Fast Parallel FDFD Algorithm for Solving Electromagnetic Scattering Problems

Abstract

The finite difference frequency domain (FDFD) method is very suitable for working out narrowband problems and resonance problems. However, the FDFD method needs to solve a large complex sparse matrix equation. With the increase of computing scale, the dimension of matrix will increase rapidly, which is difficult to simulate. For improving the computational efficiency of solving the large complex sparse matrix equation and extend the application scope of the FDFD method, a fast parallel FDFD method on the basis of message passing interface (MPI) shared memory technology is proposed in this paper, which is used to solve the electromagnetic scattering problems of electrically large targets. Based on the conjugate gradient iterative algorithm, the large complex sparse matrix is reasonably distributed to each process according to the unequal row allocation scheme, so as to guarantee the load balancing of each process. In addition, the intermediate vectors utilized in total processes are stored in the shared memory of MPI, which reduces the communication time and the consumption of computer memory. The proposed parallel FDFD method is employed to solve the bistatic RCS of the PEC sphere, composite Von warhead and an automobile, compared with the serial FDFD method, the parallel FDFD method greatly improves the computational efficiency when the memory is not increased much.