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AND PROPAGATION, VOL.

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NO. 6. NOVEMBER 1979

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equations obtained by using the zeroth- and first-order ( m = 0 and m = 1) EBC equations as additional ones. The side width W of the square cylinder normalized by l/ko is chosen as the abscissa. In Figs. 2 and 4 the dotted curves coincide with the dashed ( [ I , = 0.707 h where h is the onesnearthefirstresonance wavelength),andthedashedcurvescoincidewiththesolid ones near the second resonance( W = 1.12 X).

v. DISCUSSION
We see from Figs. 1-4 that the unstable conditions occur within a relativelynarrowfrequency-spectrumwidthinthe case of a dielectric cylinder (which is also true in the case of a conducting cylinder with TM excitation). However, it must also be noted that their ranges are not points but finite width, so that we should not use (2), or (3) and (4) without any care. Of course, there will be no problems when solutions are not sought in the near-regions of resonances, and the unstable frequency-spectrum width will be expected to shrink narrower as the precision of numerical calculation becomes higher. If the EBC equations (9) or (10) are properly used in addition to the surface equations ( 2 ) , or (3) and (4), the acceptable solutions can be obtained even in the parameter ranges near resonances as shown by the dashed and dotted curves in the figures. However, it must be noted that near the second reso( m = 0) nance ( W = 1.12 X) use of onlythezeroth-order equation is not adequate to eliminate resonant solutions. This can easily beunderstood if we recognizethatthe m = 0 equation in (9) or (10)is just the same as that of (7) or ( 8 ) and that in the example treated here the coordinate originis just on a nodalline of a secondresonant TM modeintheconductingsquarehollowcylinder. On theotherhand, if the first-order ( m = 1 ) equation is used as well as the zeroth one, theacceptablesolutionscanbeobtained.Sincethehigher of fieldwith orderequations of EBC restrictthecondition angular variation (such as exp Oma))of the cylindrical coordinate, the situation never occurs such that the added higher order equation does not work at all to remove resonant solutions. In thissensethe m = 0 equation is the rather special no angular variation.) Furthercase. (Only this equation has more, the role of higher order equations decreases as the order m increases, which is a merit of the EBC method (while in the earlier method the role of each interior point equation does so clearly). Therefore, we will be not differ from the others able t o say that only a few lower order equations suffice for our purpose of removingresonantsolutionsthroughoutthe whole parameter range. Finally, we should remember that if we dont want to invoke the leastsquares solution to the overdetermined equations, we could remove the same number of equations as those of the added EBC equations from among theequationswhoseobservationpointsareonthesurface boundary [ 31. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to thank Prof. N. Kumagai of Osaka University for his continued encouragement.

R. Mittra and C. A.Klein,Stabilityandconvergenceofmoment method solutions, in Numerical andAsympfotic Techniques in Ekcfromagnetics. R. Mittra, E d . Berlin, NewYork:Springer-Verlag.1975, ch. 5. T. K. Wu and L. L. Tsai. Numerical analysisof electromagnetic fields in biological tissues, Proc. IEEE (Letters). vol. 62, no. 8, pp. 11671168. Aug. 1974. K. K.Mei,Unimomentmethodofsolvingantennaandscattering problems, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.. vol. AP-22, no. 6, pp. 760-766. Nov. 1974. N. Morita. Surface integral representations for electromagnetic scattering from dielectriccylinders, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 261-266. Mar. 1978. Another method of extending the boundary condition for the problem of scattering by dielectric cylinders, IEEE Trans. Anfennus Propagar. (Commun.).vol. AP-27, no. 1. pp. 9 7 9 9 . Jan. 1979. Electromagnetic fields induced inside T. K . Wu and L.L. Tsai. IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory arbitrary cylindersof biological tissue, Tech.. vol. MlT-25, (Short Papers). pp. 6145, Jan. 1977. -. Scattering by a r b i t r a r y cross-sectioned layered lossy dielectric cylinders, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagar., vol.AP-25.no. 4, pp. 518-524. Jul. 1977. C. Miller, Foundarions o f rhe Marhematical Theory of Elecfromagnetic Waves. Berlin, NewYork:Springer-Verlag,1%9. V. V. Solcdukhov and E. N . Vasilev, Diffraction of a plane electromagnetic wave by a dielectric cylinder of arbitrary crosssection, Sov. f h y . - T e c h . P h y s . .vol. 15, no. I , pp. 32-36, July 1970. N. Morita. Analysis of scattering by a rectangular cylinder by means of integral equation formulation.Trans. Insf. Elec. Commun. Eng. Japan, vol. 57-B, no. 10. pp. 72-80. Oct. 1974. J. R. Mautz and R. F. Harrington, If-field, E-field,and combined field solutionsforbodies of revolution.SyracuseUniv.. Syracuse, NY, Tech. Rep. TR-77-2, Feb.1977. -. Electromagnetic scatteringfrom a homogeneous body of revolution, SyracuseUniv.. Syracuse.NY.Tech. Rep. TR-77-10. Nov. 1977. K. Yasuura. Tech. Rep.-lnst.Elec. Eng. Japan. EMT-76-31,Oct. 1976. P. C. Waterman, Matrix formulation of electromagnetic scattering, Proc. IEEE, vol. 53. no. 8. pp. 805-8 12. Aug. 1965. -. scattering by dielectric obstacles. Alfa Freq., vol. 38 (Speciale).pp. 348-352, 1969. J . Van Bladel. Electromagnetic Fields. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964, p. 373. in the integral equation N. Morita, Resonant solutions involved approach to scattering from dielectric cylinders,presented at Int. Symp. on Antennas and Propagat.. B-10-4, Sendai. Aug. 1978.

-.

An Efficient Approach for Computing the Geometrical optics Field Reflected from a Numerically Specified Surface
RAJ MITTRA, FELLOW, IEEE, AND ALI RUSHDI*, STUDENT MEMBER, IEEE
Abstruct-In the conventional geometrical optical analysis of smooth surfaces it is customary to search for aspecular point on the surface of the scatterer for each given combination of source and observation points. In many situations only a numerical description of the surface is available rather than an analytical expression which lends itself more readily to a determination of the specular point.The numerically prescribed form for the surface may be locally interpolated each time a specular point is to be calculated. An alternative approach is investigated that circumvents the step of deriving the specular point and obtains the scattered field in a more

REFERENCES
[I] K. K.Mei and J. Van Bladel, Low-frequency scatteringby rectangular cylinders. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.. vol. A p - I I . no. I . pp. 52-56, Jan. 1963. 121 Scattering by perfectly-conducting rectangularcylindres. IEEE Trans. Anfennus Propagar., vol. AP-I I , no. 2, pp. 1 8 5 192, Mar. 1963.

-.

ManuscriptreceivedDecember 10, 1978; revised April 13, 1979. This work was supported in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Grant AFOSR-77-3375, and by the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration under Grant NASA-NAS-5-2.5062. The authors are with the Electromagnetics Laboratory, Department OfElectricalEngineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801. * The order of the authors is arbitrary.

001 8-926X/79/1100-0871$00.75 0 1979 IEEE

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POlNi WATION

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direct manner. Basically, the method begins by computing the reflected rays off the surface at the points where their coordinates, as well as the partial derivatives (or equivalently,thedirection of the normal), are numerically specified. Next, a cluster of three adjacent rays are chosen to define a mean ray and the divergence-factor associated with this mean ray. Finally, the amplitude, phase, and vector direction of the reflected field at a given observation point are derived by associating this point with the nearest mean ray and determining its position relativeto such aray.

SOURCE POINT

GIVEN INCIDENT FIELD

Fig. 1.

I. INTRODUCTION
Theproblem of computingthegeometricaloptics (GO) fieldreflectedfromanarbitrarysurfacearisesfrequentlyin the ray optical analysis of scattering from structures such as shaped subreflectors in Cassegrainian systems. The conventional approach [ 1 ] -[ 31 t o GO analysis is based on a search on the surface of the scatterer. procedure for the specular point For a pair of specified source and observation points, the specular point on a surface given by z = f(x, y ) must be determined via a numerical search such that the following conditions are satisfied [ 1 1 , [ 21 :

Reflected GO field is required at P, but specular point A is not known.

-as =o, ax

--

(1.1) (1.2)

aY

Fig. 2. Locating P within a pencil comprising a cluster of three adjacent rays. spect to the associated mean ray and to its three bouAding rays (Section VI). 7) Obtain the direction of the vector field at P in terms of thelocation of P withinitsassociatedpencil(Section VII). It will become clear as we develop the material and provide details of the procedure that the launching method does not an interpolarequire either a search for the specular point or tion of the reflector surface which can be rather arbitrary. It relies,instead, on the fundamental aspects of the theory of geometrical optics which allows the field at a given observation point to be expressed in terms of those in the immediate neighborhood via a quadratic interpolation formula based on GO. Since the interpolation formula is analytical rather than numerical, the field computation can be carried out very efficientlywithoutsacrificingtheaccuracy.Insupport of this statement,timeandaccuracycomparisonswiththeconventional method are presented in Section VIII.
11. THE REFLECTED FIELDAT A SPECIFIED REFLECTOR POINT

s=lsll+lsgl

where s1 and s2 are the distances from the source point 0 and the observation point P to the specular point A, respectively1 (see Fig. 1). Although seemingly straightforward, the problem of determining the coordinates of (x, y , z ) of A can involve extensive numerical computation for two reasons. First, for nuf ( x , y ) is notexmericallyspecifiedsurfacesthefunction plicitlyknownandmustfirstbeconstructed via a two-dimensional interpolation technique using, for example, spline functions. Second, the nonlinear equation (1.1) must be solved via an iteration procedure, e.g., a zero search, which can also be computationally involved and hence time-consuming. In this communication we present an alternative approach which circumvents both of the above steps; viz., the surface interpolationandthespecularpointsearchprovidedthatthe slope and the location of the points on the reflecting surface are specified-a situation that is common for numerically specified surfaces. We introduce a procedure, referred to here as the launching method, which employs the following key steps.

1 ) Launchraysfromthepointsource 0 t o all theprescribed grid points of the reflecting surface. Typically, the coordinates as well as the partial derivatives (or equivalently,thedirection of thesurfacenormal)are specified at these points. 2) Reflect these incident rays off the surface (Section11). 3) Define a mean ray associated with each pencil comprising a cluster of three adjacent rays (Section111). 4) Findthepencil, if any,withinwhichtheobservation point P falls (see Fig. 2). If P is not within any of the pencils, then it is in the shadow region (SectionIV). 5) Compute the magnitude of the field at P in terms of the divergence factor of the associated pencil (SectionV). 6) Use a quadratic phase approximation to obtain the phase of the field at P in terms of its relative location with re1 Note that vectors are indicated in the text by boldface letters and in the figures by arrows over the letters.

The first step in our procedureis to launch a bundleof rays from the point source 0 to all of the prescribed grid points on the reflecting surface. The surface normals at these points are presumed known and a straightforward application of the principles of GO allows us to compute the field at any observation point in space, as long as this point is located on one of the reflected rays. The problem of computing the reflected field when the observation point is not located on the reflected rays is described in this communication. Let 0 be the source point and A be an arbitrary point on the reflector. Also let the incident field at A be given by

E(A) = Z,H(A) X i

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6 , NOVEMBER 1979

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where Z, = @ is the free-space wave impedance, f(b) is the primary pattern of the source, and

s'=IA-Ol,

(2.3) (2.4)

i = (A

O)/s',

= unit vector along the incident ray.

Noting that a ray field is a locally plane wave and that the reflector has a smooth locally flat perfectly conducting surface, then by application of Snell's law and the boundary conditions [ 4 ] we get

fi = g

2(j

.$)i
*

(2.5)

Hr(A) = H'(A) - 2(Hi(A)

$ 6

(2.6)
E. E,

Er(A) = -Ei(A)

+ 2(Ei(A) 33

(2.7)

Fig. 3.

Illustrating choice of a mean ray.

where fi is the unit normal to the surface at point A, a n d 2 is the unit vector along the reflected ray. The indices i , r denote incident and reflected fields, respectively. Since the reflected field is a ray field, the E and H fields at any observation point are related by

The reflected mean ray can also be defined in a similar manner by first introducing a set of three points D,, E,, and Gz along the reflected rays

Er(A) = ZoHr(A) X 2.
111. THE MEAN RAY

(2.8)

E, = El + L A 2
The key to deriving the interpolation formula that would allow us to compute the fields at an arbitrary point in space not directly located on any of the reflected rays is to introduce the concept of a "mean" ray. We do this in the following manner. Consider a cluster of three rays corresponding t o a set of three adjacent points D, E, and G on the reflector (see Fig. 3). We construct the reflected rays off the surface, along the direction I?,, k z , and k 3 .Without loss of generality, let us assume that

(3.8) (3.9)

G2 = G1 + L i 3

where L is an arbitrary distance. M z , the intersection of the medians of the triangle D2E2G2, is given by

M, = Q(D2

+ E2 + G,)

= M1 i -

$(kl + k 2 +As).
(3.10)

M,M2. Any point

Themeanrayassociatedwiththereflectedpencil is along M locatedonthismeanraysatisfiesthe equation

Next we introduce a new set definition

of points D l , E l ,

GI via

the

M =M
where

+dm

(3.1 1)

D l = D - (I OD I - I 0 E l ) k l

(3.2) (3.3) (3.4)

E, = E
G, = G + (I OEI - I OG 11fi~.

Our motivation for introducing these new points is to construct a triangle DIEIGl of equiphase vertices in the vicinity of DEG as a preliminary t o defining the mean ray. Let MI be the pointof intersection of the mediansof the triangleDl El G I , 1.e.,

and p is the distance along theLmean ray measured from M I . It is evident from (3.12) that R , is independent of L , i.e., invariant to the translation of the triangle D2E2G2.

IV. DEVELOPMENT O F ANALYTICAL INTERPOLATION FORMULAS FOR AN ARBITRARY OBSERVATION POINT

As a preliminary to the actual computation of the reflected field atanarbitraryobservationpoint, we developthe requisiteinterpolationformulasbasedona GO analysis. T h e first step in this procedure is to associate the specified observation point P (see Fig. 4) with a reflected pencil whose mean ray is nearest to P. The identification of the particular pencil that satisfies this criterion is relatively straightforward as will be evident from the discussion below.

The mean ray for the incident pencil is then defined as OM,, and the cluster of three rays corresponding to the points D, E, and G is hereafter associated with this mean ray. An arbitrary point M along the mean rayis given by

M=O+X(M,

-O),

O<X<1.

(3.6)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6,NOVEMBER 1979

x,=

__

Fig. 4.

Observation cell.

P to one of the mean If we drop a normal from the point rays, then the point of intersection of the normal with the ray is given by

Fig. 5. (4.2)

(a) P belongs to shadow region AAiBjP + AB,CjP + ACjAjP AAjBiC = 2AAjBjPj > 0. (b) P belongs to lit regon AAjBjP + BjCjP + ACjAjP - AAjBiCi = 0.

Mli and k m iare the ith pencil values of MI and k , given by

(3.5) and (3.12), respectively. The nearest mean ray to P, say the jth ray, is the one that satisfies the criterion

above criterion in an algebraic manneras

P E j t h cell

P E lit region +-+ I AAjBjP

+

+ ABjCjP + ACjAjP - AAjBjCj I < 6

0.

(4.10)

We remark here that this procedure for determining the nearest mean ray is extremely rapid on the computer. Having determined the nearest mean ray to the observation ?oint P, the next step is to introduce a plane Lj, normal to R,j, i.e., the nearest mean ray. Let the plane Lj intersect the bounding rays at Aj, Bj, Cj where

If P is in the lit region,thereflectedfieldat P can be expressed in terms of the field at Fj (see Figs. 3 and 4) via the formula

where

(4.6)

hj
k(l OM,,

I + hi) phase a t Fj,

at

distance between

M1j and Fj,

$<PI HYP)
(4.7)

phase a t P relative to that at Fj, real unit vector representing the field direction E .'

V. MAGNITUDE OF THE REFLECTED FIELD AT P

The magnitude of the reflected field at P can be expressed as In the following two sections we show how the magnitude and phase of the reflected field at P can be expressed in terms of the knownvalues at Ai, Bj, and Cj provided thzt P lies within where M,j (see (3.5)) is the mean point of the jth reflected thelitregion of thegeometrical optics field.Before closing this sectionwe digress for a moment to show that avery simple pencil at the reflector surface, and DF is the divergence factor test can be devised a t this stage for determining whether P lies of thejth reflected pencil given by in the lit or shadow region. The point P is in the shadow region and hence has an identically zero GO field if it does not fall within the pencil of its nearest mean ray.2 With reference t o Fig. 5, we can state the
2This assumes equal or nearly equal size cells.

where hj is the distance between P and the reflector, measured along the jth mean ray. The expression for hj was given earlier

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6 , NOVEMBER 1979

875

in (4.2) and is repeated here for convenience:

hi

=R m j

.(P

Mlj).

(5.3)

G3

ThedivergencefactorDF of thereflectedpencilray is usually expressed in terms of p1 and p 2 , the principal radii of curvature of the reflected pencil. We can write D F as DF= [1 where
f-

2K,wAj

K ~ ~ h j ~ ] - ~ / ~

(5.4)

DI

2 P1
(5.5)
EI

Fig. 6 . Pertinent to computation divergence of

factor for reflected

pencil. is the mean curvature and 1

KG

= 7P1P2 =

(5.6)

is the Gaussian curvature. Since the incident illumination is is doublydivergent. fromapointsource,theincidentpencil Then, under the assumption that the reflector surface is doubly convex, the reflected pencil will also be doubly divergent. (This can be deduced from the relationship between the curvature matrices of the incident and reflected pencils and that of the surface [ 1 I ) . In this communication we limit ourselves to this situation and hence exclude the case of a general surface that might produce ray crossing or caustics. For the present problemboth KIM and KG aregreaterthanzeroandDF is equal to the square root of the inverse ratio of infinitesimal wavefrontareasbounded by thepencil.Fornumericalpurposes D F can be approximated by the square root of the inverse ratio of small triangular areas having equiphase vertices. We construct three triangles [DiEjGi,i = 1, 2 , 31 of-equiphase vertices at distances L apart, (Fig. 6) such that (DF)12 = [ 1

our assumption that the section of the wavefronts within the reflected pencil can be approximated by planar areas. On the other hand, L should not be chosen too small either, since in this event A Q ~4,a 2 , and 4 a 3 are only slightly different from each other and the evaluation of Klv and KG PresentsnumeriCaldifficUltY.
VI. PHASE OF THE REFLECTED FIELD AT P

Inthissectionwediscussthecomputation of thephase function @(E'), defined in (4.1 l), which relates the phase of thereflectedfieldat P to that at Fj, thefootof P on the nearest mean ray. Employing the Fresnel approximation [SI we express @J to within O(xij3) as

+ 2KML + K

G ~ L ~= ] - ~ ~ ~ (5.7)

where X I , x 2 are a3y two orthogonal coordinates at Fj i n the Plane transverse toRmj, i.e., the plane Lj of Fig. 4 which passes through P, Ai: Bj, and C j , and

(5.8)
where

Ani = area of triangle DjEiGi,

i = 1, 2, 3

is thecurvaturematrixat Fj. Instead of computing in the conventional manner [ 51 we can bypass certain stepsby evaluating @(P) using an alternative approach as follows.We choose the x1 axis in the Lj plane such that it passes through P (Fig. 41, i.e.,

(5.9)
Solving (5.7) and (5.8) for the two unknowns Kllf and KG we get

21 = (P and

K,w = (4402
=(
h 3

4Q3-

34Q1)/4LAQ1

(5.10)

i 2= R m j X i l .

(6.4)

- 2&2

+ Aa1)/2L2h1.

(5.1 1)

For this choice we have This completes the determination of DF (see (5.4)) and, hence, the computation of I Hr(P) I (see (5.1)), the magnitude of the @(PI = @(I p - Fj 1, 0) $Q11 I p - Fj 12. (6.5) reflected field. We close this section with a comment on the choice of the L used for the computation of t h e divergenceNotethatweneedonlyevaluatea single scalarconstant &11 factor. It is evident that L should not be so large as t o violate to compute @(P) using (6.5). We can accomplish this readily

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6 , NOVEMBER 1979

Fig. 8. Hyperboloid reflector fed at its external focus. c = 12 h, b = 8 A, d = 500 h, e = 1.5, and I OA I - I A01 I = constant = 2 b .

field. Assuming that the point source radiates a linearly polarized field, we note that this field, upon reflection from the reflector, will alsobelinearlypolarized.Hence,thevector direction of the field along a given ray will be invariant to displacement along that ray. Using this result we can write (see Fig. 7)

k ( A j ) = A(D) = E;ri(D) - 2(E;n'(D)

k(Bj)

* fiD)A'D * fiE)&E

(7.1) (7.2) (7.3)

= h ( E ) = &(E) - 2(&(E)

k ( C j ) = h ( G ) = $ ( G ) - 2(I;P'(G) * f i G ) f i G .

Let the distances from point P to points Ai, B j , and Cj be d l , d,, and d 3 , respectively. Hence, we can use a weighted average of the vector directions at Aj, B j , and Cj to approximately represent the vector direction atp. We then have and

which completes the derivation

of thevectordirectionof

Hr(P) .
VIII. NUMERICAL RESULTS (6.10) (6.11) Based on the analysis presented in the last few sections a computer program has been developed for the CDC Cyber 175 computer system. The program, which calculates the geometrical optics field scattered from an arbitrary numerically specified surface, is rather efficient in terms of both storage and computation time. A typical cost for calculating the GO field at 1000 observation points is roughly $2.00, which is a t least one order of magnitude less than that needed by a program based on the conventional specular point method for the same numerically specified surface. As a test case we have applied our computer program to the problem (see Fig. 8) of computing the H-plane field scattered from a hyperboloid with the feed located at 0, the external focus of the hyperboloid. Only a numerical description of the hyperboloid surface was supplied to the program. The source is assumed t o be a horn radiating a linearly polarized field. For this test problem the phase and magnitude of t h e field can be obtained independently using analytical formulas for the surface of the hyperboloid [6]. This allowed us to check the accuracy of the numerical method described in the communication and to confirm that the computations are extremely accurate. The error is smallest when the distance between two adjacent grid points is about h/40. Table I provides

where (6.13) (6.14) (6.15) Equations (6.5) and (6.12)-(6.15) can now be used to compute the phase @(PI at a given observation point P. VII. THE VECTOR DIRECTIONOF THE REFLECTED FIELD AT P The last topic remaining in the computation of the field at

P is the determination of the vector direction of the reflected

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1979

877

TABLE I DEPENCENCE O F ERROR ON CELL SIZE

CELL 510:

I. INTRODUCTION
The study of the wave propagatior. problem in a one-dimensionalinhomogeneousmediumisessentialtomanyapplied problems. The propagation of an electromagnetic wave through the ionosphere has long been a subject of research [ 11. The study is alsohelpfulintheunderstandingofthe problems:thetransmissionandreflectionpropertiesofthe plasma sheath [ 61 , the properties of nonuniform transmission lines: the acoustic wave in a stratified ocean [ 2 ] , t h e propagation in a layered troposphere [ 101, and the one-dimensional potential well (barrier) problem in quantum mechanics. Several methods have been developed for analyzing the wave propagation problem for one-dimensional inhomogeneous media, [ 13- [ 41. Of course, only a few profiles can have closed-form analytic solutions [ 1 ] - [ 5 1. For other profiles one must consider the approximate methods of Wentzel-KramerBrillouin (WKB), phaseintegral,steppedprofile [3],orthe techniques of mapping [ 6 ] , Hill's functions [7], generalized WKB method [ 81 , and integral equation [ 101 - [ 13I . Mostof thepreviousworksarebased on thedifferential formulation [1]-[91 or integral formulation [lo]-[ 131. Alternative formulation from the variational principle may be valuable and may give a different picture of the same problem. Numerical techniques based on the finite difference approximations [9] and the integral equation [ 131 have been developed recently for solving the problem with arbitrarily varying profiles. Although the finite difference method has the advantage of ease in computation and reduction in computing time, it may not be satisfactory for some cases due to the error associated with the approximation. The numerical integral equation method is more accurate than the finite difference method, but it has the disadvantage of dealing with the full matrix problem. The purpose of this study is t o develop, from variationalaspects,ausefulnumericaltechniquewhichcan keep the error small yet not increase the accompanied computer storage so it can handle the more general problems, such as the one with a rapidly varying profile, one with large profile height, or one with large slab thickness. One of the difficult problems in the numerical technique is the lack of a criterion for testing the accuracy of the numerical [ 151 may results. Mathematical formulas for error estimates be developed for this problem; however, they are impractical intheactualcomputation,becausetheydonottakeboth truncation and roundoff errors into consideration simultaneously. Another purpose of this study is t o establish a practicalcriterionforerrorestimatesbased on theconcept of energy balance.

RELATIVE =OR
P I X J HAGXI7JDE

IY

P W Z EICROR UDUNS

0.001 0.025 0.1 1

x
a

5
3

x
x x

10-5
10-3

0.001
0.0003
0.009

lo-&

somenumericalresultsfortheerror in themagnitudeand phase of the reflected field for the test problem. A small discontinuity in the field was observed as the observationpoint P wandered from one observation pencil to an adjacent one. The error introduced by this discontinuity was on the order of in field magnitude and 0.003 rad in phase for a distance of AI40 between the grid points. Thus, the discontinuityerrordeterminedtheupperlimit of thetotal error in the computation.

REFERENCES
S. W. Lee. P. Cramer. Jr..K . Woo. and Y . Rahmat-Samii. "Diffraction by an arbitrarymbretlector:GTD solution." I Trans. Antennas Propagar., vol. AP-27. no. 3. pp. 305-316. May 1979. W . V . T . Rusch. "Reflector antennas." in Numerical and Asymptoric Techniques in lecrromagnerics, R. Mittra. Ed. New York: SpringerVerlag. 1975. pp. 217-256. W . V . T. Rusch and 0. SOrenson, "On Determining if.a 3pecular point exists." lEE Trans. Anrennas Propagar.. vol. AP-27. no. I . pp. 9% I0I.Jan. 1979. F. S. Holt. "Wave fronts. rays. and focal surfaces." in Antenna Theo?," Part 7 . R. E.Collin and F. J . Zucker. Edb. New York: McGraa-Hill. 1969. S. 1 % ' . Lee. "Differential geometq torGTDapplications." L n n . Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Electromagnet. Lab. Rep. No. 77-7 I . Oct. 1977. R. MittraandA. M. Rushdi. "A numerically efticientapproach for field reflected from a specified computing the geometrical optics Electromagnet. Lab. surface." U n i v . Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rep. No. 78-16,Oct. 1978.

A Finite Element Solution of the Wave Propagation Problem for an Inhomogeneous Dielectric Slab
CHUN HSIUNG CHEN AND CHUEN-DER LIEN
Abstract-A numerical technique based on the variational principle and finite element method is developed for studying thewavepropagation problem for an arbitrary inhomogeneous dielectric slab. The variational equation for the boundary value problem is formulated and then solved numerically by the fmite element method. The energy criterion for estimating the error in the numerical solution is presented. Numerical results for linear, parabolic, and sinusoidal profiles are included.

11. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Propagation of a linearly polarized plane wave through an inhomogeneous dielectric slab (Fig. 1) will be the main subject of this study. An inhomogeneous dielectric slab ( p o , e O e 2 ( x ) ) occupies the space from x = 0 t o x = a. The spaces x < 0 and x > a are filled with the homogeneous media (po, and (Po, E O E Q ) , respectively. Specifically, the homogeneous 3 the earth, and the inmedium 1 may be the free space, homogeneous medium E z ( x ) may be the snow or something else. Alternatively, E ~ ( x may ) represent the ionosphere with 1 and 3 again representing free space. Any one of el, ?(X), and 3 may be lossy and complex, i.e., ~i = eif - j e j f ' , where

Manuscript received September 9, 1978; revised May 16,1979. The authors arewith the Department of ElectricalEngineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei,Taiwan, Republic of China.

0018-926X/79/1100-0877$00.75 O 1979 IEEE