Application of MAS and FDTD for the design of 2-D EBG resonator antennas and dielectric/guided lenses

The electromagnetic synthesis and optimization of microwave focusing systems requires the development of specific CAD tools with appropriate characteristics (accuracy, computation time, etc.). The purpose of this paper is to benchmark two 2D numerical methods, namely the method of auxiliary sources (MAS) and the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique. Several relevant test structures (integrated lens antennas, EBG resonator antennas, constrained lenses) have been designed to assess the impact of the intrinsic features of both algorithms (e.g. stair-case approximation in FDTD, kind and location of the auxiliary sources in MAS) upon the numerical results.