DATA-log

I want to write a little bit more about my studies on waves and automata models. I wrote a vastly improved TLM code on MATLAB which now includes for example first order absorbing boundaries. It is important to distinct this approach from a mathematical model, this is a analogous physical system to wave propagation. You could think of it as using computer memory element grid as an discrete analogy to the vacuum.

This sort of physical modelling and computation was first used by a Hungary born mathematician and electrical engineer Dr. Gabriel Kron in 1943 while working for General Electric (see paper called ‘Equivalent Circuits to Represent the Electromagnetic Field Equations’ on Physical Review Vol.64 Numbers 3-4 1943.) The approach involved analog computing in the form of a RLC network. The approach was then picked up by P.B. Johns and R.L. Beurle (see paper ‘Numerical solution of 2-dimensional scattering problems using a transmission-line matrix’ on Proc. IEE, Vol. 118, No. 9, 1971, pp. 1203-1208) applied to ‘computors’ as they were then called.

The Johns and Beurle numerical method involves applying a simple scattering automata rule to a discrete node grid. This doesn’t exactly involve integration in the sense that a discretisized mathematical model would; only arithmetic needed is addition (floating or fixed-point) for summing up the node incidence and reflection time-step impulses involved in the scattering rule (which are directly derivable from normalized unitary impedance electrical node network.)

The simple TLM here is configured for the classic Young double slit experiment. Although this particular setup could be thought to just propagate the electric field, the corresponding magnetic field can be derived aswell together with different permittivity and permeability coefficients to model material properties.

Tags: electromagnetic field, physical computation, scalar

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 4:47 am and is filed under Electronics, Math, Physics, Vintage computing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.