Sensitivity Analysis for Antenna Devices through Interval Arithmetic -- A Generalized Approach

This paper presents a novel method for the sensitivity analysis of electromagnetic (EM) systems whose transfer function (TF), that is the input-output (I/O) relationship between the input parameters affected by tolerance and the system response (i.e., the arising EM performance of interest), is not available in closed (or explicit) form. The method is a generalized analytic technique based on the Interval Analysis (IA). First, an analytic surrogate model (SM) of the TF is defined by means of a learning-by-example (LBE) approach starting from a set of available I/O examples. Then, the LBE-derived SM is extended to intervals through IA to yield inclusive, yet finite, performance bounds of the output system response when the control parameters are affected by unknown, but bounded, tolerances. A set of representative numerical examples is reported to validate the proposed IA-LBE method as well as to assess its effectiveness and reliability when dealing with realistic EM systems (e.g., antennas) for which the TF is not explicitly known.