FULL-WAVE ANALYSIS OF ANTENNA-ARRAY MUTUAL COUPLING USING THE FETI-DPEM ALGORITHM

The electromagnetic dual-primal finite-element tearing and interconnecting (FETI-DPEM) algorithm is applied to the three-dimensional (3D) full-wave analysis of mutual coupling between antenna arrays mounted on a large platform. For large antenna arrays with repeated unit cells, the geometrical repetition is fully utilized to reduce the computation time and memory requirements. For general antenna arrays without geometrical repetitions, the full-wave simulation using the FETI-DPEM algorithm is accelerated through parallel computation. The numerical scalability of the algorithm ensures a high-parallel efficiency on both shared- and distributed-memory systems, Curvilinear tetrahedral elements, higher-order vector basis functions, and port boundary conditions are employed in the finite-element formulation to accurately model the geometry and the fields in antennas and feeds. Simulations of antenna arrays on large platforms using the FETI-DPEM algorithm are carried out to demonstrate the efficiency and capability. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 2088-2093, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24558