An Enhanced Augmented Electric-Field Integral Equation Formulation for Dielectric Objects

Abstract

A full-wave surface integral equation (SIE) method based on the augmented electric-field integral equation (A-EFIE) for dielectric objects with low-frequency stability is presented in this paper. Motivated by the A-EFIE formulation for perfect electric conductor (PEC), the internal and external problems are both augmented with the current continuity equation and renormalized to eliminate the low-frequency breakdown. Although the magnetic-field integral equation operator $\mathcal{K}$ is free of low-frequency breakdown, its matrix form is ill-conditioned and unsolvable if the traditional Rao–Wilton–Glisson (RWG) basis function is used as the testing and basis functions. As a remedy, the Buffa–Christiansen (BC) basis function is introduced to alleviate this testing issue. After this treatment, the matrix form of operator $\mathcal{K}$ is well conditioned. To solve problems with a large number of unknowns, a preconditioning scheme is introduced to accelerate the convergence and the mixed-form fast multipole algorithm (FMA) is adopted to accelerate the matrix vector product.