Abstract: |
Adjustment of geometry and material parameters is an important step in the design of microwave devices and circuits. Nowadays, it is typically performed using high-fidelity electromagnetic (EM) simulations, which might be a challenging and time consuming process because accurate EM simulations are computationally expensive. In particular, design automation by employing an EM solver in an numerical optimization algorithm may be prohibitive. Recently, adjoint sensitivity techniques become available in commercial EM simulation software packages. This makes it possible to speed up the EM-driven design optimization process either by utilizing the sensitivity information in conventional, gradient-based algorithms or by combining it with surrogate-based approaches. In this paper, we review several recent methods and algorithms for microwave design optimization using adjoint sensitivity. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of these techniques and illustrate them through numerical examples. |