Shaped Radome and Embedded FSS Modeling

XL Scientific proposes to develop a high-performance computational electromagnetic (CEM) simulation software for use in modeling shaped radomes and embedded frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) on large-scale platforms. Large and complex antennas are commonly used in airborne platforms to transmit and receive signals. Radomes found on airborne platforms often have streamlined shapes to reduce aerodynamic drag. A typical radome is constructed with multiple layers of dielectric materials with or without embedding FSSs. The electromagnetic characteristics of an ideal radome are similar to a band-pass or a band-stop digital filter: it is opaque to hostile signals, but is transparent to friendly ones. Optimizing the radome shape and embedding FFSs can reflect and attenuate unwanted signals, and pass desired signals with less attenuation.The proposed software will use a hybrid simulation approach to characterize an arbitrary shaped radome and simulate multiple antenna interactions on large-scale platforms. The approach is to combine an exact-physics multi-region multi-solver domain decomposition method (MR-MS-DDM) with an asymptotic ray-tracing method. Our approach provides considerable cost savings over measurement-based antenna characterization, as well as time savings, potentially accelerating system development schedules during the design phase.