Accurate and Efficient Analysis of Large Antenna Arrays with Radome on a Large Aircraft

An accurate and efficient computational approach is presented for analyzing radiation characteristics of large antenna arrays with radome. This approach is based on the hybrid finite element-boundary integral-multilevel fast multipole algorithm (FE-BI-MLFMA). Unlike the conventional single-domain FE-BI-MLFMA, the whole domain of the antenna array with radome is separated into many disconnected domains. A large free space area unavoidable in the single-domain FE-BI-MLFMA is eliminated in this multi-domain FE-BI-MLFMA formulation, thus the number of unknowns is greatly reduced in the presented multi-domain FE-BI-MLFMA approach. Different from the single-domain FE-BI-MLFMA, many integral equations are required in this multi-domain FE-BI-MLFMA. The numerical experiment shows that the presented multi-domain FE-BI-MLFMA is more efficient than the single-domain one while maintaining the same accuracy. A whole complicated system of a slotted-waveguide array with radome mounted on an aircraft is analyzed to further demonstrate the generality and capability of the presented multi-domain FE-BI-MLFMA.