The use of curl-conforming basis functions for the magnetic-field integral equation

Abstract

Divergence-conforming Rao-Wilton-Glisson (RWG) functions are commonly used in integral-equation formulations to model the surface current distributions on planar triangulations. In this paper, a novel implementation of the magnetic-field integral equation (MFIE) employing the curl-conforming n̂ × RWG basis and testing functions is introduced for improved current modelling. Implementation details are outlined in the contexts of the method of moments, the fast multipole method, and the multilevel fast multipole algorithm. Based on the examples of electromagnetic modelling of conducting scatterers, it is demonstrated that significant improvement in the accuracy of the MFIE can be obtained by using the curl-conforming n̂ × RWG functions.