high performance computing on graphics processing units: hgpu.org

Ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless systems have recently gained considerable attention as effective communications platforms with the properties of low power and high data rates. Applications of UWB such as wireless USB put size constraints on the antenna, however, which can be very difficult to meet using typical narrow band antenna designs. The aim of this thesis is to show how bio-inspired evolutionary optimization algorithms, in particular genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and biogeography-based optimization (BBO) can produce novel UWB planar patch antenna designs that meet a size constraint of a 10 mm x 10 mm patch. Each potential antenna design is evaluated with the finite difference time domain (FDTD) technique, which is accurate but time-consuming. Another aspect of this thesis is the modification of FDTD to run on a graphics processing unit (GPU) to obtain nearly a 20x speedup. With the combination of GA, PSO, BBO and GPU-accelerated FDTD, three novel antenna designs are produced that meet the size and bandwidth requirements applicable to UWB wireless USB systems.