Question

Can someone explain the Yee algorithm/FDTD. How is time and space divided. What is meant by discretizing Maxwell's equations and after this how its able to solve his equations. There may be other concepts that I left out, but I'm just looking for an overview of it all with little to no mathematics involved.

Answer 1

Finite-Difference time-domain (FDTD) or Yee's algorithm is one of the most popular technique for the solution of electromagnetic problems ( in modelling computational electromagnetics) . It has been successfully applied to an extremely wide variety of problems, such as scattering from metal objects and dielectrics, microstrip circuits, and electromagnetic absorption in the human body exposed to radiation.

Basis of the FDTD method is simple. To solve an electromagnetic problem, the idea is to simply discretize, both in time and space, the Maxwell’s equations with central difference approximations.

Space and time are divided by discretization of Maxwell's equations.

Discretizing means converting Maxwell's equations into discrete segments of space and time. It results into finite difference equations of electric and magnetic fields which are solved using leapfrog scheme.

After discretizing, at a given instant in time, electric field vector components are solved and at the next time instant, the magnetic field vector components in the same spatial volume are solved. The process is continued again and again until the desired steady state electromagnetic field is obtained.