Implementation and optimization of GPU‐based parallel one‐step leapfrog ADI‐FDTD for far‐field scattering problems

The one‐step leapfrog alternative‐direction‐implicit finite‐difference time‐domain (ADI‐FDTD), free from the Courant‐Friedrichs‐Lewy (CFL) stability condition and sub‐step computations, is efficient when dealing with fine grid problems. However, solution of the numerous tridiagonal systems still imposes a great computational burden and makes the method hard to execute in parallel. In this paper, we proposed an efficient graphic processing unit (GPU)‐based parallel implementation of the one‐step leapfrog ADI‐FDTD for the far‐field EM scattering simulation of objects, in which we present and analyze the manners of calculation area division and thread allocation and a data layout transformation of z components is proposed to achieve better memory access mode, which is a key factor affecting GPU execution efficiency. The simulation experiment is carried out to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the GPU‐based implementation. The simulation results show that there is a good agreement between the proposed one‐step leapfrog ADI‐FDTD method and Yee's FDTD in solving the far‐field scattering problem and huge benefits in performance were encountered when the method was accelerated using GPU technology.     

Electromagnetic imaging of buried perfectly conducting cylinder targets using the dynamic differential evolution

Dynamic differential evolution (DDE) for shape reconstruction of perfect conducting cylinder buried in a half‐space is presented. Assume that a conducting cylinder of unknown shape is buried in one half‐space and scatters the field incident from another half‐space where the scattered filed is measured. Based on the boundary condition and the measured scattered field, a set of nonlinear integral equations is derived and the imaging problem is reformulated into an optimization problem. The inverse problem is resolved by an optimization approach, and the global searching scheme DDE is then used to search the parameter space. Numerical results demonstrate that even when the initial guess is far away from the exact one, good reconstruction can be obtained by using DDE both with and without the additive Gaussian noise. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2012.     

A decoupled source current reconstruction method for noisy and reactive near‐field to far‐field transformation

In this article, a decoupled source current reconstruction method (SRM) for noisy and reactive near‐field (NF) to far‐field (FF) transformation is introduced. It is shown that the traditional SRM for NF/FF transformation shows instability in the regions that the amounts of noise or reactive radiations are noticeable. Therefore, in these regions, equivalent currents should be determined from a Tikhonov SRM equation. However, this equation increases the computational cost of the SRM. To simplify the Tikhonov SRM equation, a Tikhonov radial field retrieval algorithm is also proposed. In this algorithm, the Tikhonov integral equation is decoupled by considering and retrieving the radial components of the electric field. Results of far‐field calculation with both the proposed Tikhonov SRM equation and Tikhonov radial field retrieval algorithm with three different antennas are presented and compared with those of the full‐wave simulation and measurements. The results show more accurate field transformation with the proposed algorithms.     

Electromagnetic scattered field time series from finite difference time domain trained time delay neural network

This paper uses time delay neural network (TDNN) for predicting electromagnetic (EM) fields scattered from dielectric objects (cylinder, cylinder‐hemisphere, and cylinder‐cone) using: (a) FDTD generated initial field data for similar conducting objects and (b) Statistical information for the nature of fields. Statistical data indicated that the scattered field nature is close to deterministic. The TDNN structure determination uses statistical data for fixing the number of delays and tabular technique to obtain the number of hidden neurons. The TDNN training uses the Levenberg‐Marquardt (LM) algorithm. The model outputs follow standard FDTD results closely.     

Design of a low‐cost 1‐20 GHz magnetic near‐field probe with FR‐4 printed circuit board

An ultra‐wideband magnetic near‐field probe based on a conventional low‐cost four layers of FR‐4 printed circuit board is proposed in this article. It can be used to measure the magnetic near‐field strength from RF magnetic sources or electronic devices for EMI conformance test. The operating frequency of the probe is from 1 GHz up to 20 GHz. The probe is constructed based on a coplanar waveguide and stripline with a short‐end loop. The probe dimension is 10 mm × 25 mm × 0.6 mm. The prototype probe is electric field‐shield structure and has a very high unwanted electric field suppression ratio about 17.7 dB. The probe calibration factor from the simulation agrees well with the calibration factor computed from the measurement. The average probe factor is 38.8 dBS/m and probe sensitivity is 47.4 dB μ A/m.     

Radiation characteristics of strip‐loaded dielectric‐coated conducting cylinder

The radiation characteristics of strip‐loaded dielectric‐coated conducting cylinder are investigated theoretically for the infinite and finite periodic structures. For the infinite case, the strip electric current expansion satisfying edge condition and the field expression with a summation of space harmonics are applied to solve a homogeneous matrix equation. The integral equation is derived for the finite structure by using the inverse Fourier transform and the strip current expansion. The influences of the strip width, cylinder radius, and finite strip number on the radiation characteristics (leakage constant, phase constant, radiation pattern, and beam scanning) are investigated. The results of the finite periodic strips are compared with those of the infinite extent structure and good agreement is found. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2008.     

The multiple loop antenna for enhanced readability performances of near‐field UHF RFID applications

This research is concerned with a multiple loop antenna applicable to near field ultra‐high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID). The proposed multi‐loop antenna is configured to induce the robust and even magnetic field distributions in the H_x, H_y, and H_z orientations so as to achieve the enhanced readability performances in all directions (i.e., x, y, and z). Simulations were carried out using CST Microwave Studio to determine the impedance bandwidth (|S₁₁|H_x‐, H_y‐, and H_z‐oriented magnetic field distributions. A prototype antenna of 14 cm × 16 cm × 0.6 mm (W × L × H) in overall dimension was subsequently fabricated on an FR4 substrate connected to a coaxial cable. In this research, the H_x‐, H_y‐, and H_z‐oriented magnetic field distributions of the prototype antenna were measured in the x‐axis, y‐axis, and x–y plane and are in good agreement with the simulation results. The measured readability performances in the x‐, y‐, and z‐directions in which seven near field UHF RFID tags were deployed unobstructed (i.e., in open air) are respectively 25.27%, 31.73%, and 85.43%. Furthermore, the performances on the antenna readability with the tags attached to the microcentrifuge tubes are 30.55%, 25.90%, and 69.09% for the x‐, y‐, and z‐directions. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:402–417, 2016.     

Mean‐field games for multiagent systems with multiplicative noises

This paper studies mean‐field games for multiagent systems with control‐dependent multiplicative noises. For the general systems with nonuniform agents, we obtain a set of decentralized strategies by solving an auxiliary limiting optimal control problem subject to consistent mean‐field approximations. The set of decentralized strategies is further shown to be an ε‐Nash equilibrium. For the integrator multiagent systems, we design a set of ε‐Nash strategies by exploiting the convexity property of the limiting problem. It is shown that under the mild conditions, all the agents achieve mean‐square consensus.     

A robust method for the computation of new closed‐form Green's functions for microstrip structures

A robust approach for the computation of new closed‐form Green's functions is considered to calculate the symmetrical microstrip Green's functions. In this method, the surface‐wave poles are first extracted using a recursive contour integration method. Then, the remainder is approximated by a series of complex exponentials using the Prony's method or the generalized pencil‐of‐function method (GPOF) along the extended rooftop shaped path in k_ρ‐plane. Subsequently, an analytical identity is employed to obtain the new spatial‐domain Green's functions. It is observed that this method can evaluate the spatial‐domain Green's functions accurately and efficiently for both near and far fields. In addition, there is no erroneous results in the near‐field region when z ≠ z′ and ρ → 0. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2011.     

Spatio‐temporal scanning backlight mode for field‐sequential‐color optically‐compensated‐bend liquid‐crystal display

Abstract— A spatially and temporally scanning backlight consisting of ten isolated micro‐structured light guides has been developed to be combined with a fast‐response optically‐compensated‐bend‐mode field‐sequential‐color LCD in which the liquid‐crystal cell does not contain color filters. The sequential fields of three primary colors are generated by illumination of the red‐, green‐, and blue‐light‐emitting diodes, each illuminating for one‐half of the field, resulting in a luminance of 200 cd/m² for the LCD. The effect of light leakage between the blocks in the scanning backlight in field‐sequential‐color applications was measured and will be described.     

Wearable near‐field communication bracelet based on highly conductive graphene‐assembled films

Benefiting from the high conductivity and superb flexibility, graphene‐based materials are promising to replace metal for near‐field communication (NFC) applications. Herein, we report a flexible NFC tag antenna based on high‐conductivity graphene‐assembled films (HCGAFs) and investigate how the performance of the antenna is affected by antenna design and human body effect. The fabricated prototype via a one‐step laser‐direct mold engraving method shows a 10 dB bandwidth of 2.5 MHz centering at 13.70 MHz with a quality factor (Q) of 9.19. The maximum read range of the HCGAF NFC tag is measured to be around 7.5 cm, comparable to the commercially available metal NFC tags. Moreover, the flexible nature of HCGAFs guarantees excellent mechanical stability and deformation insensitivity, especially when compared to commercial metal‐based counterparts. We further demonstrate the practical applications of the HCGAF tag as key card and electronic business card in the vicinity of human body.     

Necessary and Sufficient Near‐Optimal Conditions for Mean‐Field Singular Stochastic Controls

We consider the near‐optimal control problems for mean‐field singular stochastic systems, where the control domain is non‐convex. By virtue of Ekeland's principle and some estimates on the state and adjoint processes, necessary and sufficient conditions for near‐optimality are established in the mean‐field framework. As an application, an example is presented to demonstrate the results.     

Dual‐space ray casting for height field rendering

This paper presents a realistic ray casting model on a curved surface. Guided by the model, we derive an analytical solution for spherical surfaces and propose a mathematical model by solving one problem in two spaces. By using the solution, we introduce a novel framework for spherical height field rendering. We have successfully implemented a spherical height field rendering framework on the graphics processing unit and obtained real‐time rendering rates with screen error below 1 pixel. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Frequency dependence on image reconstruction for a buried imperfectly conducting cylinder

Frequency dependence on image reconstruction for a buried imperfectly conducting cylinder is investigated. A conducting cylinder of unknown shape and conductivity is buried in one half‐space and the incident wave is scattered from another half‐space. By using measured scattered field, the image problem is reformulated into an optimization problem and solved by the genetic algorithm. Frequency dependence on image reconstruction is investigated and numerical results show that the reconstruction is well in the resonant frequency range. On the contrary, if the frequency is too high or too low, then the reconstruction becomes bad. This work provides both comparative and quantitative information. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 12: 144–147, 2002.     

Dual‐rate sampled‐data stabilization for active suspension system of electric vehicle

In this paper, we consider the dual‐rate sampled‐data state‐feedback control problem for an active suspension system of an electric vehicle. In the active suspension system, there exist 2 accelerometers to measure the heave acceleration of the sprung mass and the vertical acceleration of the unsprung mass, respectively. When the 2 accelerations are measured by sampled data under different sampling periods, the difficulty arising from the dual‐rate sampled data makes the active suspension stabilization problem challenging but interesting. In this paper, a linear hybrid stabilizer is proposed, which is implemented using dual‐rate sampled‐data state feedback. In order to deal with the more difficult stabilization problem under different triggering time instants, a coordinate transformation is proposed. A useful technical theorem is proposed in the stability analysis to show that the proposed hybrid controller can guarantee the states of the active suspension system being asymptotically stabilized or at least bounded to arbitrarily small domains. The experiment result is similar to the simulation result and indicates that the proposed active suspension controlling system is effective.     

A Measurement‐Based Approach for Designing Fixed‐Order Controllers for Unknown Closed‐Loop Architecture

This paper presents a new technique to design fixed‐structure controllers for linear unknown systems using a set of measurements. In model‐based approaches, the measured data are used to identify a model of the plant for which a suitable controller can be designed. Due to the fact that real processes cannot be described perfectly by mathematical models, designing controllers using such models to guarantee some desired closed‐loop performance is a challenging task. Hence, a possible alternative to model‐based methods is to directly utilize the measured data in the design process. We propose an approach to designing structured controllers using a set of closed‐loop frequency‐domain data. The principle of such an approach is based on computing the parameters of a fixed‐order controller for which the closed‐loop frequency response fits a desired frequency response that describes some desired performance indices. This problem is formulated as an error minimization problem, which can be solved to find suitable values of the controller parameters. The main feature of the proposed control methodology is that it can be applied to stable and unstable plants. Additionally, the design process depends on a pre‐selected controller structure, which allows for the selection of low‐order controllers. An application of the proposed method to a DC servomotor system is presented to experimentally validate and demonstrate its efficacy.     

As‐Killing‐As‐Possible Vector Fields for Planar Deformation

Cartoon animation, image warping, and several other tasks in two‐dimensional computer graphics reduce to the formulation of a reasonable model for planar deformation. A deformation is a map from a given shape to a new one, and its quality is determined by the type of distortion it introduces. In many applications, a desirable map is as isometric as possible. Finding such deformations, however, is a nonlinear problem, and most of the existing solutions approach it by minimizing a nonlinear energy. Such methods are not guaranteed to converge to a global optimum and often suffer from robustness issues. We propose a new approach based on approximate Killing vector fields (AKVFs), first introduced in shape processing. AKVFs generate near‐isometric deformations, which can be motivated as direction fields minimizing an “as‐rigid‐as‐possible” (ARAP) energy to first order. We first solve for an AKVF on the domain given user constraints via a linear optimization problem and then use this AKVF as the initial velocity field of the deformation. In this way, we transfer the inherent nonlinearity of the deformation problem to finding trajectories for each point of the domain having the given initial velocities. We show that a specific class of trajectories — the set of logarithmic spirals — is especially suited for this task both in practice and through its relationship to linear holomorphic vector fields. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method for planar deformation by comparing it with existing state‐of‐the‐art deformation methods.     

Efficient Depth‐of‐Field Rendering with Adaptive Sampling and Multiscale Reconstruction

Depth‐of‐field is one of the most crucial rendering effects for synthesizing photorealistic images. Unfortunately, this effect is also extremely costly. It can take hundreds to thousands of samples to achieve noise‐free results using Monte Carlo integration. This paper introduces an efficient adaptive depth‐of‐field rendering algorithm that achieves noise‐free results using significantly fewer samples. Our algorithm consists of two main phases: adaptive sampling and image reconstruction. In the adaptive sampling phase, the adaptive sample density is determined by a ‘blur‐size’ map and ‘pixel‐variance’ map computed in the initialization. In the image reconstruction phase, based on the blur‐size map, we use a novel multiscale reconstruction filter to dramatically reduce the noise in the defocused areas where the sampled radiance has high variance. Because of the efficiency of this new filter, only a few samples are required. With the combination of the adaptive sampler and the multiscale filter, our algorithm renders near‐reference quality depth‐of‐field images with significantly fewer samples than previous techniques.     

Thin‐slot formalism for the split‐field FDTD analysis of periodic structure

An expression of the thin‐slot formalism is presented to alleviate the gridding of the split‐field finite‐difference time‐domain (FDTD) solution for periodic structure. The varying auxiliary‐field ( , ) and split‐field ( , ) distributions near the slots are analytically derived from the varying field ( , ). The update equations for the split‐field FDTD are obtained by incorporating those varying field distributions into the split‐field equations in integral form. A frequency selective surface (FSS) structure is applied to verify the proposed method. The results indicate that the computational efficiency is improved.     

Consensus problem of high‐order multi‐agent systems with external disturbances: An H∞ analysis approach

This paper is devoted to the output consensus problem of directed networks of multiple high‐order agents with external disturbances, and proposes a distributed protocol using the neighbors' measured outputs. By defining an appropriate controlled output and conducting a model transformation in two steps, consensus performance analysis of the multi‐agent system under the proposed protocol is transformed into a normal H_∞ problem. Then using H_∞ theory of linear systems, conditions are derived to ensure the consensus performance with a prescribed H_∞ index for networks with fixed and switching topologies, respectively. A numerical example of the formation control application is included to validate the theoretical results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.