Comparison of Various CEM Methods for Antenna Array

Applications

Gopinath Gampala and C. J. Reddy

Altair Engineering, Inc.

Hampton, Virginia, 23666, USA
gopi@altair.com, cjreddy@altair.com

Abstract ņ The applicability of Computational electrically large Vivaldi arrays. The simulation
Electromagnetic (CEM) Methods, specifically the results presented in this paper are obtained
full-wave methods like the Method of Moments using the commercial 3D electromagnetic
(MoM), Finite Element Method (FEM), Finite simulation software, FEKO [2].
Difference Time Domain (FDTD) and Multi-level
Fast Multipole Method (MLFMM) for the design II. VIVALDI ANTENNA
and analysis of wideband Vivaldi antenna arrays The Vivaldi is a tapered slot antenna
of various sizes is discussed. characterized by an exponential flare shape that
radiates at different points along its length for
Index Terms – Antenna Array, Finite Difference different frequencies, determined by the flare
Time domain, Finite Element Method, Method of width. The conventional flare design has
Moments, Multi-level Fast Multipole Method and theoretically unlimited bandwidth, but is hard-
Vivaldi Antenna. limited by the physical dimensions of the antenna.
Figure 1 shows the VSWR of Vivaldi antenna
I. INTRODUCTION from 600 MHz to 3 GHz.
Antenna arrays find use in wide variety of
applications to increase the overall gain, provide
diversity reception, direction dependent blockage
and sensitivity, increase signal to interference plus
noise ratio, etc. The use of numerical methods is
inevitable in the design and analysis of antenna
arrays as the base elements of these arrays are
becoming more and more complex each day to
meet the stringent design specifications of modern
day.
Phase array antenna applications require rapid
beam scanning and/or multiple simultaneous
beams. Vivaldi antenna arrays are optimal choice
for these applications because of the wideband
impedance and radiation characteristics [1]. The Fig. 1. VSWR of the Vivaldi antenna.
numerical analysis of Vivaldi arrays available in
literature focuses on the use of a single method, III. ARRAY ANALYSIS
but a comprehensive study comparing all the CEM Until recently, the computational requirements
methods is missing. This paper focuses on the for accurate analysis of Vivaldi arrays were not
applicability of different solvers, like MoM, FEM, within the reach. But, the decline in the price of
FDTD and MLFMM for the analysis of hardware makes it possible to evaluate and
optimize various designs prior to building FDTD, FEM and MLFMM for an 8-element array
prototypes. Furthermore, it is important to do a and Table 2 compares the computational resources
complete full-wave analysis of the arrays to for the same.
predict the anomalies and alter the design to
improve performance. For this reason, the most
widely used full-wave CEM methods will be
investigated for various array sizes.
Figure 2 shows the comparison between
FDTD, FEM and MoM for a 4-element Vivaldi
array. It is clear from the results that all the three
full-wave methods are as accurate as each other,
but the real difference will be in the computational
resources required for each.

Fig. 3. Comparison of FDTD, FEM and MLFMM

for an 8-element Vivaldi array.

Table 2: 8-element array computational resources

Method Memory Runtime
FDTD 2.6 GB 10 hours
FEM 35.7 GB 4 hours
MLFMM 15.8 GB 4.3 hours

The difference in the computational resource

Fig. 2. Comparison of FDTD, FEM and MoM for a requirement arise from the fact that each method
4-element Vivaldi array. solves the Maxwell’s equations by discretizing the
computational space into different sub-domains.
Table 1 shows the comparison of resources MoM and MLFMM use triangular sub-domains,
between FDTD, FEM and MoM for the 4-element whereas FEM and FDTD use tetrahedral and voxel
Vivaldi array. sub-domains, respectively. More comparisons with
other array configurations will be presented at the
Table 1: 4-element array computational resources conference.
Method Memory Runtime
FDTD 1.3 GB 5 hours IV. CONCLUSION
FEM 11.4 GB 1 hour The full-wave CEM methods for the design and
MoM 37 GB 7.3 hours analysis of Vivaldi antenna arrays were discussed
and compared.
MLFMM, which can be considered as an
REFERENCES
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electrically large structures. For this reason, it is not Vivaldi arrays for large aperture antennas”,
used for the analysis of the 4-element array. As the Perspectives on Radio Astronomy – Technologies
array size increases, MoM can be replaced with for Large Antenna Arrays, ASTRON, 1999.
MLFMM. Figure 3 shows the comparison of [2] Altair Engineering, Inc., FEKO, Suite 7.0, 2014.