Fast Direct Solution Research Articles

Fast Direct Solution of Electromagnetic Scattering From Metallic Objects in a Planarly Layered Medium

Fast Direct Solution of Electromagnetic Scattering From Metallic Objects in a Planarly Layered Medium

Fast Direct Solution of Composite Dielectric Objects by M-HODLR

Fast Direct Solution of Composite Dielectric Objects by M-HODLR

A Modified HODLR Solver Based on Higher Order Basis Functions for Solving Electromagnetic Scattering Problems

In this letter, we present a novel fast direct solver based on a modified hierarchically off-diagonal low-rank (M-HODLR) matrix format with higher order basis functions for analyzing electromagnetic scattering by electrically large objects. The M-HODLR matrix compresses the far-group submatrices by an extended admissibility condition, which enhances the efficiency and accuracy of the original HODLR. To further alleviate the burden of the fast direct solution of the conventional surface integral equation (SIE), the higher order hierarchical vector basis (HOHVB) functions defined over a curved surface are employed. To account for HOHVB, an efficient assembly scheme based on patch coupling is developed to accelerate the adaptive across approximation implementation in M-HODLR. The proposed method can significantly reduce the computational time and memory cost of a conventional SIE solver. Several numerical examples are presented to validate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method in solving electrically large objects. Owing to the characteristics of HOHVB, different patch sizes or basis functions with different orders can be chosen according to the local geometry of the object. Therefore, the proposed method is very appealing for large- and multiscale simulations.

Fast Flexible Direct Power Flow for Unbalanced and Balanced Distribution Systems

The study proposes a fast flexible direct power flow solution for radial distribution systems and a fast flexible direct weakly meshed power flow solution for weakly meshed distribution systems. The algorithm is based on the direct forward sweep power flow solution, which is an updated version of the backward/forward sweep solution. The fast flexible direct power flow uses a unique conversion matrix (CM) to rapidly determine the power flow solution. The inverted conversion matrix and its slide-modified matrix are used to solve the power flow problem in a single forward sweep step, which is a novel feature of this work. To ensure the invertibility of the conversion matrix, it is constructed to have a small condition number and a determinant of minus one, and all of its eigenvalues must be equal to that of minus one. Additionally, by modifying the conversion matrix to accommodate the loop branch using the break-point idea, a new weakly meshed conversion matrix (WMCM) is generated with the same following modification as for the radial network and employed in the fast flexible direct weakly meshed power flow (FFDWMPF) solution for the weakly meshed distribution network. The usage of a single matrix in the power flow solution and advanced direct techniques decreases the number of iterations and CPU execution time when MATLAB programming is executed. Furthermore, the proposed method is flexible enough to incorporate any changes in the radial or weakly meshed distribution system just by incorporating the changes in the CM and WMCM for any radial or weakly meshed system. Moreover, the robustness of FFDPF and FFDWMPF is evaluated under various loading scenarios on balanced radial and weakly meshed distribution networks. Finally, to validate the proposed algorithm, the proposed strategy is applied to numerous balanced and unbalanced distribution systems.

A Review on Fast Direct Methods of Surface Integral Equations for Analysis of Electromagnetic Scattering from 3-D PEC Objects

This paper reviews a series of fast direct solution methods for electromagnetic scattering analysis, aiming to significantly alleviate the problems of slow or even non-convergence of iterative solvers and to provide a fast and robust numerical solution for integral equations. Then the advantages and applications of fast direct solution methods and the research trends are introduced in detail. Three different main methods are discussed, namely hierarchically off-diagonal low-rank matrices (HODLR) and skeletonization direct methods based on weak and strong admissibility condition. Numerical examples of computational complexity and electromagnetic scattering analysis of jet models are presented to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of each approach. Finally, a brief discussion is given on the main challenges and possible strategies of fast direct solution methods which still exist.

Interconnected Hierarchical Structures for Fast Direct Elliptic Solution

Interconnected Hierarchical Structures for Fast Direct Elliptic Solution

Efficient Method Based on SMW Formula for Analyzing PEC Targets with Partial and Thin Coatings

The analysis of the electromagnetic scattering from the perfect electric conductor (PEC) partially coated with thin material is a significant task in stealth design. Previous research has shown the scattering can be calculated by only discretizing the current on PEC in the case of thin coating layers. However, it has a downside that it will recalculate a complete solution when the geometry or electromagnetic properties of the coating changes. In this paper, a Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury (SMW) formula-based method is proposed to address this problem. According to the SMW formulation, it can reuse the inverse impedance matrix of the PEC part to efficiently obtain the solutions when local coating changes, so it can avoid the subsequent complete inverse of the new impedance matrix. Furthermore, it employs the fast direct solution method based on the SMW formulation to accelerate the calculation of inverse matrix of the PEC part. Numerical results demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.

Fast Direct Error-Controllable Solution of Integral Equations via H,-matrix accelerated Locally Corrected Nyström Method

Computational framework for error-controlled fast direct solution of large-scale scattering problems is demonstrated. The approach is based on higher-order Locally Corrected Nystrom (LCN) discretization of the Electric and Magnetic Field Integral Equations (EFIE and MFIE) accelerated with hierarchical matrices. The latter enable $O(N\log N)$ solutions for matrices featuring quasi-constant ranks in their compressed blocks and make solutions largely insensitive to poor conditioning of the matrix equations typically resulting from LCN discretization of EFIE and MFIE.

Fast Direct Solution of 2D Scalar Volume Integral Equation via Tensor Train Decomposition for Scatterers of Arbitrary Shape

The method of moments (MoM) discretization of the volume integral equation (VIE) is an effective tool for calculating field responses in the presence of arbitrary scatterers. This method scales poorly with problem size, however, due to the inherent difficulty of inverting the relevant matrix equations. The application of tensor train (TT) decomposition techniques has recently shown promise in alleviating the complexity of such calculations, with dramatic efficiency boosts in both computational time and memory having been proven possible for very simple scatterers. For arbitrary scatterers, previous work has shown that a conjugate gradient- TT (CG- TT) procedure was still capable of producing favorable runtime and memory complexities, particularly in quasi-constant rank regimes. In this work, we consider a direct solution of TT decomposed MoM matrix equation approach that is largely insensitive to MoM matrix condition number, while maintaining the generality of CG- TT. Preliminary results indicate that this approach is capable of matching the efficiency of CG- TT in the quasi-constant rank regime for scatterers of arbitrary geometry.

Strong Admissibility Skeletonization Factorization for Fast Direct Solution of Electromagnetic Scattering From Conducting Objects

In this article, a fast direct solver based on strong admissibility skeletonization factorization (SASF) is proposed for electromagnetic scattering from conducting objects. Different from the conventional skeletonization scheme, the proposed skeletonization constructs the hierarchical matrix representation, in which only far-field interactions are compressed. As a result, the approximation rank is relatively small, and the computational efficiency will have significant improvement. Subsequently, the strong skeletonization factorization is applied to the compressed system matrix. The system matrix can be factorized into products of a series of block unit triangular matrices and a block diagonal matrix. The arising fill-in blocks corresponding to far-field interactions are compressed and eliminated by a novel and efficient method to maintain the high efficiency and accuracy of the factorization procedure. The computational complexity and storage requirement of the proposed factorization scale as <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(N^{1.5})$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(N \log N)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> , respectively. Several numerical results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method.

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Cryo‐electron diffraction tomography (Cryo‐EDT) has been developed to determine the crystal structures of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and their host‐guest interaction at the atomic precision, whose crystals are only submicron‐sized, organic, porous, and dynamic. The keys of 3D electron diffraction (3D‐ED) techniques are low‐dose beam, sample cryo‐handling, fast data collection, sensitive detector, and direct space structure solution. We envision the development of COF chemistry will be propelled by such powerful 3D‐ED techniques for a better understanding at the molecular level and correlation of structures to chemicophysical properties. More details are discussed in the article by Zhang et al. on page 1153—1166.image

A fast direct solver for two dimensional quasi-periodic multilayered media scattering problems

This manuscript presents a fast direct solution technique for solving two dimensional wave scattering problems from quasi-periodic multilayered structures. When the interface geometries are complex, the dominant term in the computational cost of creating the direct solver scales $O(NI)$ where $N$ is the number of discretization points on each interface and $I$ is the number of interfaces. The bulk of the precomputation can be re-used for any choice of incident wave. As a result, the direct solver can solve over 200 scattering problems involving an eleven layer geometry with complex interfaces 100 times faster than building a new fast direct solver from scratch for each new set of boundary data. An added benefit of the presented solver is that building an updated solver for a new geometry involving a replaced interface or a change in material property in one layer is inexpensive compared to building a new fast direct solver from scratch.

Surface–Volume–Surface EFIE Formulation for Fast Direct Solution of Scattering Problems on General 3-D Composite Metal–Dielectric Objects

A new formulation of the surface–volume–surface electric field integral equation (SVS-EFIE) combined with the regular EFIE is introduced for the electromagnetic analysis of the 3-D general composite structures of impenetrable metal and penetrable homogeneous dielectric objects. The proposed method introduces independent surface electric current densities on the boundary of each region which brings the benefit of the independent discretization of the regions according to their respective material properties and straightforward handling of the material junctions. This makes the algorithm more efficient and flexible for analysis of multiscale and large-scale composite structures in comparison with the traditional Poggio–Miller–Chang–Harrington–Wu–Tsai (PMCHWT) integral equation combined with the EFIE. The method of moment (MoM) solution of the new formulation is accelerated by the hierarchical ( $\mathcal H$ )-matrix framework. The numerical results are given to validate the new formulation. Also, the $\mathcal H$ -matrix acceleration of MoM solution of the new combined EFIE and SVS-EFIE formulation is shown to produce accurate results using only the small fraction of memory and total CPU time needed by conventional MoM.

Fast direct solution of 3‐D volume integral equations by skeletonization for dynamic electromagnetic wave problems

AbstractThe skeletonization‐based direct solver is extended to the method of moments (MoM) solution of 3‐D volume integral equations (VIEs) for dynamic electromagnetic wave problems. The direct solver approximates the impedance matrix by the hierarchical data sparse representation through skeletonization and then obtains the inverse matrix implicitly. Improvement is made in the proxy strategy to accelerate the skeletonization. Detailed studies are presented on the behavior of the direct solver with respect to target shape, mesh density, and permittivity. It is revealed that the fast direct solver is promising for nano applications, especially for the cases where large and high‐contrast objects are involved, because iterative solvers always fail in reaching convergence due to the associated ill‐conditioned impedance matrix.

$\mathcal {H}$-Matrix Accelerated Solution of Surface–Volume–Surface EFIE for Fast Electromagnetic Analysis on 3-D Composite Dielectric Objects

An efficient fast direct algorithm based on the hierarchical ( $\mathcal {H}$ -) matrices is presented for solution of the radiation problems on piecewise homogeneous dielectric objects using Method of Moment (MoM) discretization of the surface–volume–surface electric field integral equation (SVS-EFIE). The SVS-EFIE for the composite objects introduces independent surface electric current density on the boundary of each region. Therefore, different from the traditional Poggio–Miller–Chang–Harrington–Wu–Tsai formulation, in the SVS-EFIE, the object regions can be meshing independently according to their local properties which improves the flexibility and efficiency of the proposed method. It also makes the proposed algorithms appropriate for the analysis of both multiscale and large-scale composite structures. The numerical results from the proposed fast method are provided for the high-loss biological tissues from bioelectromagnetics applications and agree well with the analytical Mie series solution and commercial software. The CPU time and memory cost of the required $\mathcal {H}$ -matrix operations are analyzed in details and verified through several numerical experiments. The new computational framework allows for fast direct solution of 3-D radiation and scattering problems of moderate electrical size with $O(P^{\alpha } \log ^2 P)$ CPU time and $O(P^{\alpha } \log P)$ memory complexity, $P$ being the number of surface unknowns produced by the MoM discretization, and $1\leq \alpha \leq 1.5$ being a geometry-dependent parameter.

Accuracy Directly Controlled Fast Direct Solution of General ${\mathcal{ H}}^{2}$ -Matrices and Its Application to Solving Electrodynamic Volume Integral Equations

The dense matrix resulting from an integral equation (IE) based solution of Maxwell's equations can be compactly represented by an ${\cal H}^2$-matrix. Given a general dense ${\cal H}^2$-matrix, prevailing fast direct solutions involve approximations whose accuracy can only be indirectly controlled. In this work, we propose new accuracy-controlled direct solution algorithms, including both factorization and inversion, for solving general ${\cal H}^2$-matrices, which does not exist prior to this work. Different from existing direct solutions, where the cluster bases are kept unchanged in the solution procedure thus lacking explicit accuracy control, the proposed new algorithms update the cluster bases and their rank level by level based on prescribed accuracy, without increasing computational complexity. Zeros are also introduced level by level such that the size of the matrix blocks computed at each tree level is the rank at that level, and hence being small. The proposed new direct solution has been applied to solve electrically large volume IEs whose rank linearly grows with electric size. A complexity of $O(NlogN)$ in factorization and inversion time, and a complexity of $O(N)$ in storage and solution time are both theoretically proven and numerically demonstrated. For constant-rank cases, the proposed direct solution has a strict $O(N)$ complexity in both time and memory. Rapid direct solutions of millions of unknowns can be obtained on a single CPU core with directly controlled accuracy.

Fast direct solution of characteristic basis function method using ACA-based LU decomposition

Fast direct solution of characteristic basis function method using ACA-based LU decomposition

FAST DIRECT SOLUTION OF COMPOSITE CONDUCTING-DIELECTRIC ARRAYS USING SHERMAN-MORRISON-WOODBURY ALGORITHM

In this paper, the Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury (SMW) Formula-based algorithm (SMWA) is used to enable the fast direct solution of conducting-dielectric arrays. To speed up the direct solution of the matrix equation, the dense impedance matrix is transformed into a product of several block diagonal matrices via the SMW formula. In the grouping process, the situation that the elements of an array simultaneously belong to two different subgroups at peer level is avoided in order to promote the efficiency. The SMWA conducts the calculation with a respectable reduction in the computational time as well as memory.

Fast Direct Solution of Electromagnetic Scattering from Left-Handed Materials Coated Target over Wide Angle

When solving the electromagnetic scattering problems over wide angle, the traditional method of moments (MoM) needs to repeat the solving process of dense systems of linear equations using the iteration method at each incident angle, which proved to be quite inefficient. To circumvent this problem, a fast numerical method based on block LDLT factorization accelerated by adaptive cross approximation (ACA) algorithm is presented to analyze the electromagnetic scattering of left-handed materials (LHM) coated target. The ACA algorithm is applied to impedance matrix filling and all steps of block LDLT factorization process, which can accelerate the computation process and reduce the memory consumption. The numerical results proved that the proposed method is efficient in calculating monostatic RCS of LHM coated target with many required sampling angles. Compared with the traditional MoM, computation time and memory consumption are reduced effectively.

A Linear Complexity Direct Volume Integral Equation Solver for Full-Wave 3-D Circuit Extraction in Inhomogeneous Materials

An ${\cal H}^{2}$ -matrix based linear complexity direct matrix solution is developed for the volume integral equation (VIE) based broadband full-wave extraction of general 3-D circuits. Such circuits are in general electrically small or moderate, but contain arbitrarily shaped lossy conductors immersed in inhomogeneous dielectrics with ports located anywhere in the physical layout of the circuit. In the proposed direct solver, we first develop a well-conditioned VIE formulation without sacrificing the rigor and the advantages of the prevailing formulations. This formulation facilitates a robust direct solution of good accuracy even with a rank-1 representation. We then overcome the numerical challenge of solving the resultant highly unstructured system matrix mixed with both square and rectangular dense and sparse matrices by developing a fast linear complexity direct solution. This direct solution is capable of inverting dense matrices involving over 2 million unknowns in less than 1 h on a single CPU core running at 3 GHz. Numerical simulations of large-scale 3-D circuits and comparisons with state-of-the-art linear complexity iterative VIE solvers have demonstrated the accuracy, efficiency, and linear complexity of the proposed direct VIE solver.