Computation of radar cross sections using multilevel fast multipole algorithm

The electric field integral equation is discretized by using the method of moments (MoM) to solve EM scattering problems such as RCS prediction, and antenna radiation with complex objects. The MoM where the complexity is O(N²) operations has limitations on electrically large objects so fast algorithms have been proposed in recent years. The fast multipole method (FMM) can reduce the complexity to O(N^1.5) and the multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) up to O(N log N) operations. In this paper, the RCS of a sphere is analyzed using FMM and MLFMA. Furthermore, the monostatic RCS of a double ogive is compared with measured data for the accuracy of the MLFMA.