A Multi-Region SIE Solution for Scattering from Hypersonic Vehicle with Plasma Sheath Based on Piecewise Homogeneous Modeling

We present a multi-region surface integral equation (MR-SIE) solution for the analysis of electromagnetic (EM) scattering from an aircraft with plasma sheath. The MR-SIE offers advantages over volume-meshed methods in terms of lower dimensionality of unknowns but requires homogeneity within each region. A flexible piecewise homogeneous modeling (PHM) method based on K-means clustering is proposed, which accurately and efficiently maps the inhomogeneous plasma sheath into a multi-region model. Compared with the conventional K-means clustering method, a distance formula designed for plasma EM parameters was investigated for the partition of plasma sheath. To further prompt the convenience and efficiency of the MR-SIE solver, the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method is employed to discretize the electric and magnetic current combined field integral equations (JMCFIE) of the multi-region model. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the MR-SIE solution with the flexible PHM exhibits accuracy and efficiency, showing good potential for fast analyzing the EM scattering characteristics of hypersonic vehicles.