Patent ID: 7742900

Claim:
A method of calculating a distribution of electric charge or an electric current due to an electric field, comprising: using software loaded into a computer memory attached to a computer processor and storing compressed data in said computer memory, partitioning a first set of basis functions into groups, each group corresponding to a region, each basis function corresponding to one unknown in a system of linear equations, each of said basis functions corresponding to an original source, wherein said system of linear equations models said distribution of electric charge or electric current due to said electric field; selecting a plurality of spherical angles; calculating a far-field disturbance produced by each of said basis functions in a first group for each of said spherical angles to produce a matrix of transmitted disturbances wherein a plurality of said basis functions in said first group of basis functions describes electric fields produced by electric charge; on said computer processor, using a first rank reduction to reduce a rank of said matrix of transmitted disturbances to yield a second set of basis functions, said second set of basis functions corresponding to composite sources, each of said composite sources comprising a linear combination of a plurality of basis functions of said first set of basis functions; partitioning a first set of weighting functions into groups, each group corresponding to a region, each weighting function corresponding to a condition, each of said weighting functions corresponding to an original tester; calculating a far-field disturbance received by each of said testers in a first group of testers for each of said spherical angles to produce a matrix of received disturbances; on said computer processor, using a second rank reduction to reduce a rank of said matrix of received disturbances to yield a second set of weighting functions, said second set of weighting functions corresponding to composite testers, each of said composite testers comprising a linear combination of a plurality of said original testers; transforming said system of linear equations to use said composite sources and said composite testers to produce a second system of equations wherein at least a portion of said second system of equations is compressed relative to said system of linear equations and wherein for at least a first portion of said second system of equations using said composite sources and said composite testers, at least a portion of said matrix of transmitted disturbances is different from said matrix of received disturbances and wherein said compression enables relatively more efficient use of said second system of equations; and using said second system of equations calculating and storing said distribution of electric charge or electric current due to said electric field.