Accurate Estimation of the Lateral Wave’s Contribution to the Radiated Fields of a Vertical Electric Dipole Embedded in a Lossy Half-Space

This article explores the radiation of a vertical electric dipole (VED) placed in a lossy half-space where its radiated electromagnetic field is estimated. The modified saddle point method (MSPM) is used to evaluate the Sommerfeld integrals (SIs) involved in the problem and the contribution of the poles, and the branch cuts are accurately taken into account. The proposed asymptotic evaluation shows the emergence of the lateral wave (LW) characteristic of an underground wave propagation near an electromagnetic interface. The field components obtained by the new proposed formulation [double-slope formulas (DSFs)] are compared with the existing analytical expressions [single-slope formulas (SSFs)] in the literature and to the results of Altair FEKO simulator, which performs a numerical evaluation of the SIs. The better accuracy of the proposed formulation in the estimation of the LW is finally highlighted.