Electromagnetic Simulation Using the FDTD Method

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book but with mistakes
Review: Generally the book of Dennis M.Sullivan is a book that is a value for money.It really helps someone who would like to learn electromagnetic simulation with the FDTD method step by step.
The 1st chapter introduces you in 1D-FDTD and helps you understand the basics of 1D-FDTD in free space,simple ABCs,propagation in a dielectric and lossy dielectric medium.
The 2nd chapter continues with more complicated issues of 1-D FDTD such as simulation in frequency-dependent media and calculating the frequency dependent media with Fourier Transform.
The 3rd chapter introduces 2-D FDTD,implementation of the PML ABCs and propagation of a plane wave.
The 4th chapter learns you the 3-D FDTD and implementation of the PML in 3D which is really wonderful.
The 5th chapter gives 2 applications with FDTD(Simulation of microstrip antenna and calculation of the far field of an aperture antenna) and the 6th some other types of simulation.
The problem with the book is that the programs have some mistakes and you must spend a lot of time to find them.Personally i have developed all of them except for the patch antenna.If someone has found the mistakes in it and has the right program please send it tome in the email .......My advice is to buy this book!!!

Rating:
Summary: Practical, but not detail explanation
Review: This book could have filled an important niche in the FDTD literature by providing a short, readable introduction to this important computational technique. The book is almost crippled by typographical errors, particularly in the code listings at the end of each chapter. I came upon this book after having read several other books and written a number of FDTD codes from scratch, so I was able to catch most of the errors in the code listings and get them working without too much trouble. It's not clear to me whether or not a neophyte (the presumed target of this book) would be able to catch these errors as easily as I did. A tenacious reader might be able to catch most of them, given enough time and effort. With the elimination of these errors (hopefully there will be a corrected second edition), I would easily give this book a 5 star rating.

Rating:
Summary: Practical, but not detail explanation
Review: This book is very good for the people who already have knowledge of FDTD and C language somehow. In other words, beginners will feel difficulty to read this book keeping what the auther is really try to talk about. The last two example cases are very useful. However, readers should find the way to present the data files that can be calculated using the sample codes such as MatLab. If you are a beginner, then use the book written by Hagness & Taflove for deep understanding of FDTD, and use this book for the practice before your specific application.

Rating:
Summary: Very thin and there are mistakes
Review: Yes, this book could have been a contender. The field of FDTD has now reached a level of maturity so that it is both useful (very) and the literature no longer explains the details to a beginner. This book is good in that it does talk to the novice; however it has several problems.
First, there are a number of mistakes, and although they are obvious, they are also inexcusable. For example on page 6, eqns 1.14 and 1.15 there are numerous sign errors in the sub/superscripts. The second C program, which is a modification of the first, will not work as written! He forgot to initialize two of the new variables. Careless. For $115 the author and editor could have done a much better job. The book is only 165 pages long; so the editing/proofing should not have taken too long.
Second, the English is inexcusably poor. It sounds a lot like a direct translation of a conversation two graduate students might have at the board.
Third, the book gives very little other than what is needed to gain a limited understanding of the included C code.
All that said, it will get you off square-zero in a fairly short time. I strongly suggest that you check the book out from the library rather than making this expensive purchase.
After you spend a couple of days with this book you will be ready to tackle the class act of E&M FDTD books - Taflove & Hagness - this book has a whopping $135 price tag, but at least it weighs in at 850+ pages and gives a lot of detail.