figure 58: Surface current on viggen from CST FIT solver.
55
Figure 59: Surface current on viggen from SENT.
Figure 60: Surface current on viggen from SINT.
56
Figure 61: Surface current difference on viggen between SENT and SINT
4.8 Concluding Remarks

To get an understanding of the effect near-field terms have, the far-field of the
surface current difference in Figure 30 is calculated. The resulting far-field and
phase is plotted in Figure 62. Compared to the total realized gain in Figure 25, the
near-field contribution is small, around 20 dB lower. This is also reflected in Tables
3 and 4. Further, the far-field in Figure 62 is very uniform, with nulls at 0° and
90°. Superpositioning the weak, uniform pattern from the near-field terms over the
stronger pattern from the far-field terms will not have a large effect on the shape of
the pattern. For example, the ripple in the far-field of the cut cylinder case, shown
in Figure 25, have the same position and similar shape whether near-field terms are
included or excluded. But the amplitude of these change when including near-field
terms.
Looking at the realized gain, both CST SBR options seem to predict a higher
overall gain as compared to SIENT. For all SBR solvers (all solvers except FIT) the
θ-direction with the highest gain is shifted except for the viggen test case. For the
SIENT, ripples in the far-field are in the correct direction for the cut cylinder and
corner reflector, but does not get the correct amplitude for any test case.
Comparing the SENT surface current on the cut cylinder in Figure 28 to the
difference between SENT and SINT in Figure 30, the area with near-field surface
currents is slightly smaller than the far-field current. However, the near-field region
is very constant in size between the test cases. The near-field components of the
field from the Huygens’ surface will only affect surfaces within this near-field region.
As the platform grows, the proportion of the near-field region to the total region
57
will decrease. As in Figures 59 and 61, where the near-field contribution is limited
to a small portion of the platform.
Test Case RMSD realized gain/dB RMSD linear amplitude RMSD phase
Cut Cylinder 0.68 0.080 14°
Corner 1.5 0.18 9.9°
Viggen 0.87 0.04 4.8°
Table 15: RMSD between SINT and SENT for all test cases.
The phase of the cut cylinder case in Figure 26 seems to be more sensitive than
the amplitude to near-field terms. A part of this difference could be the phase of
the current close to the source. Comparing the currents in Figures 27 and 28, the
nulls close to the source box are not in the same position. However, the included
near-field terms in Figure 29 better replicate the phase in 27.
−10 495◦
450◦
−15
405◦
Realized gain/dB
−20 360◦
Phase
315◦
−25
270◦
−30 225◦
−35 180◦
135◦
−40 ◦
0 30◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 150◦ 180◦
θ
Realized gain Phase
Figure 62: Realized gain and phase for cut cylinder near-field currents, i.e. Figure
30, for φ = 90°, θ polarization. Huygens’ surface is not included in the far-field
calculation i.e. this is only the radiation of the induced surface currents.
4.9 Other Test Case

One cause of error in SIENT is edge diffraction. Due to this, another test case
without sharp edges is included in appendix B.
58
Discussion & Conclusion
5 Discussion & Conclusion

5.1 Discussion
A code implementing the SBR method including near-field effects has been pre-
sented. The implementation is described thoroughly. Considering the limitations
set, it was realized that most platforms of interest are not given as an analytical
expression. So rather early, it was decided to break limitation 1: ”Importing CAD
models is not a requirement”. This allowed for models to be either created in CST
and imported to Matlab (as was the case for the cut cylinder and corner reflector)
or for an external model to be imported to CST and Matlab (as was the case with
viggen). Meshing the surface was a simpler task than expected using gmsh.
Further, there were no requirements for the code to be optimized. Even so,
many solutions in Section 3.3 were iterated for better performance. While the goal
was to have a functioning code, a faster code allowed more iterations and a more
efficient work process. Considering that some ray tracing functions were called tens
of millions of times during a simulation, shaving of a microsecond due to memory
access or such can reduce simulation time by up to an hour.
To validate the code piece by piece, different validations and test cases include
different requirements. The first results are to prove that importing the source and
calculating the far-field works. Then the first test case is performed to test the
functionality of the then completed parts of the code. Note that any ray impinging
on the cut cylinder ”bounces off” i.e. only one bounce has to be tracked. This meant
that the code could be evaluated without full functionality. The corner reflector was
included to be a difficult test case, but also to verify the functionality not tested
by the cut cylinder. A corner reflector will have multiple bounces and is a concave
shape, requiring DF calculation including phase correction.
Finally, the viggen test case was included to give a more realistic case and to
examine the maximal capabilities of the code. This test case is similar to the pro-
posed fighter in Section 1.1. The problem that was described in the theoretical case
occurred, as the mesh of the FIT simulation could not be refined due to insufficient
RAM.
5.2 Conclusion
A SBR code which takes near-field effects in to account has been developed.
The first main research question of the thesis is How can the SBR method be
implemented for installed antenna performance? By consulting the literature, this
has been shown in Sections 2 and 3. The installed antenna is represented by an
Huygens’ surface. This surface is divided into small, equivalent dipoles, from which
rays are launched. Using ray tubes and the expression for the H-field in (49), the
surface current on the installed platform is found. This surface current gives a
59
Discussion & Conclusion 5.2
corresponding far-field pattern, which is evaluated against commercial software.

The second main research question is What is the error for installed antenna
performance SBR when neglecting near-field contributions? For the test cases in
this thesis, RMSD lies between 0.68 dB to 1.5 dB for gain and 5° to 14° for phase
in the lit region. As both SENT and SINT results differ from the used FIT solver
results, it can not be concluded that SENT or SINT is more accurate. Discussions
on how accuracy could be improved in future work are given in Section 6.
However, it is an important result in that near-field effects do have an impact
on installed antenna performance. Including near-field terms does not change the
overall shape of the far-field, but usually corrects it, making it more similar to the
FIT solution. This result is not fully conclusive, as excluding near-field terms gives a
result closer to FIT for viggen. However, this could be due to lack of convergence of
both the FIT solver and SIENT. The difference in phase when including near-field
terms is relevant for e.g. direction finding [3]. While SIENT could be optimized
more for performance and lacks a good user interface, it is interesting that SIENT
seem to perform on par or better when compared to some commercial options.
The secondary research question is Does commercial SBR software take near-
field contribution into account? If so, how? Judging by the Savant documentation
[14], it uses a method similar to SIENT. However, Savant is more accurate than
SIENT. It is inconclusive whether CST PFI includes near-field terms.
Due to the apparent difference when including near-field terms, and to bench-
mark accuracy, results derived from this thesis will be submitted to a scientific
journal.
60
6 Recommendations for Future Work
While a lot has been done in this thesis, the resulting code needs more work before it
is used for actual installed antenna performance calculations. The biggest reason for
this is the lack of edge diffraction and creeping waves. Looking at [2], UTD should
be possible to implement in order to combat these issues. Comparing Figures 58
and 60, many areas are not lit by SIENT. Another part of SIENT which should be
improved is the bottleneck in the recursive search for lit elements.
One aspect which would be interesting to investigate is the basis functions. While
the current use of a constant basis function is simple, better accuracy and thus faster
convergence may be achieved with a more suitable one. Another way to improve
convergence would be to implement adaptive ray density. Now, rays are launched
homogeneously, but the ability to increase density in directions where it is necessary
would be a great improvement. This might also help with the noise issue described
in Section 4.6.3. If it does not solve the noise issue, this should be investigated
further.
In a similar area to adaptive ray tracing, a variable mesh density would be a
good optimization step. Currently, meshes are generated by simply specifying an
allowed size range. By only having a denser mesh in critical areas, simulation times
would go down.
Finally, it would be interesting to do larger benchmarks on a dedicated cluster.
61
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64
Appendix
A Divergence Factor from Interpolated Curvature
65
B Other Simulation Example
66
TRITA-EECS-EX-2019:294
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Investigation of Near-Field Contribution in SBR For Installed Antenna Performance

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DEGREE PROJECT IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING,

SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Master of Science Thesis

Investigation of Near-Field Contribution in

Keywords: Shooting and Bouncing Rays, Geometrical Optics (GO), Physi-

Nyckelord: Geometrisk Optik, Fysikalisk Optik, antennmodellering, elektro-

List of Variable Definitions vii

4 Results & Analysis 27

5 Discussion & Conclusion 59

6 Recommendations for Future Work 61

A Divergence Factor from Interpolated Curvature 65

B Other Simulation Example 66

FDTD Finite-Difference Time-Domain

FEM Finite Element Method

FIT Finite Integration Technique

PEC Perfect Electrical Conductor

RAM Random Access Memory

RMS Root Mean Square

RMSD Root Mean Square Deviation

SBR Shooting and Bouncing Rays

SENT SBR Excluding Near-field Terms

SIENT SBR Including or Excluding Near-field Terms

SINT SBR Including Near-field Terms

1.2 Purpose & Research Question

Main Research Questions:

Secondary Research Question:

1. Does commercial SBR software take near-field contribution into account? If

2. Taking edge diffraction into account is not a requirement.

3. Concave surface reflections are difficult to implement as the curvature infor-

4. The code will be tested against reference solutions.

6. Basis functions will be constant. Accuracy may be improved by implementing

1.4 Ethical Aspects

2.1 Shooting and Bouncing Rays

Shooting and Bouncing Rays (SBR) is a high frequency approximation in CEM.

2.2 Huygens’ Surface

n̂ × (E1 − E2 ) = −Jm , n̂ × (H1 − H2 ) = J. (2)

Thus, with the above assumptions E2 = 0 and H2 = 0,

Figure 1: Different placements for a Huygens’ surface on a ground plane. Savant

2.3 Field Integrals

2.3.1 Full Fields

Inserting the boundary conditions (3) in (4) and (5) gives

the first term in (8) vanishes, giving

The gradient of the Green’s function is known to be

Assuming r is outside S,2 the H-field becomes

2.3.2 The Far Field Approximation

(1 + ε)p ≈ 1 + εp. (15)

Taking only the leading terms gives

Now, (13) can be approximated as

In the far-field region E can be found as

E(r) = −η(k̂ × H(r)), (21)

1. more terms than just leading order must be considered,

2. Equations (20) and (21) are not valid.

2.3.3 Discretization of the Source

We use a constant basis functions to model the currents. Hence Ji is constant

where Ai is the area of element i.

Analogous to the electric dipole, the magnetic dipole moment becomes

Note that this is an expression for a dipole in origo, i.e. we replace r → |r − r0 |.

2.4 Far Field

[4] defines the far-field amplitude F(r̂) as

Realized gain G is then found by

G(r̂) = |F(r̂)|2 . (42)

Then the far-field amplitude becomes