Application of ray tracing accelerating techniques for the analysis of antennas on complex platforms modelled by NURBS

A new 3D ray-tracing technique, based on the angular Z-buffer algorithm (McNamara, D.A.. et al., "Introduction to the Uniform Geometric Theory of Diffraction", Artech House, 1990) to speedup reflection calculations, is presented. The technique can be applied, amongst others, to the analysis of propagation in urban or indoor environments, or the radiation of antennas on complex board structures. The technique is used in combination with the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD) and shows a spectacular reduction in CPU-time.