A Novel Conformal Surface Current Technique for Large Problems Based on High-Performance Parallel FDTD Method

Solution of electrically large problems such as scattering and diffraction by large objects-e.g., missiles, ships, and aircraft-is of considerable interest today. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is a versatile tool that has been extensively applied to the solution of these large problems. However, since the FDTD algorithm usually works with a Cartesian grid, it is not very well suited for extracting information on the induced current distribution on the surface of the object. Given this background, our objective in this letter is to describe a novel conformal technique, applied in conjunction with the high-performance parallel FDTD method, which extracts and displays the information of the surface on an arbitrarily shaped object in an accurate and efficient manner. Finally, some typical numerical examples are given to demonstrate the capability of our developed conformal technique.