A Novel OpenGL-Based MoM/SBR Hybrid Method for Radiation Pattern Analysis of an Antenna Above an Electrically Large Complicated Platform

An efficient open graphics library (OpenGL)-based method of moments (MoM)–shooting and bouncing ray (SBR) hybrid method is proposed in this paper to analyze the radiation pattern of an antenna above an electrically large, complicated platform. This study takes advantage of the outstanding rendering technique of OpenGL to accelerate the tracing process of rays from antenna. To improve the accuracy of shadow determination and decrease the number of triangular patches, an OpenGL-based subdivision algorithm is deeply investigated. In addition, some optimization schemes based on OpenGL are also proposed to further boost the algorithm efficiency. Accordingly, this novel MoM-SBR hybrid method can yield more efficient performance compared with the conventional MoM-SBR method. Moreover, some simulation results of the proposed method are verified by comparing with those of FEKO-MLFMM. Finally, examples of realistic airplane and warship models illustrate that our codes perform well even at electrically large complex targets. Simulated 3-D radiation patterns clearly demonstrate disturbance from the platform, and such patterns are of great interest for real antenna design.