Enhanced distributed computing message passing strategies for FDTD

✍ Scribed by C. J. Gillan; V. Fusco

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 91 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-3370
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1204(199911/12)12:6<483::aid-jnm368>3.0.co;2-0

✦ Synopsis

The "nite di!erence time domain method (FDTD) solves Maxwell's equations by employing numerically and storage intensive computation to map the electric and magnetic "elds within a "nite volume as an explicit function of time. Distributed computation, using heterogeneous networks of computers, is a coste!ective way of applying FDTD; however interprocessor communication is the rate-limiting step. In particular, in most laboratories there is a surplus of unused, desktop CPU cycles during the evening and night. We have investigated ways of utilizing this resource by examining various communication harnesses for distributed computing and have for the "rst time in a distributed FDTD EM application, employed data packing mechanisms to alleviate the bottleneck caused by network latency and limited bandwidth availability.