Topic outline

  • General

    Welcome to the course ELEC-E4710 Computational Electromagnetics (5cr)!


    The course starts on March 2, 2021, at 10:15 in Zoom. The link can be found from Section Materials. Lecture is Pasi Ylä-Oijala.

    The course contains lectures, exercises (home works) and two project works. The course does not have exam.

    Lectures are on Tuesdays 10:15 - 12:00, and on two Wednesdays March 3 and April 21, 14:15 - 16:00.

    On-line Zoom exercises are on Wednesdays 14:15 - 16:00, excluding March 3 and April 21. The exercises contain type types of home works, theoretical and MATLAB programming tasks. The deadline for submitting the solutions for theoretical exercises is at the beginning of the exercise session. The deadline for submitting the solutions for MATLAB tasks is on next Friday at 16:15 (two days after the exercise session). For installing MATLAB, see https://download.aalto.fi/.

    Project works are larger MATLAB programming tasks where the goal is to implement FEM (2D waveguide eigenmode analysis) and MoM (PEC-only antenna structure) solvers.

    The course consists of two parts, the finite element method (FEM), period 4 (March 2 - April 16), and the method of moments (MoM), period 5 (April 19 - June 4). In FEM we consider electrostatic (Laplace equation) and electrodynamic (time harmonic Maxwell's equations) field problems, computation of the cavity and waveguide eigenmodes as well as solution of scattering problems. In MoM the main focus is on solving 3D time harmonic antenna and scattering problems. We also shortly discuss electrostatic and 2D problems with MoM.

    Earlier experience of MATLAB is highly recommended. Also basics of electromagnetic theory and vector differential and integral calculus are preferable. 

    The schedule and content of the course is as follows:

    FEM part:

    March 2 : Lecture 1 (general information, introduction to computational electromagnetic, vector differential and integral calculus, numerical integration, method of weighted residuals)

    March 3 : Lecture 2 (FEM in1D, weak formulation, basis and test functions, enforcing boundary conditions, matrix assembly)

    March 9 : Lecture 3 (2D nodal FEM in for electrostatics)

    March 10 : Exercise 1

    March 16 : Lecture 4 (nodal FEM continues, high order approximations, vector FEM for magnetostatics and Maxwell's equations)

    March 17 : Exercise 2

    March 23 : Lecture 5 (vector FEM continues, cavities, eigenvalue problems, waveguides)

    March 24 : Exercise 3

    March 30 : Lecture 6 (vector FEM continues, scattering problems, absorbing boundary conditions, S-parameter computation)

    March 31 : Exercise 4

    April 6: Lecture 7 (high-order basis functions)

    April 7: Project work MATLAB session

    April 13 & 14 : Evaluation week (no lectures nor exercises) 

    MoM part:

    April 20 : Lecture 8 (introduction to MoM, electrostatic and 2D problems)

    April 21 : Lecture 9 (dyadic Green's function, surface representation for the solutions of Maxwell's equations, scattering by PEC objects, EFIE, MFIE)

    April 27 : Lecture 10 (divergence conforming functions, weak formulations, local matrices, integration of non-singular integrals)

    April 28 : Exercise 5

    May 4 : Lecture 11 (singular integrals, penetrable objects with surface and volume formulations)

    May 5 : Exercise 6

    May 11 : Lecture 12 (RCS and antenna computations, internal resonances & CFIE, low frequency problems)

    May 12 : Exercise 7

    May 18 : Lecture 13 (composite structures, layered medium, fast integral equation solvers)

    May 19 : Exercise 8

    May 26 : Project work MATLAB session

    June 2 : Project work MATLAB session (if needed)