ON THE POTENTIAL USE OF CELLULAR-AUTOMATA MACHINES FOR ELECTROMAGNETIC-FIELD SOLUTION

In this paper, the potential use of cellular automata machines for ele ctromagnetic field solution is investigated. Cellular automata are com putational models that operate on a discrete spatial lattice, evolve i n discrete time, and employ simple discrete variables. We specifically examine the lattice gas automata which use simple variables to descri be particles that interact with nearest neighbours on the lattice thro ugh simple rules. They are suitable for modelling the linear wave equa tion in two dimensions. A benefit of the cellular automata approach is that low-cost, special-purpose digital hardware exists for their effi cient evaluation. The current state-of-the-art cellular automata machi ne is CAM-8. Computational experiments carried out on CAM-8 are provid ed for problems involving plane wave interaction with perfectly conduc ting and dielectric media in two dimensions. The examples indicate the potential use of lattice gas automata for modelling electromagnetics and their efficient evaluation using cellular automata machines.