P(MoM/MAS): an interactive environment, coupling WWW technology and parallel processing, to solve large-size electromagnetic problems

Parallel processing over the Internet is now becoming a realistic possibility. There are numerous of-the-shelf high-performance computing (HPC) platforms available with Internet access, on which to implement computationally intensive algorithms. HPC can be applied in the field of computational electromagnetics. The networking capabilities of the Internet now allow these computing resources to be used as a remote service. Additionally, the pragmatics of their utilization can be abstracted by adopting a World Wide Web (WWW) interface. A Web-based environment can provide the supportive tools for data entry, program initiation, result visualization, and even interactive modifications of the geometry and/or electromagnetic (EM) properties. For realistic interaction, the emerging question is which algorithm to use that supports the exploitation of parallelism. In order to exploit and utilize all the available performance of current and predicted HPC platforms, inherently-parallel-based algorithms have to be devised. One such algorithm is the parallel method of moments/method of auxiliary sources, P(MoM/MAS), introduced in this paper. The resulting algorithm parallelization enables the MoM/MAS method to be applied to solving electrically-large-in-size and complex EM structures on various computational platforms. This paper concentrates on the parallel-processing issues, and on the importance of adopting suitable algorithms, such as the MoM/MAS technique.