A new formulation of electromagnetic wave scattering using an on-surface radiation boundary condition approach

A new formulation of electromagnetic wave scattering by convex, two-dimensional conducting bodies is reported. This formulation, called the on-surface radiation condition (OSRC) approach, is based upon an expansion of the radiation condition applied directly on the surface of a scatterer. Past approaches involved applying a radiation condition at some distance from the scatterer in order to achieve a nearly reflection-free truncation of a finite-difference time-domain lattice. However, it is now shown that application of a suitable radiation condition directly on the surface of a convex conducting scatterer can lead to substantial simplification of the frequency-domain integral equation for the scattered field, which is reduced to just a line integral. For the transverse magnetic (TM) case, the integrand is known explicitly. For the transverse electric (TE) case, the integrand can be easily constructed by solving an ordinary differential equation around the scatterer surface contour. Examples are provided which show that OSRC yields computed near and far fields which approach the exact results for canonical shapes such as the circular cylinder, square cylinder, and strip. Electrical sizes for the examples are
ka = 5
and
ka = 10
. The new OSRC formulation of scattering may present a useful alternative to present integral equation and uniform high-frequency approaches for convex cylinders larger than
ka = 1
. Structures with edges or corners can also be analyzed, although more work is needed to incorporate the physics of singular currents at these discontinuities. Convex dielectric structures can also be treated using OSRC. These will be the subject of a forthcoming paper.