A Multiscale Software Tool for Field/Circuit Simulation

Wave Computation Technologies, Inc. (WCT) proposes to develop a new multiscale solver for electromagnetic field/circuit co-simulation. This solver combines three efficient electromagnetic field algorithms, (a) the spectral element time-domain (SETD) method for coarse scales, (b) the enlarged cell technique (ECT) for the boundary conformal finite-difference time-domain method [i.e., the FDTD method improved to the second order in the presence of curved conductors] for intermediate scales, and (c) the finite-element time-domain (FETD) method for fine scales; this field solver is coupled with nonlinear circuit solver based on SPICE (d). The field/circuit solver is highly efficient for arbitrary mixed-scale problems. The WCT team has extensive experience with these advanced computational electromagnetics algorithms, and is in an excellent position to develop such a multiscale field/circuit simulation tool. WCT has developed an EM software tool based on the ECT and a sophisticated graphic user interface, and has demonstrated that its speed is at least several times faster than existing commercial software packages. Furthermore, WCT has implemented a preliminary field/circuit solver to simulate direct antenna modulation, an important defense communications application. The proposed multiscale field/circuit solver will further extend the application domain to include large antenna arrays and complete circuitry and other dynamically changing environments.