Time Domain Hybrid Method for the Coupling Analysis of Parallel Traces on PCB Excited by Ambient Wave

Currently, numerical methods used for the coupling analysis of printed circuit board (PCB) traces excited by ambient wave are still rare. In this work, a time domain hybrid method is presented for the coupling simulation of parallel traces of PCB efficiently, which is consisted of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, transmission line (TL) equations, and subgridding technique. Within this method, the coupling model of parallel traces on PCB is constructed by using TL equations firstly. Then, the per-unit-length (p.u.l) inductance and capacitance parameters of the traces are calculated by the empirical formulas obtained by the fitting of measurement data in the literature. And the FDTD method combined with the subgridding technique is applied to model the structures of PCB substrate and ground plate to obtain the excitation fields of the traces, which are introduced into TL equations as equivalent source terms. Finally, the central difference scheme of FDTD is utilized to discretize the TL equations to obtain the transient responses on the terminal loads of the traces. The significant features of this presented method are that it can realize the synchronous calculations of electromagnetic field radiation and transient responses on the traces and avoid modeling the fine structures of the traces directly. The accuracy and efficiency of this presented method have been verified via the numerical simulations of multiple parallel traces on PCB in free space and inside a shielded cavity by comparing with the Baum-Liu-Tesche (BLT) equation and electromagnetic software CST. © 2023, Electromagnetics Academy. All rights reserved.