Improving iterative solutions of the electric-field integral equation via transformations into normal equations

We consider the solution of electromagnetics problems involving perfectly conducting objects formulated with the electric-field integral equation (EFIE). Dense matrix equations obtained from the discretization of EFIE are solved iteratively by the generalized minimal residual (GMRES) algorithm accelerated with a parallel multilevel fast multipole algorithm. We show that the number of iterations is halved by transforming the original matrix equations into normal equations. This way, memory required for the GMRES algorithm is reduced by more than 50%, which is significant when the problem size is large.