MTT-S 2008: Vector Fields Enhances Software Tool For High-Frequency Electromagnetic Design
Atlanta GA - Recently at IMS 2008, Vector Fields releases a major new version of its Concerto software tool for high-frequency electromagnetic design. Although Concerto's developers already believe the package to offer the fastest-executing solver for this electromagnetic application area, generic design trends such as a move to higher frequencies and more sophisticated antennas are leading to much more complex designs.
Concerto v7 introduces numerous improvements to accelerate the speed of simulation and optimization. These advances include 64-bit PC processing support, better distributed processing of simulations, greatly improved support for exploiting periodicity in designs, and a highly innovative optimization tool that intelligently applies multiple algorithms to resolve even the most complex of problems.
Concerto v7 provides a comprehensive 2D or 3D design-simulate-analyze-optimize toolchain for high-frequency electromagnetic applications. Component or system models can be created using a powerful, integrated geometric modeler, or imported from CAD programs. CAD formats supported include CATIA, ProEngineer, IGES. SAT and STEP. When a design model is ready, users have a choice of methods to characterize performance.
As standard, Concerto offers a Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulator, which has broad ranging applicability. Depending on the application, users can add two further simulation options. A Method of Moments (MoM) tool provides a very good platform for simulating large environment problems such as installed antenna performance. A Finite Element Method (FEM) tool offers an elegant means of performing eigenvalue analysis for problems such as characterizing microwave resonator and cavity designs.
Concerto's applications span the high frequency spectrum and include antennas, waveguides, cavities and resonators, filters, connectors, microwave heating, and radar systems and signatures.
Many applications are found in fast-evolving commercial communications markets. In these areas in particular, products are often based on standards, and there is enormous competitive pressure to develop both as quickly and as economically as possible. Products are also tending to become more complex, and now often embed multiple radios, and more complex antenna systems. Combined with a general trend towards higher frequencies, the scale of design models is starting to become extremely large. This is making it time consuming to run simulations, and has the knock-on effect of reducing the time available to perform optimization and run 'what if?' scenarios — impeding design speed, productivity and excellence.
Vector Fields' previous 32-bit version of Concerto could run models with as many as 20 million cells on a 3 Gb PC, at a time when average model size was probably in the 5-10 million cell area. The new 64-bit version effectively removes the memory constraint on model size. This is particularly helpful for antenna designs, which also have to account for the effect of external structures on performance, such as the human head and hand.
As an example of the new program's speed, an accurate simulation of a horn antenna 10 wavelengths long, with an aperture of six wavelengths, takes less than five minutes on a modest single-processor laptop.
Speed of simulation for very large models is aided by new support for distributed processing. With Concerto, several processors can be employed to divide a problem and execute it in parallel. The execution speed of the parallel version has been aided by multi-threaded code that has been rewritten using the OpenMP standard for shared memory programming. Actual speed-up depends to some extent on the model but Vector Fields' tests have shown a typical scale-up efficiency of about 90%. In addition to parallelization, Concerto now also supports a distributed 'batch' system, allowing the controlling PC to make use of spare capacity on the network. This system will distribute queued simulations as resource becomes available.
For design models with periodic structures, this release of Concerto offers another way of accelerating simulation. The package's previous one-dimensional support, which was used for applications such as simulating waveguides and filters with repeated geometry, has now been extended to 3D. This provides much greater flexibility, speeding the simulation of antenna arrays, metamaterials, etc.
Also added in version 7 is a radical new automatic optimization tool for the MoM and FEM solvers that makes multi-variable, multi-goal optimization possible, even if the user specifies competing objectives. This breakthrough tool, which has been proven on Vector Fields' well-known Opera package for low frequency and static electromagnetic applications, intelligently applies a suite of optimization algorithms to determine the global optimum. It first runs a primary series of simulations across the design space to provide a basis for understanding where the likely solution lies, before homing in on the best fit. The new tool complements the existing optimizer for the FDTD solver.
"Concerto v7 provides a platform that can cost-effectively deal with a very broad range of high frequency electromagnetic design problems," says Vector Fields' Chris Riley. "It puts developers back in control, using a highly affordable desktop tool, allowing them to achieve the best solution in the shortest time, whether the goal is best performance, lowest cost, easiest manufacture, or some combination."
Concerto v7 is available immediately in a range of 2D and 3D versions, starting from around $4750. As well as high end performance, Vector Fields offers a number of low-cost entry-level configurations. Concerto AS has been specially developed to provide a low cost solution for designing axisymmetric co-axial junctions. Concerto ES provides a low cost entry point to full 3D functionality by limiting the number of finite difference cells.
SOURCE: Vector Fields, Inc.