Minimum-time optimization of in-situ antenna performance

We propose development of a software package which, based on use of accurate and efficient exact-physics computational electromagnetics (CEM) solvers together with a combination of automated and interactive optimization tools, will enable optimization of the properties of on-platform mounted-antenna systemsand, when possible, recovery of original free-space antenna characteristics. For accuracy and modeling flexibility the proposed codes combine the fast, high-order frequency- and time-domain algorithms put recently by our teamwhich can accurately and efficiently resolve both low- and high-frequency behavior while accounting for scattering, transmission and absorption by metallic, dielectric and magnetic components. These solvers have provided some of the most efficient PDE solution methods in existence: in some cases, our algorithms are up to one-thousand times faster, for a given accuracy, than some of the best alternative solvers. Our overall approach to in-situ antenna optimization, in turn, relies on a combination of classical gradient-based optimization methods (applied to parameters defining geometrical shapes) and a new"path-following"technique, in which optimal antenna shapes and mountings are produced incrementally, as secondary structures (gimbal, secondary antennae, airframe, radome, electronics, etc) are subsequently introduced.