BEM-computation of antenna near field reactions on conducting materials using curvilinear edge elements

A boundary element method in terms of the field variables is applied to thr ee-dimensional electromagnetic scattering problems. Especially, the influen ce of a dipole excited field on low conducting materials situated very clos e to the antenna will be discussed We use higher order edge elements of qua dilateral shape for the field approximation on curved surfaces. The tangent ial components of the unknown field variables are interpolated by vector el ement functions. The Galerkin method is implemented to obtain a set of line ar equations. The applicability of the proposed edge element is investigate d by the comparison of different BEM-formulations and FEM-results.