Analysis of large circularly polarized antenna array by using a parallelized FDTD code running on a high performance cluster

In this work, we report the results of a study in which we use the parallel FDTD method running on multiple processor, to simulate a large antenna array with helical elements, which cannot be handled by using a single processor. Both the co- and cross-polarized patterns are calculated. Most of the available FEM or MoM-based codes were found to be inadequate, especially when the dielectric supports, which affect the pattern significantly. However, the parallel FDTD method can deal with the pattern at hand without any difficulty, and yields accurate results.