Donald R. Wilton Explained

Donald Robert Wilton
Birth Date:	25 October 1942
Birth Place:	Lawton, Oklahoma, U.S.
Fields:	Electrical engineering Computational electromagnetics
Workplaces:	Hughes Aircraft Company University of Mississippi University of Houston
Alma Mater:	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Thesis Title:	A new numerical approach to the calculation of electromagnetic scattering properties of two-dimensional bodies of arbitrary cross-section
Thesis Url:	https://www.proquest.com/docview/302535977/
Thesis Year:	1970
Doctoral Advisor:	Raj Mittra
Known For:	Rao–Wilton–Glisson basis function
Awards:	IEEE Electromagnetics Award (2015) National Academy of Engineering membership (2021)
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Donald Robert Wilton (born October 25, 1942) is an American electrical engineer who is a professor emeritus at Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Houston. He is best known for his contributions to the field of computational electromagnetics.

Biography

Donald Robert Wilton was born on October 25, 1942 in Lawton, Oklahoma. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in 1964, 1966, and 1970, respectively. From 1965 to 1968, he was affiliated with Hughes Aircraft Company, where he worked on phased arrays. He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of Mississippi in 1970. He was a visiting professor at Syracuse University from 1978 to 1979. From 1983 until his retirement in 2012, he has been with University of Houston, where he is a professor of electrical engineering. Wilton is best known for his work in computational electromagnetics: he has introduced the namesake Rao–Wilton–Glisson (RWG) triangular surface basis functions, widely used in method of moments modeling of complex structures, with his doctoral students Sadasiva M. Rao and Allen W. Glisson.

Wilton is a member of Commission B of International Union of Radio Science and is a fellow of the IEEE. In 2015, he received IEEE Electromagnetics Award "for fundamental contributions to integral equation methods in computational electromagnetics." In 2021, He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for "contributions to computational electromagnetics of highly complex structures."

Selected publications

Journal articles

• Glisson . A. . Wilton . D. . Simple and efficient numerical methods for problems of electromagnetic radiation and scattering from surfaces . IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation . September 1980 . 28 . 5 . 593–603 . 10.1109/TAP.1980.1142390.
• Rao . S. . Wilton . D. . Glisson . A. . Electromagnetic scattering by surfaces of arbitrary shape . IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation . May 1982 . 30 . 3 . 409–418 . 10.1109/TAP.1982.1142818.
• Schaubert . D. . Wilton . D. . Glisson . A. . A tetrahedral modeling method for electromagnetic scattering by arbitrarily shaped inhomogeneous dielectric bodies . IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation . January 1984 . 32 . 1 . 77–85 . 10.1109/TAP.1984.1143193.
• Wilton . D. . Rao . S. . Glisson . A. . Schaubert . D. . Al-Bundak . O. . Butler . C. . Potential integrals for uniform and linear source distributions on polygonal and polyhedral domains . IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation . March 1984 . 32 . 3 . 276–281 . 10.1109/TAP.1984.1143304.
• Rao . S.M. . Wilton . D.R. . Transient scattering by conducting surfaces of arbitrary shape . IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation . January 1991 . 39 . 1 . 56–61 . 10.1109/8.64435.
• Graglia . R. D. . Wilton . D. R. . Peterson . A. F. . Higher order interpolatory vector bases for computational electromagnetics . IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation . March 1997 . 45 . 3 . 329–342 . 10.1109/8.558649.