An Efficient Adjoint-Based Approach for Computational Electromagnetic Design Navy SBIR FY2012.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2012.1 Topic No.: N121-015 Topic Title: An Efficient Adjoint-Based Approach for Computational Electromagnetic Design Proposal No.: N121-015-0815 Firm: Tech-X Corporation 5621 Arapahoe Ave, Suite A Boulder, Colorado 80303-1379 Contact: Travis Austin Phone: (303) 473-9286 Web Site: www.txcorp.com Abstract: Antennas optimized for free space environments often have sub-optimal performance when placed in an in-situ environment. Nearby structures can alter the radiation pattern of the antenna or conversely the antenna can alter the radiation pattern of nearby antenna. In either case, there is a need to optimize these antenna for the in-situ environment. Furthermore, these optimization tools must be efficient and find ways to avoid the high computational costs associated with forward solves. Typically, for antenna calculations, forward solves can require hours or even days thus implying that any optimization tool requiring hundreds of forward solves is infeasible. In this project, we propose to examine modern optimization algorithms, referred to as adjoint methods, that minimize the number of forward solves. In addition to the adjoint methods, we will explore algorithms that have strong convergence and thus require only a small number of iterations to find a converged optimal solution. To ensure that these tools are easy to use, we will explore their usage with a commercial computational antenna code called WIPL-D. We will show that an optimization toolkit can be built that easily interfaces with WIPL-D or any other commercial antenna code. Benefits: The production of a computational electromagnetic optimization software tool that uses advanced optimization algorithms to minimize the cost of the optimization problem without tying itself to a particular computational electromagnetic software (CEM) will provide to the market a powerful new product. It will enable current users of their favorite commercial electromagnetic software tool (FEKO, WIPL-D, etc.) to have an optimization tool that is not tied to one CEM product. Furthermore, its efficiency at finding optimal solutions will enable users to better optimize electromagnetic designs and save time and costs. We believe that this will make for a powerful tool that will be desired by the market. This will be particularly the case for WIPL-D users since early efforts will go into working with WIPL-D to ensure that seamless usage of this tool with existing WIPL-D products. We expect that this will encourage existing WIPL-D users to purchase this software and make use of its efficient optimization algorithms. Return