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Graduate Exam Abstract


Blake Troksa

M.S. Final
July 5, 2019, 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Electrical and Computer Engineering Conference Room
GPU ACCELERATED CONE BASED SHOOTING BOUNCING RAY TRACING

Abstract: Ray tracing can be used as an alternative
method to solve complex Computational
Electromagnetics (CEM) problems that
would require significant time using
traditional full-wave CEM solvers. Ray
tracing is considered a high frequency
asymptotic solver, sacrificing accuracy
for speed via approximation. Two
prominent categories for ray tracing exist
today: image theory techniques and ray
launching techniques. Image theory
involves the calculation of image points
for each continuous plane within a
structure. Ray launching ray tracing is
comprised of spawning rays in numerous
directions and tracking the intersections
these rays have with the environment.
While image theory ray tracing typically
provides more accurate solutions
compared to ray launching techniques,
due to more exact computations, image
theory is much slower than ray launching
techniques due exponential time
complexity of the algorithm.
This paper discusses a ray launching
technique called shooting bouncing rays
(SBR) ray tracing (RT) that applies
NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPU)
to achieve significant performance
benefits for solving CEM problems. The
GPUs are used as a tool to parallelize the
core ray tracing algorithm and also to
provide access to the NVIDIA OptiX ray
tracing application programming
interface (API) that efficiently traces rays
within complex structures. The algorithm
presented enables quick and efficient
simulations to optimize the placement of
communication nodes within complex
structures. The processes and
techniques used in the development of
the solver and demonstrations of the
validation and the application of the
solver on various structures and its
comparison to commercially available ray
tracing software is presented.


Adviser: Dr. Branislav Notaros
Co-Adviser: Dr. Sudeep Pasricha
Non-ECE Member: Dr. Hamidreza Chitsaz, Computer Science
Member 3: Dr. Sudeep Pasricha, Electrical Engineering
Addional Members: N/A

Publications:
B. Troksa, C. Key, F. Kunkel, S. V. Savić, M. M. Ilić and B. M. Notaroš, "Ray tracing using shooting-bouncing technique to model mine tunnels: Theory and verification for a PEC waveguide," 2018 International Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Symposium (ACES), Denver, CO, 2018, pp. 1-2.


Program of Study:
CS475
CS510
CS545
ECE444
ECE520
ECE540
N/A
N/A