Committee: 

Dr. Swaminathan, Advisor    

Dr. Mukhopadhyay, Chair

Dr. Romberg

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to solve EM problems with optimization methods. Analysis of EM waves from both software and hardware sides has grown exponentially since the requirements of electrical devices have become stricter in order to serve various applications. High performance computing based EM emulators are used to simulate real-time complex EM wave interactions between multiple radar targets, transmitters, and receivers. The RCS of the radar targets are required to be stored as a table; however, the needed storage size increases dramatically with the angle and frequency sampling density. We present an innovative approach of constructing a concise spherical harmonic based anisotropic point scatterer model that the emulators can use as part of the computations. Another arising application of EM analysis that relates to EM wave propagation is the millimeter wave antenna design. Phased array antennas have been widely used in wireless communication systems. As the operating frequency and number of array elements increase, the negative effect from sidelobes of the antenna pattern becomes non-negligible. To maximize the performance of the antenna, both the antenna design and beam controllers have to be considered. We use optimization techniques to design the subarrays and the beamforming method. The goal of the subarray design is to maximize the performance of this beamforming method and the power efficiency.