A Hybrid Method for the Coupling Analysis of Unequal Length MTLs With Arbitrary Heights Based on FDTD-TL Method.

A time domain hybrid method consisting of transmission line (TL) equations, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, and a S-parameter cascade (SC) technique with the interpolation techniques is presented for the coupling analysis of unequal length multiconductor transmission lines (MTLs) with arbitrary heights excited by ambient electromagnetic wave efficiently. In this hybrid method, the unequal length MTLs are divided into several equal length MTLs via additional nodes. For each equal length MTLs, the FDTD method combined with the TL equations (FDTD-TL) and the interpolation techniques are used to compute the transient responses on the lines. And then, the S-parameters of the nodes are utilized to realize the signal transmission between these equal length MTLs. Three cases about the unequal length MTLs with arbitrary heights on the ground or in the cavity excited by ambient wave are given to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of this method by comparing with the traditional FDTD method. The computation time and memory cost by this hybrid method are much less than that of the FDTD method, because the MTLs do not need to be meshed in this hybrid method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]