COMPUTATION OF SCATTERING USING THE FINITE DIFFERENCE TIME DOMAIN (FDTD) METHOD Introduction The finite difference time

domain (FDTD) method is a means of determining the scattered field from objects by solving Maxwells equations in the time domain. The spatial and temporal differential operators are approximated by finite differences. Update equations can be derived (see reference [1]) that give the field at a point in space and time as a function of the field at the same and neighboring points at previous times. Therefore the solution is said to march in time. As with most numerical solutions, the computational region is discretized into appropriate subdomains. For example, in 3-dimensional space they might be cubes. The incident wave is introduced into the computational grid and the scattered fields computed throughout the grid as a function of time. The fields at the boundaries of the computational grid are used to compute equivalent currents, which, in turn, are used in the radiation integrals to compute the far field. The resulting far fields are a function of time. They can be Fourier transformed to obtain the RCS as a function of frequency, () . Reference [1] describes the limitations, restrictions and tradeoffs involved in the computation. Important computational parameters and tradeoff issues include:
grid size, t : determines the highest frequency of the computed RCS, ( f max ) time step, time window, Tmax = Nt ( N time steps): frequency resolution (i.e., spacing between frequency samples after the Fourier transform) depends on the length of the time window. In most cases the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm is used, which requires N = 2 M , M an integer. The frequency resolution is f = 1 / Tmax and t cannot be chosen independently and the Nyquist sampling criterion must be satisfied the effects of terminating the computational grid must be addressed

The incident waveform is a Gaussian pulse. The pulse parameters are: effective time duration, Teff effective bandwidth, Beff dyn dynamic range, R time duration, To signal-to-noise ratio,
SNR = POWER IN FREQUENCIES BELOW f max POWER IN FREQUENCIES ABOVE f max

A Gaussian pulse is shown below:

1 0.9

NORMALIZED TRUNCATED GAUSSIAN PULSE, g(t)

0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 -2

10

TIME, t (ns)

The computer code fdtdpanel.m solves for the field scattered by a panel of inifinite extent, but finite thickness. The codes rcs2dbir.m rcs2inc.m, rcs2far.m and rcs2scat.m are used sequentially in order to compute the field scattered by an infinitely long square cylinder. One-dimensional Solution: fdtdpanel.m The program fdtdpanel.m uses the FDTD method to compute the scattering from an infinite panel of thickness d . The waveform is a Gaussian pulse and the computational parameters are assigned in the code as shown below. The panel extends from diel_start to diel_stop. The conductivity, relative dielectric constant, and relative permeability can be chosen by the user. For each time step the fields are plotted. Lines representing the faces of the panel are also plotted as a reference. The oversampling ratio is K (if K=1 the Nyquist rate is used). Setup for the program fdtdpanel.m:
%%% INPUT PARAMETERS %%% K = 4; % Oversampling Ratio N_samples= 2048*K; % Time Samples v_rat = 1; % Velocity Ratio (=c/ugrid) T_max = 1024*10^(-9); % Time Window dT = T_max/N_samples; % Time Step dL = 0.15/K; % Spatial Step N_nodes = K*101; % Number of E-nodes L = (N_nodes-1)*dL; % Spatial Domain Length T0 = K*16*dT; % Truncated Gaussian Pulse Duration T_shift = T0/2; % Gaussian Pulse Time Shift B_eff = 10^9; % Effective Bandwidth f_max = 1/(2*dT); % Nyquist Frequency N_obs = round(N_nodes/(K*2));% Observation Point, Total Field c = 3e8; eta0 = 377; ugrid = dL/dT; %%% ASSIGN INPUT VARIABLES %%% eps_rel = 4; % Relative permittivity is fixed

mu_rel = sigma = diel_start diel_stop

1; 0; = 6; = 7;

% % % %

Relative permeability is fixed Conductivity inside of panel Left edge of dielectric Right edge of dielectric

%%% SET UP PLOT RANGE AND DRAW THE WALL &&& Lmax=15; Amax=0; Amin=-40; Xw1 = [diel_start, diel_start]; Xw2 = [diel_stop, diel_stop];

A snapshot of the computation is shown below for the data listed above. Note that the reflections from the front and rear faces are traveling in the reverse direction, while the transmitted wave is traveling in the forward direction.
0 -5 -10 Relative Power (dB) -15 -20 -25 -30 -35 -40 0 5 Distance (m) 10 15

Two-dimensional Scattering The scattering from an infinitely long cylinder is computed using the four rcs2xxx.m codes in the following order: rcs2dbir.m rcs2inc.m (typical: 1-10 MHz for resolution; 0.5-1 oversampling ratio) rcs2scat.m (a movie can be generated by using getframe with the array Mov) rcs2far.m A brief description of the setup (variable assignment) section of each code follows. More detailed explanations are given in reference [1], Chapter 4. Several helpful hints: 1. Some of these programs were written under Matlab 4.x. Some warnings may be encountered, but the programs will run with Matlab 5.x. If the warnings are a nuisance they can be turned off by typing warnings off 2. The programs may run a long time if a large number of FFT points are used.

The discretization of the cylinder is illustrated below:

Ei

^ ki L H i L

l l

Setup for rcs2dbir.m

N Nin Nout = 111; = 51; = Nin + 2; % % % % % % % % % % duration of impulse responses grid "speed" Row "shift" for the "inside" matrix Column "shift" for the "inside" matrix Top row for the "inside" matrix Bottom row for the "inside" matrix Leftmost column for the "inside" matrix Rightmost column for the "inside" matrix Number of nodes on the boundary Number of nodes just inside the boundary

h_dur = 50; vr = 1/sqrt(2); rowsh = 0.5*(N - Nin); colsh = 0.5*(N - Nin); irt = rowsh + 1; irb = irt + Nin - 1; icl = colsh + 1; icr = icl + Nin - 1; nodes_out = 4*(Nin+1); nodes_in = 4*(Nin-1);

rcs2dbir.m writes the files dbir2par and dbir2dat. Setup for rcs2inc.m:
load dbir2par % constants eps0 = 10^(-9)/(36*pi); mu0 = 4*pi*10^(-7); v0 = 1/sqrt(mu0*eps0); % User Input fmax dt_Nyquist eps_rel dt Df = 10^9; = = = = 1/(2*fmax); 1; dt_Nyquist/sqrt(eps_rel); input('Enter the desired frequency resolution in MHz:');

K_over dt Df dl_air

= = = =

input('Enter the oversampling ratio:'); dt/K_over; Df*10^6; sqrt(2)*v0*dt;

% Gaussian Pulse Parameters B_eff = fmax; To = 8/B_eff; T_shift = To/2; Gp_dur = ceil(To/dt);

% Time Samples Tmax = 1/Df; N_samples = 2^(ceil(log10(Tmax/dt)/log10(2)));

rcs2inc.m saves several variables which are used in rcs2scat.m Setup for rcs2scat.m:
load dbir2dat load dbir2par load ez_inc % constants eps0 = 10^(-9)/(36*pi); mu0 = 4*pi*10^(-7); v0 = 1/sqrt(mu0*eps0); % User Input fmax = 10^9; dt_Nyquist = 1/(2*fmax); eps_rel = 1; dt = dt_Nyquist/sqrt(eps_rel); %K_over =input('Enter the oversampling ratio:'); dt = dt/K_over; dl_air = sqrt(2)*v0*dt; dl_diel = dl_air/sqrt(eps_rel); %%%%% INPUT PARAMETERS %%%%% N = Nin + 2; nodes_out = 4*(N-1); nodes_in = 4*(Nin-1); % Time Samples %N_samples = 512; Tmax = N_samples*dt; % Gaussian Pulse Parameters B_eff = fmax; To = 8/B_eff; T_shift = To/2; % Number of nodes on the boundary % Number of nodes just inside the boundary

Example: Snapshot of the field for a square cylinder (computational parameters listed above). Top: mesh plot; bottom: contour plot. The plots are obtained from the program rcs2inc.m

50 40 y 30 20 10 0

20 x

40

120 150

90 1 60 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2

30

180

210 240 270 300

330

The normalized scattered far-field pattern is shown above for a frequency of 100 MHz. The result is obtained by running the program rcs2far.m. Reference: [1] D. Jenn, Radar and Laser Cross Section Engineering, AIAA Education Series, 1995