A Comparison of Higher Order Nodal- and Edge-Basis Functions in the MFIE on Rational BÉzier Geometries

• Published in: IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 56; no. 6; pp. 1812 - 1818
• Main Authors: Hellicar, A.D., Kot, J.S., James, G., Cambrell, G.K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-06-2008; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antennas; Applied classical electromagnetism; Applied sciences; Boundary element methods (BEMs); Conductors; Diffraction, scattering, reflection; Electromagnetic scattering; Electromagnetic wave propagation, radiowave propagation; Electromagnetism; electron and ion optics; Exact sciences and technology; Finite element methods; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Geometry; Integral equations; magnetic field integral equation (MFIE); Magnetic fields; Physics; Polynomials; Radar cross section; Radar scattering; Radiocommunications; Radiolocalization and radionavigation; Radiowave propagation; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Testing; Electromagnetic wave scattering; Performance evaluation; Radar cross section; Surface current; Equivalent current; Numerical method; Magnetic field integral equations; magnetic field integral equation (MFIE); Computational complexity; Implementation; Accuracy; Electromagnetic wave propagation; Polynomial interpolation; Wave scattering; Boundary element methods (BEMs); Curve fitting; Boundary element method; Antenna; electromagnetic scattering
• ISSN: 0018-926X; 1558-2221
• DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2008.922694

Higher order nodal basis functions for representing equivalent surface currents on antennas and scatterers are introduced. The performance of the nodal basis is evaluated by comparing two existing higher order edge bases, using the magnetic field integral equation (MFIE) formulation for scattering by a perfect electric conductor (PEC) sphere and icosahedron as test problems. Both nodal and edge bases are implemented on rational Bezier patches, giving an exact representation of the surfaces, free from geometrical error. The accuracy of the numerical solutions obtained with the three different bases for both the surface current and the radar cross section (RCS) are compared, and it is shown that in general the nodal bases give better accuracy than the edge bases for equal computational cost.