Electromagnetic Consortium Considered
October 1998
ITL's Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division (MCSD) hosted
a workshop August 11-12 in Boulder with government, academic and
industrial participants to consider the formation of a consortium for
the modeling of electromagnetic scattering. Spearheaded by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the effort follows
recognition that recent advances in simulation methods for
electromagnetics, centering primarily on the fast multipole method,
now have the potential to achieve a dramatic impact on applied
problems. These methods, developed in part at NIST, can reduce the
computational complexity and improve the potential accuracy of
software for the solution of Maxwell's equations in quite general
settings. Existing codes, developed primarily as research tools,
must be extended and commercialized to achieve this potential.
Industrial companies having a substantial stake in low-observable
(stealth) technologies, namely Boeing, Lockheed-Martin,
Northrup-Grumman, and Raytheon, sent representatives to the workshop
to discuss how such a consortium could be structured. Applications
beyond aircraft and missiles, including antennas, microelectronics,
and optoelectronics, were also discussed. MCSD anticipates a
continuing role in the formation of this consortium and helping to
bring the benefits of these algorithmic advances into broad
commercial use.
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