feko

Connecting Physics and Real-World Data for Meaningful Digital Twins

Digital Twin is enjoying a breakthrough, fueled by advances in the sophisticated use of physics-based simulation models of varying fidelities. Connected and informed by data from the field with the help of artificial intelligence, Leonardo S.p.A. validates the performance of product systems virtually in the early stages of design to accelerate the development of their next generation of products.

Future.Industry 2021

Fast Modelling and Simulation of Complex Radomes

Radomes are a key part of antenna systems, which can seriously degrade transmitted and received signals. Modeling and simulation time for complex radomes can extend from days to weeks, and that also includes FSS structures embedded into them.

Webinars

Guide to 5G and 6G Product Design

The rollout of 5G communication networks and 6G networks on the horizon promise to be a boon for telecommunications companies and the manufacturing industry globally. Faster speeds will result in higher data rates for users, perhaps as much as ten times higher than 4G capabilities, using the 3.5 GHz frequency bands for area-wide services and the 26-28 GHz bands for high data rate hotspots. How will antenna manufacturers, wireless equipment manufacturers, automobile manufacturers and suppliers, and wireless operators rise to meet these challenges? In this guide, we’ll investigate the various electromagnetic and network planning simulation solutions Altair offers.

eGuide

Accelerating Antenna Design - Reduced Phased Array Antenna Design Time by 25% with Altair Feko®

RF2B is a wireless design services company offering custom antenna design and validation services across air interfaces and bands. RF2B developed a phased array antenna proof of concept design for small cell Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) base stations at 3.5GHz for its customer Menlo Micro, who develops high performance RF MEMS switch integrated circuits. Menlo Micro developed a reference design for 3.5GHz MEMS Based Differential Delay Shifter (DDS) using its RF switches that can be a great building block for electronically scanning antenna array in place of traditional phase shifters, which are band limited as well as expensive. Altair Feko comes with a feature called finite array analysis, plus a built-in script that synthesizes the antenna array. These features significantly sped up the high-level trade off analysis due to model building acceleration and lower memory consumption leading to much quicker simulation times, which is critical during the high-level design phase.

Customer Stories

Solving Electromagnetic Interference Issues without Testing

Safe and compliant electronic system design is important across all industries. Conforming to EMC regulations while reducing development costs and time requires the implementation of simulation throughout the product design lifecycle. With increased adoption organizations reduce design iterations and costly laboratory testing while meeting targets. Learn how Altair PollEx and Feko are used to simulate EMI/EMC at the board, subsystem, and system level.

Webinars

Connectivity Solutions for Industrial Internet of Things in the Heavy Equipment Industry, by Altair

Industry 4.0 is bringing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology via the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). IIoT technology is making agricultural and mining equipment, trucks, and other heavy industrial assets smarter by adding connectivity. Antennas play a critical role in providing reliable connectivity. During this talk, we will show how advanced electromagnetic (EM) simulation tools can help in the placement and integration of antennas into tractors, heavy-duty trucks, trains, etc. This talk also will showcase, use of wireless propagation simulation tools for network planning and virtual drive test (VDT) scenarios.Presented at the ATCx Heavy Equipment in May 2021.

Speaker: CJ Reddy, VP Business Development–Electromagnetics, Americas, Altair

Duration: 20 minutes

Future.Industry 2021

Making a Light Bulb Smart and Why Connected Products are No Longer a Novelty but a Necessity, by Toggled IQ

In a world of accelerating technological development, connected products provide the data for manufacturers to stay competitive. Discover how Toggled evolved from manufacturing commoditized lighting products to being a leader in connected building products. See what it takes to design and maintain a connected product ecosystem and the benefits of the data it collects.

Future.Industry 2021

Rapid Design and Optimization of RF Devices

Even in the age of fast and accurate EM simulation solutions, developing complex passive microwave components remains a challenging task. A novel hybrid solver solution is now available to address this design challenge and significantly shorten the development cycle for RF components. Offering a significant advantage over general solvers solely relying on 3D-FEM, this webinar will cover the rapid synthesis and optimization of such components using typical filter and horn antenna design examples.

Webinars

Advances in Electromagnetic Solutions Using Altair Feko

Altair offers wide ranging multi-physics solutions spanning across various disciplines. Altair Feko is a comprehensive computational electromagnetics (CEM) software used widely in the telecommunications, automobile, aerospace, and defense industries. Hybridization of full wave and asymptotic methods enables the efficient analysis of a broad spectrum of EM problems, including antennas, microstrip circuits, RF components and biomedical systems, the placement of antennas on electrically large structures, the calculation of scattering as well as the investigation of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). During this presentation, an overview of Altair along with capabilities of Feko are presented along with recent updates. Topics such as Characteristic Mode Analysis (CMA) and use of Machine Learning (ML) for antenna design are also discussed.

Webinars

Near-field infrared spectroscopy simulations using Altair Feko

In this white paper, we have developed a numerical technique to accurately model the experimental near-field amplitude and phase spectra in near-field infrared nano-spectroscopy. Our numerical method using Altair Feko is especially useful for describing surface phonon-polaritons. Also, extension of our numerical technique to materials with anisotropic dielectric function and/or heterogeneous structure is possible in the future. This method is efficient to elucidate fundamental physical phenomena measured in near-field infrared nano-spectroscopy experiments on novel, complex materials.

Technical Document

Radar and Radio Systems Coverage Optimization

Using simulation to predict, analyze, optimize, and plan the coverage given by radio and radar systems is key to reduce development and planning times together with costs. Also, in some cases, this is the only feasible approach to identify and fix communication issues. This webinar overviews simulation strategies for propagation analysis in complex environments, including among others large-scale terrain, cities, or buildings with interior detail. Additionally, the effects of interference and jamming will be covered and how the frequency allocation for a system with many transmitters can be optimized automatically.

Webinars

Complex Radome Electromagnetics Simulation in Minutes

Radomes are used across multiple industries, including aerospace, defense, electronics, and telecommunications. When properly designed, the radome can actually enhance the performance of an antenna system. The proper selection of a radome for a given antenna can help improve the overall electromagnetic system performance by eliminating wind loading, allowing for all-weather operation, and providing shelter for installation and maintenance. Altair’s radome simulation solution helps to streamline the design of these complex components, ensuring performance while significantly reducing development time.

Technical Document

Connectivity Solutions for Industrial Internet of Things in the Mining Industry

Industry 4.0 has led companies to investigate the automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices using modern smart technologies via Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) making agricultural and mining equipment, trucks, and other heavy industrial assets smarter via effective connectivity solutions.

Technical Document

Guide to Smart Product Development

The Internet of Things (IoT) has transformed the way companies do business. New product lines, recurring revenue streams, more efficient operations, higher quality and faster time-to-market are all within reach with the introduction of smart interconnections between systems and assets. This guide is designed to help you realize your Smart Product Development vision from ideation, to optimization, to launch and operation. Try SmartWorks IoT today, for free - click here to start trial.

eGuide

Simulation-Driven Virtual Prototyping of Smart Products

Reprint of the July 2021 cover feature in Microwave Journal Simulation-driven virtual prototyping is employed in the design of modern smart products to accelerate product development speed, ensure intrinsic product qualities and improve the decision-making process during development. It results in smart products that are more cost effective with higher quality and reliability.

Technical Document

Electromagnetic Exposure Evaluation of Basic Restrictions in ICNIRP Guidelines with Feko

The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has published on March 2020 an update of the guidelines for limiting exposure to electromagnetic fields (100 kHz to 300 GHz). This white paper describes how to evaluate the compliance regarding the basis restrictions of ICNIRP by numerical field simulation with the simulation software Altair Feko.

White Papers

HyperWorks for Electromagnetics Engineering Teaching

In this presentation hear about academic research at the Antenna and Electromagnetics Group at Queen Mary University of London. Examples include the use of Altair Feko to enhance a bee tracking radar performance and to design new generation compact antenna test ranges.

Presented at the 2nd Altair Academic Outreach Event in June 2021

Speaker: Dr. Rostyslav Dubrovka, Lecturer, Terahertz & Quasi Optics Research Unit Manager, Queen Mary University of London
Duration: 21 minutes

Conference Presentations

Designing for Electromagnetic Radiation Hazards Compliance

New technologies such as 5G, V2V-communication, e-mobility and IoT increase the number of electromagnetic field sources in the environment. When designing such electronic systems, compliance with electromagnetic radiation hazard standards (e.g., ICNIRP 2020) must be ensured. This webinar will discuss the hazards of electromagnetic radiation to personnel, ordnance, and fuel and how this can be mitigated through numerical field calculations with Altair technology. Defense, automotive and telecommunications case histories will be presented.

Webinars

Altair for Electronic System Design (ESD)

Electronic system design (ESD) is having a greater influence on almost every type of product requiring new simulation tools to help achieve electronic, electrical, mechanical, thermal, and connectivity goals. Altair’s simulation-driven design tools enable your team of specialized engineers to collaborate across all aspects of printed circuit board development from concept to manufacturing. Our products streamline your process, eliminate design iterations, and reduce time-to-market.

Brochures

A Basic RCS Demo with Feko

This short demo will show how to create, set up and run a model for RCS simulation. Following the simulation, the demo will then take you to visualization and analysis of the results. You will also learn how to benefit from the scripting capabilities to visualize and understand more advanced characteristics of the model, which are not evident by doing a simple analysis of the object. You will have access to the entire workflow, including simulation, in a 5 minutes video.

Tutorials

RCS and Scattering Simulation for Radar Systems

Innovation and digitization are key factors when designing advanced detection systems, autonomous vehicles, and stealth technology, where electromagnetic simulation has become essential. In this webinar, we will cover central concepts important to Radar Cross Section (RCS) and scattering calculations. This will include the exploration of various applications, highlighting some of the newest capabilities helping customers to solve challenging problems leveraging established and industry-leading solutions.

Webinars

Simulation of High Fidelity Foliage Penetration (FOPEN) at Ku Band

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems use electromagnetic (EM) waveform transmissions to illuminate objects, and images are created from processing reflections or echoes. SAR systems are now widely deployed to support critical remote mapping/sensing capabilities. SAR transmitters are typically installed on moving airborne or satellite platforms to operate at stand-off ranges and collect terrain data measurements. The measured data, collected from multiple passes/scans is interpreted by advanced SAR interferometry algorithms into surface terrain maps to help discriminate (detect) key landscape features, e.g., fault lines, bodies of water, forests and vegetation, glaciers, etc. Some of the most technical tasks include discriminating foliage in mapped terrains, identifying forest types, discerning tree heights, and detecting anomalies or hidden objects beneath foliage - termed the foliage penetration (FOPEN) problem. Due to the increasing interest in using higher Ku-band frequencies (12-18 GHz) for FOPEN, there is a growing need to quantify the interaction of foliage with Ku-band frequencies for consulting purposes; and to aid with enhanced technology support for applications in both the commercial and military domains. Overall, this important area remains largely unaddressed in the modeling realm today because of the required heavy model detail and substantial computational resources. This technical paper lays out a FOPEN modeling methodology that introduces a range of new innovations and contributions to address the phenomenology of Ku-band EM wave transmissions through moderate foliage. Two highly detailed computer-aided design (CAD) tree models were created using an open source tree generating software. Due the level of details of tree models, Altair HyperMesh is used for geometry editing and cleaning and then Altair Feko is used for FOPEN computational electromagnetic (CEM) behaviors at L- and Ku-band are characterized.

White Papers

Complex Radome Simulation Training Cases

Complex radomes have long and costly development cycles, where simulation can significantly reduce such time and cost. newFASANT technology extends Altair Feko high frequency solution coverage for complex radomes, including FSS. A bit more in detail, this solution can accelerate modelling and simulation time by 50X for antenna and RCS problems. Radome modelling including FSS can be reduced from weeks to days, while MoM/MLFMM is parallelized with MPI/OpenMP, including optimization capabilities. This document contents 2 training examples. The first one is on parametric radomes and the second one on radomes with FSS.

Training Materials

Complex Radome Electromagnetics Simulation in Minutes

A radome is a structural enclosure that protects antennas and electronics from harsh weather and environmental factors without degrading electromagnetic signals to the radar. It is designed to have minimal impact on the electrical performance of the antenna and to withstand structural and wind loading performance requirements. They are used across multiple industries, including aerospace, defense, electronics, and telecommunications. Radomes, especially those containing multiple layers and curved FSS elements, are complex and the modeling and simulation of these systems can commonly take days and even weeks to complete. Altair’s streamlined radome simulation solution reduces this time to minutes. This webinar will overview Altair’s radome simulation solution and its application to design a radome system. Who Should Attend? This webinar has been designed to address the needs and challenges of engineering managers, EMC engineers, antenna engineers and designers, RF engineers, and Radio site engineers from military contractors (OEMs and their suppliers), defense governmental organizations (including navy, air force, army), and aerospace companies (OEMs and their suppliers).

Webinars

Interference and Collocation Interference Demonstration

Radio interference occurs when two or more RF systems affect one another’s smooth operation. This normally occurs when two or more RF systems are operating physically close to one another and they are operating in such a way that one of the transmitters negatively impacts one or more receivers. Through this demonstration video you will learn how to analyze and mitigate collocation interference on a ship and also how to analyze and find solutions for interferences between ground radio stations.

Quick Start

Collocation Interference - Tutorial Package

Learning package to learn through a set of hands-on exercises how to analyze and solve co-site interference and interferences problems with the Altair solution.

Training Materials

Collocation Interference Analysis Workflow And Exercise

RF co-site interference occurs when two or more co-located RF systems affect one another’s smooth operation. This normally occurs when two or more RF systems are operating physically close to one another and they are operating in such a way that one of the transmitters negatively impacts one or more receivers. This document explains you the workflow and includes an exercise following the steps to solve a co-site interference problem from the creation of the transmitters, receivers and antennas, through the stations and coupling loss matrices, and to the analysis.

Quick Start

Guide to Electronic System Development

Manufacturers today are tasked with designing smart, connected products at a breakneck pace to stay ahead of the competition. As performance demands continually increase, packaging sizes become smaller, and device connectivity becomes more critical, schematic engineers and product designers need ways to make efficient design decisions and collaborate with one another to optimize complex interconnected mechanical and electromagnetic systems. To develop the next generation of smart products, organizations are turning simulation to improve device performance and drive profitability.

eGuide

To what extent has the Taiwan Unmanned Vehicle System been on track from MIRDC's perspective

In this presentation, MIRDC’s Bionic Intelligent Automatic Guided Vehicle (BI-AGV) is introduced. This “collaborative handling module” has three characteristics of wireless intelligence, flexible use and flexible movement. Through the wireless intelligent collaborative handling system, it can control several automatic guided vehicles (AGVS) in real time, and several vehicles can conduct remote control and serial connection to carry out handling tasks. At the same time, the 360-degree mobile omni-directional wheel design framework is adopted. It has the advantages of flexible use in the area where the traditional unmanned vehicle cannot run smoothly in the indoor narrow space.

Global ATC 2020

Introduction to CADFEKO

In thei s video you will get an introduction to the CADFEKO interface.

Quick Start

SIMULATION DRIVEN ANTENNA DESIGN TO MEET ENVIRONMENTAL SPECIFICATIONS

In this paper, we illustrate a simulation-driven workflow process using Altair HyperWorks Suite for antennas to meet environmental specifications during the design process so time taken for test and certification can be minimized and thus, cost savings and faster product development cycles.

White Papers

Altair Feko Demonstration

This video will provide a demonstraiton fo Altair Feko.

Quick Start

Introduction to POSTFEKO

In the is video you will receive an introduction to POSTFEKO.

Quick Start

Feko Profile in HyperMesh

This video will provide an overview of the Feko profile in HyperMesh.

Quick Start

Next Generation Robotics and Controls Lab

ESS & Altair invites you to an engaging webinar on next-generation Robotics and Controls Lab. In this webinar, we will be demonstrating a unique visual approach to robotics by using a combination of Altair Digital-Twin technology & Altair Hardware-in-Loop Modelling environment. During this webinar, you will learn how to design & develop cutting-edge Robotics applications using Altair’s fail-safe Digital-Twin technology, Acrome Ball-Balancing Table Robot & Altair Model-Based Development tools. By adopting technologies like Digital-Twin, Multi-Domain Modelling and 1D to 3D Co-Simulation using Modelica interfaces and Hardware-in-loop modelling, the Indian R&D sector can eliminate catastrophic failures of systems downstream.

Webinars

Antenna Coupling on an Electrically Large Object

Calculate the S-parameters (coupling) over a frequency range for three monopole antennas located near the front, middle and rear of a Rooivalk helicopter mock-up.

Tutorials

Windscreen Antenna on an Automobile

Calculate the input impedance of a windscreen antenna constructed from wires. The windscreen consists of a layer of glass and a layer of foil.

Quick Start

Antenna Coupling using an Equivalent Source and Ideal Receiving Antenna

Calculate the coupling between two horn antennas separated by 60 wavelengths. A metallic plate between the horn antennas blocks the line-of-sight coupling. Replace the horn antennas with a far field equivalent source and receiving antenna.

Quick Start

Horn Feeding a Large Reflector

Calculate the gain for a cylindrical horn feeding a parabolic reflector at 12.5 GHz. The reflector is electrically large (diameter of 36 wavelengths) and well separated from the horn. Several techniques available in Feko are considered to reduce the required resources for electrically large models.

Quick Start

Dielectric Lens Antenna

Calculate the radiation pattern of a dielectric lens antenna. The lens is illuminated by an equivalent far field source with an ideal cosine pattern. The lens structure is modelled using the ray launching geometrical optics (RL-GO). Compare the RL-GO solution with a hybrid FEM/MoM solution.

Quick Start

Different Ways to Feed a Horn Antenna

Calculate the far field pattern of a pyramidal horn antenna at 1.645 GHz.

Quick Start

Aperture Coupled Patch Antenna

Calculate the input reflection coefficient of an aperture coupled patch antenna. Use continuous frequency sampling to minimise runtime. Compare results for a finite and infinite dielectric.

Quick Start

Results of Monopole Antenna on a Finite Ground Plane

View and post-process the results in POSTFEKO.

Quick Start

Log Periodic Dipole Array Antenna

Calculate the radiation pattern and input impedance for a log periodic dipole array (LPDA) antenna. Non-radiating transmission lines are used to model the boom of the LPDA antenna.

Quick Start

MIMO Elliptical Ring Antenna (Characteristic Modes)

Calculate the current distribution and far fields for a MIMO elliptical ring antenna. Use characteristic mode analysis to calculate the results for different modes.

Quick Start

Using the MLFMM for Electrically Large Models

Consider the resource saving advantage of using the MLFMM for electrically large models.

Quick Start

RCS and Near Field of a Dielectric Sphere

Calculate the radar cross section and the near field inside and outside of a dielectric sphere using the surface equivalence principle (SEP).

Quick Start

RCS of a Thin Dielectric Sheet

Calculate the bistatic radar cross section of an electrically thin dielectric sheet. The sheet is modelled using the thin dielectric sheet approximation and is illuminated by an incident plane wave.

Quick Start