The finite difference time domain

method for electromagnetic with

MATLAB simulations











PREFACE
Objective :-
An effective introduction for step- by step process that build
competence and confidence in developing working codes for
design and analysis of various antenna and microwave device .
IMPORTANT TOPICES
USE OF MATLAB
- Ease to use
- Familiarity
- Power ful capability for providing graphical output and
visualization
Book illustrate how key FDTD equations are derived , provides
the final expression to be programmed and also use for
development of M-files.






INTRODUCTION TO FDTD
Computational electromagnetic (CEM)
- Evoled rapidly in past decade
- Extremly accurate prediction for given variety of
electromagnetic problem
- Two class of CEM-1 based on differential equation(DE)
method 2- based on integral equation (IE)method
Both based on maxwells equation and appropriate boundary
condition associated with the problem to be solved.
Integral equation methods in general provide approxiamation
for integral equation in term of finite sum , whereas DE
methods provide approximation for differential equation as
finite difference,

Most numerical electromagnetic analysis in frequency domain.
Recent development for time domain are powerful- 1-easier to
formulate 2- to adapt in computer simulation 3- more physical
insight to the characteristics of the problem.
One of the time domain method is FDTD
FDTD
- To solve Maxwell equation
- Also provide frequency domain response over wide range
of frequency using fourir transformation
- Easily handle composite geometries consistenting of
differentient types of material including dielectric,
magnetic, frequency dependent, linear , non-linear,
anisotropic(Having different physical properties in
different directions) material.
- Easy to implement using parallel algorithms
1.1 The FDTD Basic equation
Starting point for construction of an FDTD algorithm is
maxwells time domain equation.




Contritutive relations are necessary to supplement
Maxwells equation and characterize the material media.




Dispersive medium- a substance in which waves of
different frequency travel at different speed.
Only curl equations are while deriving the FDTD
equations because divergence equations can be satisfied
by the developed FDTD updating equations




Upon decomposing the current densities in to conduction
and impressing component and by using constritutive
relations we can rewrite maxwells equation as




we get all four constritutive parameters permittivity ,
permeability, electric current density, magnetic current
density so, any isotropic material can be specified.
Treatment of electric and magenetic sources through
impressed currents.
Resulting value electgric displacement and magnetic flux
density vector must satisfy divergence equation.

Above vector Equations can further decomposed into six
scalar equation in the Cartesian coordinate system(x,y,z)






Similarly these eqution can be decomposed for other
orthogonal coordinate system but they are not in much
used based on the application point view(why) .
FDTD divides the problem geometry into a spatial grid
where electric and magnetic field component are placed
at discrete postions in space and it solve maxwells
equation in the time at discrete time instances. This can
be implemented by first approximating the time and
spacederivative appearing in the maxwell s equation by
finite difference and next by constructing set of equation
that calculate the values of the field in the future time
instant from past instantnt therefore constructing time
marching algorithm.
1.2 Approxiamtion of the derivative by the finite
difference

An arbitrary continuous function can be sampled at
discrete points and discrete function becomes a good
approximation of continuous function if the sampling rate
is sufficient relative to the the functions
variation.sampling rate determines the accuracy of
operation performed on the discrete function accuracy
also depend upon the discrete operator.
Derivate expression




So approximate equation can be called forward difference
Similary backward difference

Central difference, by average of forward and backward
difference



Three differnent scheme yield different amout of error. These
amount of error can be evaluated using taylor series approach




Forward difference and backward difference are first order
accurate and central difference is second order accurate means
if sampling interval is halve then error in is reduced by the
factor of 2 in forward and backward where as in the case of
central it is reduce by the factor of four. This can be shown by
taylor series expansion .
However ,although there are FDTD formulations developed
based on highger accuarate formulas ,the conventional FDTD is
based on the second order accurate central formula, which are
found to be sufficiently accurate for most electromagnetic
application and simple to implementation and understand.

1.3 FDTD UPDATING EQUATION FOR THREE
DIMENSIONAL PROBLEMS
In 1966, yee orginated the set of finite difference equations for
maxwells curl equations . these are discrete in both space and
time, employing second order accurate central difference
formula.
FDTD technique divide the three dimensional problem
geometry into the cells to form a grid.
Figure shows an FDTD grid composed of (nx*ny*nz) cells.A unit
cell of grid is called a yee cell.
A discrete spatial postion of the field components have a
specific arrangement in the the yee cell..the electric vector are
placed at the centre s of the of the yee cells and oriented
parallel to the respective edges and the magnetic field vector
components are placed at the center of the yee cells and
orinented normal to faces.it can easily be seen that each
magnetic field vector is surrounded by four electric vectors that
are curling around the magnetic vector similarly if another cell
is added each electric field is surrounded by four magnetic field
simulating amperes law.




Figure shows a cell indexed as (I,j,k)for computational domain
com[posed of uniform yee cells having dimension delta x in the
direction of x, delta y in the direction of y , delta z in the
direction of the z axis.





The FDTD algorithm samples and calculate the fields at discrete
time instants; however the electric and magnetic field are not
sampled at same instantsuperscript indicate the time instant .
The material parameter are (permittivity , permeability ,
magnetic and electrical conductivity)are distributed over the
FDTD grid and are field component



Derivative in the scalar equation can be approximated by the
using the central formula with the positon of Ex(I,j,k) being the
ceter point for the central formula in the space and time
instant (n+(1/2))deltat as being the the centre point in the time






It should be noted that first two subscript in each coefficient
refer to the crossponding field component bing updated.for
three subscript third subscriptrefer to the the type of the field
or source(magnetic or electric ) that this coefficient is
multiplied by .fro the subscript coefficient , third and fourth
subscripts are refferedd to type of field that this coefficient is
multiplied by.

Time marching algorithm
1- First step problem space-including objects, material tyres
and sources and other parameter required during FDTD
computation.
2- Then coefficient terms appearing are updating equation
are calculated and stored as arreays before iteration is
started.
The field component are need to be defined in the array as well
as initilised with the zero since the initial value in the most of
the problem are zero and the field will be induced in the
problem space due source as the iteration proceeds .the
electric and magnetic field are updated . since problem space is
finite so the boundary condition have to be specify.