Development of softwares for teaching electromagnetics

Summary form only given. The students are by and large averse to electromagnetics. The reasons for this could vary from: the subject is highly conceptual, to students dislike for vector calculus, to lack of visualization of vector fields. Unlike subjects such as mechanics where one can visualize the subject through common experience, electromagnetics involve electric and magnetic fields which can be measured but cannot be seen. Electromagnetics would thus require the mental ability to visualize without which understanding of concepts not readily apparent from equations, would become difficult; leading to disinterest in the subject. Although the electromagnetic fields cannot be seen, they can be at least computed and presented graphically in colour; and thus help in visualization. With these points in mind, we have tried to understand and develop tools for simulation and visual presentation of certain physical phenomenon in electromagnetics. One may use computational methods to develop softwares specifically for teaching. The computational techniques such as finite difference, FDTD, FEM, MoM, etc may be employed for this purpose. The FDTD method is found to be most interesting for teaching because it produces animation of wave propagation; which is the basis of high frequency electromagnetics. The development of softwares based on FDTD is a highly skilled job, and the simulation results differ slightly from the expected results because of discretization errors. We have used Matlab for generating data related to various physical phenomenon, and used its movie feature to play those frames repeatedly to generate the effect of wave propagation, reflection, transmission etc in one-dimension. The basic approach used for the development of softwares will be presented.