Numerical error analysis and control in a Dynamically Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) - FDTD technique

A recently proposed Dynamically Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) technique has been shown to achieve several tens of execution time savings compared to the conventional FDTD, when applied to practical microwave design and analysis problems. Yet, its performance depends on several a priori defined parameters, in a way similar to frequency domain mesh adaptive techniques. The estimation of this dependence, as well as the derivation of related error bounds, is contributed by this paper, being achieved via numerical studies and confirmed through specific applications. With such estimates in place, applying this technique and obtaining its theoretically demonstrated advantages is greatly facilitated for the end user in the microwave community.