Implementation of the Theory of Characteristic Modes in MATLAB

This paper describes the implementation of a complex MATLAB tool to calculate the characteristic modes and associated antenna parameters. The first code, written in FORTRAN, was presented in the early seventieths by Harrington and Mautz. Here, we utilize MATLAB, which is widely known and used in the antenna community these days. Because eigen-decomposition is time consuming, parallel and distributed computing is used. Thanks to the hundreds of built-in functions in MATLAB, computation of the surface currents from the eigenvectors obtained, as well as other important characteristics, are very easy and effective. The practical features are discussed with two examples.