IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 32, NO.

12, DECEMBER 2022 1379

Current Source Implementations for

the HIE-FDTD Methods
Ankit Kumar Pandey , Student Member, IEEE, and Alok Kumar Saxena , Member, IEEE

Abstract— In this letter, the current source implementations II. F ORMULATION

are presented for the hybrid implicit–explicit finite-difference A linear, lossless, isotropic, and a nondispersive medium
time-domain (HIE-FDTD), the improved HIE-FDTD, and the
leapfrog HIE-FDTD methods. The asymmetry and the field
having permittivity ε and permeability μ is taken here. For all
errors of these HIE-FDTD methods are investigated for all the three methods, the updating equations are explicit in the
possible values of the time index parameters. The proposed x- and y-directions, and implicit in the z-direction.
implementations give very low asymmetry and field errors
for all the three HIE–FDTD methods. The field errors given A. HIE-FDTD Method
by these HIE-FDTD methods are lower than those given by
the alternating direction implicit finite-difference time-domain
For the HIE-FDTD method [2], the updating equations with
(ADI-FDTD) method. the current source in the z-direction can be written as
 
n+ 1 n− 1 ∂ n ∂ n
Index Terms— Current source implementations, finite- E z 2 = E z 2 + 2b Hy − Hx − 2b Jzn+ p (1a)
difference time-domain (FDTD) method, hybrid implicit–explicit ∂x ∂y
 
(HIE) scheme, leapfrog algorithm. n+ 1 n− 1 ∂ n ∂ n
Hz 2 = Hz 2 + 2d Ex − Ey (1b)
I. I NTRODUCTION ∂y ∂x
  n+1  
∂ Hx + Hxn ∂ n+ 12
I N RECENT years, various hybrid implicit–explicit finite-
difference time-domain (HIE-FDTD) methods [1]–[7], with
weakly conditional stability, have been proposed to solve the
E n+1
y = E n
y + 2b

∂z 2

−
∂x
H z

(1c)

∂ n+ 12 ∂ H yn+1 + H yn
electromagnetic structures having very thin discontinuities in E xn+1 = E xn + 2b Hz − (1d)
either one or two dimensions. In these methods, implicit ∂y ∂z 2
updating equations are used only in the direction(s) in which   
∂ E n+1
y + E ny ∂ n+ 12
fine grid discretization is required. In all the other direction(s), Hx = Hx + 2d
n+1 n
− Ez (1e)
explicit updating equations are used. In order to develop ∂z 2 ∂y
the electric and magnetic field updating equations, which   
∂ n+ 12 ∂ E xn+1 + E xn
are implicit in one direction (e.g., y-direction) and explicit H yn+1 = H yn + 2d Ez − (1f)
in the other two directions (i.e., x- and z-directions), the ∂x ∂z 2
3-D HIE-FDTD method was proposed [2] with the stability where b = t/2ε, d = t/2μ, n is the time index, t is the
condition of t ≤ 1/(c(1/x 2 + 1/z 2 )1/2 ). Also, with time step size, and p is the time index parameter.
slightly less accuracy, and with the stability limit of t ≤
max(x/c, z/c), the one-step leapfrog algorithm of the B. Improved HIE-FDTD Method
HIE-FDTD method has been proposed [4]. Later, with a more
By following the procedure given in [3], the updating equa-
relaxed stability condition of t ≤ 2/(c(1/x 2 + 1/z 2 )1/2 ),
tions of the improved HIE-FDTD method, with the current
the improved HIE-FDTD method [3] has been developed.
source in the z-direction, can be written as follows:
Several current source implementation techniques have been
1 1
proposed over the years to determine the time index parameters E n+ 2 = E n + b M1 H n+ 2 − N1 H n − J n+ p1 (2a)
of the current source excitation on the various FDTD methods 1 1
[8]–[13]. In these implementations, the asymmetry and field H n+ 2 = H n + d N1 E n+ 2 − M1 E n (2b)
errors have been investigated for a few selected values of the
n+ 21 n+ 12
time index parameters. E n+1 = E + b M2 H − N2 H n+1 − J n+ p2 (2c)
In this letter, the current source implementations for
n+ 12 n+ 12
the HIE-FDTD, the improved HIE-FDTD, and the leapfrog H n+1 = H + d N2 E − M2 E n+1 (2d)
HIE-FDTD methods are developed. Unlike the previously
proposed implementations [8]–[13], here, the asymmetry and where E = [E x , E y , E z ]T , H = [Hx , H y , Hz ]T , M1 = C +
field errors are investigated for all the relevant values of the D, N1 = C T + D, M2 = C + D T , N2 = C T + D T
⎡ ⎤
time index parameters. ∂ ⎡ ⎤
0 0 ∂
⎢ ⎥
Manuscript received 15 June 2022; accepted 5 July 2022. Date of publica- ⎢ ∂y ⎥ ⎢0 0 − ∂y ⎥
⎢∂ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
C=⎢ 0 ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
tion 18 July 2022; date of current version 6 December 2022. (Corresponding
author: Ankit Kumar Pandey.) ⎢ ∂z 0 ⎥, D = ⎢0 0 − ∂ ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎣ ∂x ⎦
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, ⎣ ∂ ⎦
IIT Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir 181221, India (e-mail: 0 0 0
0 0
2019ree0003@[Link]; [Link]@[Link]). ∂x
Color versions of one or more figures in this letter are available at
[Link] and p1 and p2 are the time index parameters of the current
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2022.3189401 source ( J = [0, 0, Jz ]T ) in the z-direction.
1531-1309 © 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See [Link] for more information.

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 1380 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 32, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2022

C. Leapfrog HIE-FDTD Method

Based on the process given in [4], the updating equations
for the leapfrog HIE-FDTD method, with the current source
in the z-direction, can be written as
1 1
E n+ 2 = E n + b P H n+ 2 − Q H n − J n+ p1 (3a)
n+ 12 n+ 12
H = Hn + d Q E − P En (3b)
1 1
E n+1 = E n+ 2 + b P H n+ 2 − Q H n+1 − J n+ p2 (3c)
1 1
H n+1 = H n+ 2 + d Q E n+ 2 − P E n+1 (3d)
where
⎡0 ⎡ ⎤
0 0 ⎤ ∂ ∂ Fig. 1. Maximum asymmetry errors against different values of time index
⎢ 0 − ⎥ parameters ( p, or p1 and p2 ) at t = 2t0 , and S = 5 in the xy-plane. (a) HIE-
⎢∂ ∂ ⎥ ⎢ ∂z ∂y ⎥
⎢ 0 − ⎥ FDTD. (b) Improved HIE-FDTD. (c) Leapfrog HIE-FDTD. (d) ADI-FDTD.
P = ⎢ ∂z ∂ x ⎥, and Q = ⎢
⎢ 0 0 0 ⎥⎥.
⎣ ⎦ ⎣∂ ⎦
∂
0 0 0 0
∂x ∂y
From (3), the leapfrog formulation [4] can be derived as
1
(I − bd P Q)en+ 2 = 2b( P − Q)H n
 
− b J n+ p1 + J n+ p2 −1 (4a)
n+ 12
(I − bd P Q)h n+1
= 2d( Q − P)E
 
+ bd P J n+ p2 − J n+ p1 . (4b)
Here, en+(1/2) = E n+(1/2) − E n−(1/2) , and hn+1 =
H n+1
− Hn.

III. N UMERICAL R ESULTS

A rectangular cavity of 100 × 100 × 12 mm3 is used for
the numerical validation of the current source implementa-
tions in the HIE-FDTD methods. As a line current source,
a Gaussian pulse (Jz = exp(−4π(t − t0 )2 /τ 2 )) is placed
at the center of the cavity and the excitation is given from
the bottom to the top of the cavity. The PEC boundary
condition with a cell size of x = y = 10z = 2 mm Fig. 2. Asymmetry errors at t = 2t0 , and S = 5 in the xy-plane for (a) HIE,
p = 0.25; (b) HIE, p = 0.50; (c) improved HIE, p1 = 0.25, p2 = 0.75;
has been implemented at the walls of the cavity. Here, (d) improved HIE, p1 = p2 = 0.50; (e) leapfrog HIE, p1 = 0.25, p2 = 0.75;
t = S × 1/c(1/x 2 + 1/y 2 + 1/z 2 )1/2 , τ = 100t/S, and (f) leapfrog HIE, p1 = p2 = 0.50.
t0 = 2τ , c is the speed of light in free space, and S is the
Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy (CFL) number [14].
The asymmetry error (δa |i, j ) and the field error (er ) in the Also, from Fig. 1(d), one can see that for the alternating
x y-plane at z = kc (where kc is the center grid index in the direction implicit finite-difference time-domain (ADI-FDTD),
z-direction) can be defined as [13] the maximum asymmetry errors are minimum when p1 = p2 .
  
 E i, j, k + 1  − E  j, i, k + 1   Fig. 2 shows the asymmetry errors given by all the three
 z c
 2
z c 2 
δa |i, j =    × 100% (5) HIE-FDTD methods in the x y-plane for different values of p,
  1 
max E z i, j, kc + 2  or p1 and p2 . Since the maximum asymmetry errors for the
    
1  E z i, j, kc + 12 − E z FDTD i, j, kc + 12 
HIE-FDTD methods are nearly the same for all values of p,
er =      or p1 and p2 [see Fig. 1(a)–(c)], here, we have taken only
Nx N y 
i, j
max E z FDTD i, j, kc + 12   two values of time-index parameters. From the figure, it can
× 100% (6) be seen that for all the selected values of p, or p1 and p2 , all
the three HIE-FDTD methods show low asymmetry error.
where Nx and N y are the total number of grids in the x- and Fig. 3 plots the field errors against different values of time
y-directions, respectively. E zFDTD (i, j, kc+1/2 ) is the field value, index parameters in the x y-plane. From Fig. 3(a), it can
which has been calculated by the conventional FDTD method be seen that the HIE-FDTD gives minimum field error for
with S = 0.1 at time instant t = 2t0 . p = 0.5. From Fig. 3(b), it can be observed that the improved
Fig. 1 plots the maximum asymmetry errors (max (δa |i, j )) HIE-FDTD shows minimum field error when p1 + p2 = 1.
against different values of the time index parameters in the Also, from Fig. 3(c), one can observed that the leapfrog
x y-plane. From Fig. 1(a)–(c), it can be seen that in all the three HIE-FDTD gives minimum field error when p1 = p2 = 1.
HIE-FDTD methods, maximum asymmetry errors are low and Furthermore, from Fig. 3(d), it can be observed that the field
approximately the same for all values of p, or p1 and p2 . errors for the ADI-FDTD method are low when p1 + p2 = 1.

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 PANDEY AND SAXENA: CURRENT SOURCE IMPLEMENTATIONS FOR THE HIE-FDTD METHODS 1381

Fig. 3. Field errors against different values of time index parameters

( p, or p1 and p2 ) at t = 2t0 , and S = 5 in the xy-plane. (a) HIE-FDTD.
(b) Improved HIE-FDTD. (c) Leapfrog HIE-FDTD. (d) ADI-FDTD.

TABLE I
VALUES OF T IME I NDEX PARAMETERS FOR THE L OW A SYMMETRY
AND F IELD E RRORS IN THE xy-P LANE

Fig. 4. Field errors with different values S at t = 2t0 in the xy-plane.

(a) HIE-FDTD. (b) Improved HIE-FDTD. (c) Leapfrog HIE-FDTD.
(d) Different FDTD method.

the mesh sizes are same in the x- and y-directions, but

different in the z-direction (x = y = 10z = 2 mm).
As a result, the numerical dispersion is approximately the
same along the x- and y-directions, but different in the
TABLE II z-direction. Therefore, for all values of time index parameters,
A SYMMETRY AND F IELD E RRORS IN xy-, yz-, AND zx -P LANES all the three HIE-FDTD methods produce low asymmetry
errors (in the range of 10−12 ) in the x y-plane, but relatively
high asymmetry errors (in the range of 10−3 ) in the yz- and
zx-planes (see Table II). Furthermore, our study shows that
the field errors in the yz- and zx-planes are minimum at the
same values of the time index parameters, for which their field
errors are minimum in the x y-plane (see Table II).
Due to space limitations, the results for the yz- and
zx-planes are not given here in detail, but they can be found
easily by following the process given here for the x y-plane.
From Figs. 1 and 2, it can be seen that for all the time
index parameters, the HIE-FDTD methods show very low and IV. C ONCLUSION
approximately the same asymmetry errors. Therefore, the time
index parameters can be determined based on the values for In this letter, implementations of the current source for the
which the HIE-FDTD methods show minimum field errors. HIE-FDTD, improved HIE-FDTD, and leapfrog HIE-FDTD
Also, for the ADI-FDTD, by combining the conditions of low methods have been discussed. It has been demonstrated that
maximum asymmetry error ( p1 = p2 ) and low field error for the accurate implementation of the current source: 1) the
( p1 + p2 = 1), we can find the condition for the accurate time-index parameter ( p) should be 0.5 for the HIE-FDTD
source implementation ( p1 = p2 = 0.5). The conditions on method; 2) the sum of the index parameters should be equal
time index parameters for the accurate source implementation to one ( p1 + p2 = 1) for the improved HIE-FDTD method;
are summarized in Table I. and 3) the time-index parameters should be equal to one
Fig. 4 compares the field errors for different values of S. ( p1 = p2 = 1.0) for the leapfrog HIE-FDTD method.
From Fig. 4(a)–(c), it can be seen that for the different values
of S, the HIE-FDTD, improved HIE-FDTD, and leapfrog R EFERENCES
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