Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346

Automatic arrangement of fictitious charges and

contour points in charge simulation method for
two spherical electrodes$
Ryo Nishimura*, Masami Nishihara, Katsumi Nishimori,
Naganori Ishihara
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Tottori University, 4-101, Koyama-minami,
Tottori 680-8552, Japan
Received 12 December 2001; received in revised form 29 July 2002

Abstract

We propose a method to decide the appropriate arrangement of both fictitious charges and
contour points in the charge simulation method for the case that the shape of electrodes can be
expressed in the spherical coordinates. In this paper, we use genetic algorithm (GA), which is
inspired by the mechanism of natural selection where stronger individuals are likely the
winners in a competing environment, as a search method. We calculated the potential
distribution around two spherical electrodes with different potentials above a grounded
electrode plate. The surface potentials of the electrodes were assumed to be 5000 and 30 V;
respectively, for example. The total number of the charges was 22 for the electrode system.
First, we placed fictitious point-charges and contour points at random inside the electrodes
and on the surfaces of electrodes, respectively. The arrangement was automatically adjusted by
using GA until the potential reached the desired values at all the test points placed on the
electrode surfaces. We show that the GA can be useful to determine the appropriate
arrangement of both fictitious charges and contour points simultaneously.
r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Electric field analysis; Charge simulation method; Fictitious charges; Contour points; Genetic
algorithm; Arrangement problem; Spherical electrode; Numerical field calculation

$
Original version presented at ICAES’2001, Fourth International Conference on Applied Electro-
statics, 8–12 October 2001, Dalian, China.
*Corresponding author. Fax: +81-857-31-0880.
E-mail address: ryo@ele.tottori-u.ac.jp (R. Nishimura).

0304-3886/03/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 0 4 - 3 8 8 6 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 7 0 - 5
338 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346

1. Introduction

The principle of the charge simulation method (CSM) is easy to understand and to
implement computationally. Because of these advantages, CSM is often used for
electric field analyses, such as calculation of potential distribution around electrodes.
However, appropriate arrangements of fictitious charges and contour points are
indispensable to obtain accurate solutions. To date, these arrangements have been
carried out empirically.

2. Purpose of study

In CSM calculation, point charges must be used when an electrode system with
3-D asymmetrical structures are assumed. The more complex the electrode shape is,
the larger the number of point charges are required. For such cases, it takes times
and efforts to decide the appropriate arrangement of the fictitious charges. In order
to remove the inconvenience, it is desired that the appropriate arrangement should
be carried out automatically. We have been shown that an appropriate arrangement
of both fictitious charges and contour points can be obtained by using genetic
algorithm (GA) for the electrode system that consists of cylindrical electrodes [1,2].
In this paper, we propose a method to determine an appropriate arrangement of
both fictitious charges and contour points by using GA for spherical coordinate
system. We assume an electrode system that consists of two spherical electrodes
above a grounded conductive electrode plane. In order to enable asymmetrical
calculations, we consider the angles y and j used in polar-coordinate expressions for
yA½0; p and jA½0; 2pÞ:

3. Genetic algorithm (GA)

The basic principles of GA were first proposed by J. Holland in 1975. Recently,

GA has been used to solve various problems, such as the parametric design of
airplanes, dynamic predictions of a telecommunication network, transportation
problems, and partitioning problems [3–5]. GA is inspired by the mechanism of
natural selection where stronger individuals are likely the winners in a competing
environment. Here, GA uses a direct analogy of such natural evolution. Through the
genetic evolution method, an optimal solution can be found and represented by the
final winner of the genetic game. GA presumes that the potential solution of any
problem is an ‘‘individual’’ which can be represented by a set of parameters. These
parameters, generally structured by a string of values in binary, are regarded as the
genes of a chromosome. The chromosomes characterize each individual. A quantity,
generally known as a fitness value, is used to reflect the degree of ‘‘goodness’’ of the
chromosomes for solving the problem, which would be highly related with its
objective value.
 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346 339

A problem solving using GA is carried out according to the procedures of

‘‘initialization’’, ‘‘crossover’’, ‘‘mutation’’, and ‘‘calculation of fitness value and
selection’’. The details of these procedures are described in Ref. [6]. The explanations
of GA and some general ‘‘artificial genetic sequence’’ are described in Refs.
[4,5,7].

4. Numerical model

Fig. 1 shows the two-electrode system that consists of two spherical electrodes.
The centers of both electrodes are on z-axis. We assume that the electrodes
are placed above a grounded plate electrode. So we can use the mirror images
of the fictitious charges inside the electrodes. As shown in this figure, a point
P inside an each electrode can be expressed by using spherical coordinate
system whose origin o0 is set at the center of each electrode as Pðr; y; jÞ; where
r is the distance from the center of the sphere to which the point P belongs, yA½0; p is
an angle between the z0 axis and the line drawn from the origin to P; and jA½0; 2pÞ is
an angle between x0 axis and the line vertically projected on x0 y0 -plane from the point
P: In this figure, the axes x0 ; y0 and z0 are parallel to the global axes x; y and z;
respectively.

Fig. 1. 3-D electrode system.

340 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346

For GA calculations, the positions of both the fictitious-charges and contour-

points should be described as a ‘‘chromosome’’. The r-, the y- and the j-components
of a fictitious-charge position and the y- and j-components of a contour-point
position are described as sequences of binary digits with lengths of a; b; c; d; and e
bits, respectively. When N1 and N2 are the number of fictitious charges inside the
Electrodes 1 and 2, respectively, the length of a chromosome is ða þ b þ c þ d þ
eÞðN1 þ N2 Þ bits. Fig. 2 shows a structure of a chromosome. The positions of the
charges and the contour points are calculated by decoding the chromosome. We
decode the chromosome as follows:
Fictitious-charge position:
gr þ 1
r¼ a R; ð1Þ
2 þ1
gyF
yFC ¼ p; ð2Þ
2b1
gjF
jFC ¼ 2p: ð3Þ
2c
Contour-point position:
gyC
yCP ¼ d p; ð4Þ
2 1
gjC
jCP ¼ 2p; ð5Þ
2e
where gr ; gyF ; gjF ; gyC ; and gjC are the decimal number equivalently converted
from ‘‘genes’’ (bit sequences, e.g. r1FC;1 in Fig. 2) that correspond to the r-, y-,
and j-components of a fictitious-charge position and y- and j-components

Fig. 2. Structure of a chromosome.

 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346 341

of a contour-point position and R is the radius of an electrode. For an

example, r-component of a fictitious charge is described by a bits. So, the parameter
gr is an integer number of gr A½0; 2a  1: When a gene r1FC;1 in Fig. 2 is ‘0110’, the ‘‘r-
component of fictitious charge 1 in Electrode 1’’ is calculated by the following
formula:
gr þ 1 6þ1 7
r1FC;1 ¼ R1 ¼ 4 R1 ¼ R1 ; ð6Þ
2a þ 1 2 þ1 17
where R1 is the radius of the Electrode 1.
The positions of the charges and the contour points that belong to each electrode
are calculated by Eqs. (1)–(5) by using the local coordinate system of each electrode
from the genes. Then the coordinate transformation is carried out to express the
positions in the global coordinate system and the potential distribution around the
electrode is calculated.

5. Calculations

5.1. Procedure for decision of arrangements of fictitious charges and contour points
using GA

In this study, ten individuals (parents) make breeding pairs in round-robin system.
Two children are produced from a single pair by using the crossover and mutation
procedures. The chromosomes of the 100 individuals, sum of the numbers of the
parents and the children, are decoded into the positions of the charges and contour
points. The set of simultaneous equations expressing the relations among the
potentials at each contour point on the electrode surface and the arrangement of
both the contour points and fictitious charges is constructed for each individual. If
the coefficient matrix of an individual is singular, the individual is regarded as a
‘‘dead individual’’ and deleted because the simultaneous equation cannot be solved.
The evaluation parameter s; which is described later, is calculated for the rest of NL
individuals ðNL p100Þ: The parameter s should be defined by a concept that as s gets
closer to zero, the surface potentials approach the given values all over the surfaces
of the electrodes. Ten elite individuals are selected by using the smallest values of s in
order and become the parents of the ‘‘next generation’’.
The bit sequences of ten individuals of the ‘‘0th generation’’, the initial condition,
are created by using uniformly random numbers. In this paper, the calculation
terminates when the iteration number of generation reaches 5000.

5.2. Definition of the evaluation parameter s

In this study, we assume an electrode system that consists of two electrodes. The
surface potentials of both the electrodes have to approach the given values all over
the surfaces of the electrodes. We introduce the evaluation parameter s defined by
the following procedure:
342 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346

First, the maximum values of the relative errors of the electrode surface potentials
are calculated for each electrode ðs1 ; s2 Þ:
 
f1 ðyi ; jj Þ  f10 
s1i;j ¼   100;
 ð7Þ
f10
 
f2 ðyi ; jj Þ  f20 
s2i;j 
¼  100; ð8Þ
f 
20

s1 ¼ max½s1i;j ; ð9Þ

s2 ¼ max½s2i;j ; ð10Þ

where f1 ðyi ; jj Þ and f2 ðyi ; jj Þ are the potentials at test points on the surfaces of the
Electrodes 1 and 2, respectively. In this calculation, yi and jj are calculated by the
following formulae:
i
yi ¼ p ði ¼ 0; 1; y; 20Þ; ð11Þ
20

j
jj ¼ p ðj ¼ 0; 1; y; 39Þ: ð12Þ
20
Potentials f10 and f20 are given surface potentials of the Electrodes 1 and 2,
respectively, and s1i and s2j are relative errors at each test point.
Then, the evaluation parameter s is defined by the following formula:
s ¼ max½s1 ; s2 : ð13Þ

This evaluation parameter is especially effective when one electrode differs

remarkably from the other in the potential.

Table 1
Parameters used for GA calculation

Number of fictitious charge of an each electrode N1 ; N2 12, 10

Bit length of the r-component of a charge position a 14 bits=charge
Bit length of the y-component of a charge position b 14 bits=charge
Bit length of the j-component of a charge position c 14 bits=charge
Bit length of the y-component of a contour position d 14 bits=charge
Bit length of the j-component of a contour position e 14 bits=charge
Radius of an electrode R1 ; R2 10 cm; 10 cm
Distance between the center of an electrode and grounded plate H1 ; H2 30 cm; 70 cm
Electrode voltage f1 ; f2 5000 V; 30 V
Crossover rate Cv at each locus (bit location) of a chromosome 0.1%
Mutation rate Mt at each locus of a chromosome 0.01%
Iteration 5000 generation
 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346 343

5.3. Numerical conditions and results

Table 1 shows the numerical conditions used for the calculation. The numerical
conditions in this table are given to the computing program as an input data file.
Though this electrode system has an axisymmetric structure, the calculation is
carried out for j that ranges from 0 to 2p:
Figs. 3 and 4 show the convergences of surface potentials of the electrodes at
y ¼ 0 cm plane. We can see that the surface potential of Electrode 1 is imitated well.
However, pronounced deviations from the specified potential are seen for Electrode
2 at a region near Electrode 1. This problem will be solved by increasing the numbers
of fictitious charges and contour points belong to Electrode 2. The evolution was
completed and convergence achieved by about 1000th generation.

6. Discussions

6.1. Deviation of electrode potential

A small displacement of the charges or the contour points from their appropriate
positions gives a small value of the electrode potential error. As shown in Figs. 3(b)
and 4(b), the absolute potential error of Electrodes 1 and 2 at 5000th generation is
almost the same value. However, for a low-voltage electrode (Electrode 2), the small
value of the absolute error becomes large value of relative error. Because of this, the
deviations occurred only for Electrode 2.
In this research, we tentatively assign 10 and 12 fictitious charges to Electrodes 1
and 2, respectively, as shown in Table 1. In order to improve the accuracy of the
solution, appropriate numbers of the charges and the contour points should be
assigned to each electrode.

Fig. 3. Surface potential of Electrode 1 at y ¼ 0 cm: (a) 0th generation and 5000th generation. (b) 5000th
generation (enlargement of (a)).
344 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346

Fig. 4. Surface potential of Electrode 2 at y ¼ 0 cm: (a) 0th generation and 5000th generation. (b) 5000th
generation (enlargement of (a)).

Table 2
Computer resources used for the calculations

CPU pentium III 1 GHz

RAM 320 MB
OS Windows 2000 5.0 (Build: 2195) Service Pack 2
Program language FORTRAN 90

6.2. Computing time

The computer resources used for the calculation are shown in Table 2. The
computing time for a single run (5000 generations) is about 14 h and the convergence
time (1000 generation) is about 3 h: When good individuals are being selected during
the calculation, a descending sort of the evaluation parameters is carried out by using
bubble-sorting method at each generation of the evolution. Also the computer
program writes some data on the hard disc during the calculation. Because of these,
the calculation time can be shortened by improving the program. Also, it seems that
the values of crossover rate Cv and mutation rate Mt affect the convergence of the
solution. So, the convergence time can probably be shortened by adopting appropriate
values of Cv and Mt : Usually, Cv is set less than 10% and Mt is set smaller than Cv
though there is no standard of these values because a clear information-theoretical
explanation has not yet been given about GA. The values of Cv and Mt used in this
research are relatively small. Because of this, the evolution goes on slowly.
The calculation time for a single individual is roughly proportional to the
following parameters:

(i) The number of test points.

 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346 345

(ii) NðN þ 1Þ; where N is the total number of the fictitious charges, because
Gauss–Jordan elimination is used when the simultaneous equations are
solved.

7. Conclusions

In this paper, we show the possibility that GA can be used as a way to arrange
both the fictitious charges and the contour points in CSM to calculate the potential
distribution around the electrode system with 3-D structure. The accurate solution
will be obtained by the following improvements:
(1) Increasing the number of the charges. This is the easiest method to improve the
accuracy of the solutions.
(2) Assigning the appropriate numbers of the charges and the contour points to
each electrode that constructs the electrode system [2]. This method is effective
when the total number of the charges is limited by some reason such as the limit
of computer resources.

It is also effective to increase the number of the test points, which are used to
calculate the evaluation parameter s; to improve the accuracy of the solution.
However, the calculation time for a single generation will be roughly proportional to
the number of the test point when the number becomes larger. Because of this, the
method to calculate the parameter s by using a limited number of the test point
should also be investigated.
Because this study is an investigation whether GA can be applied to the
problem of the arrangements of fictitious charges and contour points, we do not
consider the terminating condition from the magnitude of the error. For real
problems, the terminating condition will be changed considering the magnitude of
the error, i.e., the calculation is repeated until the magnitude of error reaches
tolerance.
If iteration (generation) number is large, it may take more calculation time to
obtain accurate (practical) solutions by using GA than by using a try-and-error
method by a researcher who acquires experience in CSM calculations.
It is effective to increase the number of the fictitious charges to improve the
accuracy of the solution. However, as the charge number becomes larger in 3-D
calculations, it is more difficult to get the picture of the whole charge arrangement
correctly when a try-and-error method is used, especially for beginners of CSM.
Because of this, it is desirable to investigate automatic arrangement methods of the
fictitious charges and contour points.
If a CSM program already exists, this automatic arrangement method can be used
by appending a decision routine using GA, in which case, it is not necessary to
rewrite the CSM program. The computer resources required for this automatic
arrangement are the same for conventional CSM calculations, however, it is
suggested to use a higher-speed computer.
346 R. Nishimura et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 57 (2003) 337–346

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