The treatment of thin wires in the FDTD method using a weighted residuals approach

In this contribution, the problem of accurately representing thin wires within the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) mesh is addressed by means of a method based on the weighted residual (WR) interpretation of the FDTD algorithm. Results for wire dipoles and wire transmission lines, obtained using the proposed method, are presented and compared to those obtained using existing techniques. It is shown that the proposed method yields results which are more accurate and are less dependent on the choice of cell size than other approaches and, in addition, lends itself well to being extended for more complicated structures. Details of the calculation of the update equations are given.