Efficient wide-band evaluation of mobile communications antennas using [Z] or [Y] matrix interpolation with the method of moments

Abstract

The development of novel antennas for mobile communications often relies on performance simulations. The evaluation of the antenna surface currents for many frequencies using the method of moments (MoM) can take a long time since the impedance matrix must be computed for each new frequency. This paper investigates and compares two efficient methods for the computation of the broad-band performance of mobile communications antennas using frequency interpolation of either the MoM impedance matrix [Z] or admittance matrix [Y]. In either method, the elements of only a few matrices at relatively large frequency intervals are directly computed. These matrices are then used to interpolate the elements of the respective [Z] or [Y] matrices at the intermediate frequencies. Both methods reduce the time it takes to compute the antenna performance over a wide frequency band. The implementation of each method to evaluate the performance of several different antennas used for mobile communications is discussed. Examples with both frequency-domain and time-domain results are presented and both near-field and far-field quantities are considered. The accuracy, the simulation run times, and the computational requirements of direct MoM, [Z] matrix interpolation, and [Y] matrix interpolation are compared.