An efficient multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) formalism to model radiation and scattering by/from large planar microwave structures is presented. The technique relies on an electric field integral equation (EFIE) formulation and a series expansion for the Green dyadic, based on the use of perfectly matched layers (PML). In this way, a new PML-MLFMA is developed to efficiently evaluate matrix-vector multiplications arising in the iterative solution of the scattering problem. The computational complexity of the new algorithm scales down to O (N) for electrically large structures. The theory is validated by
means of several illustrative, numerical examples.