The Finite-difference Time-domain (fd-td) Method for Numerical Modeling of Electromagnetic Scattering

Korada R. Uniashankar, Senior Member, I E E E Department o f E l e c t r i c a l Engineer ing and Computer Science U n i v e r s i t y o f I l l i n o i s a t Chicago P. 0. Box 4348 Chicago, I L 60680 c. Three-dimensional T-shaped conduct ing t a r g e t , monostat ic RCS D a t t e r n This paper recent O f the d. T r i h e d r a l meta l corner r e f l e c t o r , monostat ic RCS p a t t e r n f i n i t e d i f f e r e n c e time-domain (FD-TD) numer ica l modeling approach f o r Maxwe l l ' s equat ions. FD-TD i s very s imple i n concept and execut ion. However, i t i s remarkably -Bare meta l case robust , p r o v i d i n g h i g h l y accu ra te model ing p r e d i c t i o n s -Coated w i t h a commerc ia l ly a v a i l a b l e th ree f o r a wide v a r i e t y o f e lec t romagne t i c wave i n t e r a c t i o n problems. The o b j e c t s modeled t o da te range f rom s imple l a y e r r a d a r absorb ing m a t e r i a l (RAM) 2-D geometric shapes t o ext remely complex 3-D aerospace and b i o l o g i c a l systems. Rigorous a n a l y t i c a l o r e x p e r i mental v a l i d a t i o n s a re p rov ided f o r t h e canonica l shapes, and i t i s shown t h a t FD-TD p r e d i c t i v e da ta f o r near f i e l d s and rada r c ross s e c t i o n (RCS) a re i n exce l l e n t agreement w i t h t h e benchmark data. I t i s concluded t h a t , w i t h c o n t i nu i ng advances i n FD-TD model i n g theo ry f o r t a r g e t f e a t u r e s r e l e v a n t t o t h e RCS problem, and w i t h c o n t i n u i n g advances i n vec to r and concurrent process ing supercomputer technology, i t i s l i k e l y t h a t FD-TD numer ica l model ing w i 11 occupy an i m p o r t a n t p l a c e i n RCS technology i n t h e 1990's and beyond.