Computation Of The Biot-Savart Line Integral With Higher-Order Convergence Using Straight Segments

One common approach to computing the magnetic field produced by a filamentary current-carrying coil is to approximate the coil as a series of straight segments. The Biot-Savart field from each straight segment is analytically known. However, if the endpoints of the straight segments are chosen to lie on the coil, then the accuracy of the Biot-Savart computation is generally only the second order in the number of endpoints. We propose a simple modification: shift each end point of the coil in the outward normal direction by an amount proportional to the local curvature. With this modification, the Biot-Savart accuracy increases to the fourth order and the numerical error is dramatically reduced for a given number of discretization points.