A FAFFA-MLFMA algorithm for electromagnetic scattering

Based on the multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA), an efficient method is proposed to accelerate the solution of the combined field integral equation in electromagnetic scattering and radiation, where the fast far-field approximation (FAFFA) is combined with MLFMA. The translation between groups in MLFMA is expensive because spherical Hankel functions and Legendre polynomials are involved and the translator is defined on an Eward sphere with many k/spl circ/ directions. When two groups are in the far-field region, however, the translation can be greatly simplified by FAFFA where only a single k/spl circ/ direction is involved in the translator. The condition for using FAFFA and the way to efficiently incorporate FAFFA with MLFMA are discussed. Complexity analysis illustrates that the computational cost in FAFFA-MLFMA can be asymptotically cut by half compared to the conventional MLFMA. Numerical results are given to verify the efficiency of the algorithm.