Hybrid mode analysis of microstrip lines by the method of lines with pseudospectral discretization

In this paper, the method of lines (MoLs), which has been proved to be very efficient for calculating the characteristics of one-dimensional and two-dimensional planar microwave structures, is extended to nonequidistant discretization with pseudospectral technique. This pseudospectral MoLs is developed by combining pseudospectral technique and the MoLs, so that its solution is not only analytical along line direction, but also maintains high accuracy in discrete direction. A pseudospectral-based discretization strategy, distribution of collocation nodes, global power series interpolation of differential quadrature, second-order difference matrix, and decoupling of coupled ordinary differential equations are discussed in detail. The convergence behaviors are provided for line discretization, based on both the pseudospectral strategy and the second-order finite difference (FD), respectively. The calculated results are compared with those published in the previous literature and our numerical results show that accuracy is improved with reduced computational effort for the analysis of microstrip lines. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 35: 224–227, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.10563