An $O(N^3)$ algorithm for the calculation of far field radiation patterns

Abstract

We present a new method for computing the Near-To-Far-Field (NTFF) transformation in FDTD simulations which has an overall scaling of $O(N^3)$ instead of the standard $O(N^4)$. By mapping the far field with a cartesian coordinate system the 2D surface integral can be split into two successive 1D integrals. For a near field spanned by $N_X \times N_Y$ discrete sample points, and a far field spanned by $N_{\theta} \times N_{\phi}$ points, the calculation can then be performed in $O(N_{\theta}N_X N_Y) + O(N_{\theta}N_{\phi}N_Y)$ operations instead of $O(N_{\theta}N_{\phi}N_X N_Y)$.