An efficient surface integral equation method for the time-harmonic Maxwell equations

Abstract

We present an efficient algorithm to compute high order approximations to the radar cross section (RCS) of a perfectly conducting three dimensional target by solving the time harmonic Maxwell equations. We demonstrate that the algorithm requires only a few tens of thousands of unknowns to compute the RCS of three dimensional targets at medium frequencies. These relatively small linear systems can be solved iteratively or using a direct solver. The possibility of using a direct solver is an advantage in computing the monostatic RCS, which involves solving hundreds of linear systems with one matrix but hundreds of right hand sides. We demonstrate that the monostatic RCS of medium electromagnetic sized conductors can be computed at over one thousand transmitter directions in a few hours of computer time.