Selecting printed circuit board parameters using swarm intelligence to minimize crosstalk between adjacent tracks

The purpose of this paper is to provide a numerical tool for designers in order to help reduce the unwanted coupling between nearby transmission lines on printed circuit boards. This is accomplished using particle swarm optimization technique, where the coupling factor between adjacent lines is used as the fitness function. The coupling factor is computed based on conformal mapping equations of capacitances for even and odd modes of different types of transmission lines, including microstrip and strip lines. Anisotropic, isotropic, asymmetric, and symmetric coupled lines are considered. The S-parameters of the optimized and unoptimized configurations are computed from the conformal mapping equations and also using the full-wave electromagnetic simulator IE3D, which is based on the method of moments, where an agreement can be observed between the two results. Different examples are presented here that show the effectiveness of this method in reducing the coupling factor. A Matlab program is written to harness particle swarm optimization to find optimum solutions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.