A novel FDTD approach featuring two-level parallelization on PC cluster

Abstract

To improve the parallel efficiency in the case of the finegrained FDTD computing on PC cluster, the concept of "two level parallelization on PC cluster" is presented, and a high performance MPI-OpenMP hybrid FDTD algorithm is developed. In the hybrid algorithm, MPI is used in conjunction with OpenMP multithreading to achieve two level parallelism of the data and tasks at the basis of the domain decomposition FDTD method. Besides, to enhance the flexibility of the parallel FDTD, the interpolation between subspaces is also discussed. The simulation example of a printed antenna for automobile is given. Computations are performed for different numbers of PCs and contrasted with two conventional parallel FDTD algorithms on PC cluster. The results show that with the decrease of the computational granularity on each computer, the novel algorithm is more efficient, and moreover, it can also lessen the influence of the sub-domains virtual topology on the parallel FDTD performance.