Design of microwave structures with M EFISTO ‐3 D N OVA and M ATLAB optimization and neural network toolboxes

This paper introduces two time‐domain field‐based optimization procedures for microwave engineering. The methods are built on the foundations of M ATLAB 's optimization and neural network toolboxes. The first procedure makes use of a direct connection linking M ATLAB 's optimization toolbox with M EFISTO ‐3 D N OVA . In this approach the field simulator acts as an objective function server for the optimization toolbox; these two programs work cooperatively with each other to tune the structure parameters to obtain a target response. The second procedure is an indirect optimization approach that makes use of M ATLAB 's neural network toolbox in conjunction with M EFISTO ‐3 D N OVA to create a neural network model to emulate the structure of interest; the resulting neural network model is then used an objective function server in a normal M ATLAB optimization process. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.