Faster Than FDTD

Title:
Faster than FDTD: Pushing the boundaries of Time-Domain Modeling for Wireless and Optical Propagation Problems

While the FDTD technique has been successful in providing a reliable and versatile simulator for electromagnetic problems, it is notably limited by its excessive memory and execution time requirements. As several broadband communication applications (for example, UWB channel modeling) and the richness of transient effects in metamaterial structures render the use of time-domain simulators appealing, research into improved and accelerated alternatives to FDTD is as valuable as ever.

In this talk, I will present our work on such alternatives: A wavefront-tracking mesh based technique that we recently introduced for microwave and optical structures; high-order techniques for wireless channel modeling; and periodic analysis techniques for negative-refractive index radiating structures. In addition, I will show how the implementation of the (Radiation Lab originated!) MRTD technique in $200 commodity graphics cards can enable the real-time modeling of large-scale indoor wireless problems, overcoming the well-known trade-off between speed and accuracy of wireless channel characterization techniques.

Costas Sarris received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and a M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2002. He also received a Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering (with distinction) from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)Greece, in 1997.

He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. His research interests are in the area of computational electromagnetics, with emphasis in high-order, mesh-adaptive techniques. He is currently involved with basic research in novel numerical techniques, as well as applications of time-domain analysis to wireless channel modeling, wave-propagation in complex media and meta-materials and electromagnetic compatibility/interference (EMI/EMC) problems.