Software enables rapid tuning of electromagnetic designs.
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Press Release Summary:
Intended for microwave and antenna design, MicroStripes v7 automatically runs series of simulations while varying design parameters over user-specified range. Users model concept design, identify geometric entities as variables, pick upper and lower limits for each variable, and select step size. Software generates as many simulation iterations as are required to explore design space defined by user. Results can be inspected by running mouse over graphical output.
Original Press Release:
MicroStripes Version 7 Enables Rapid Tuning of Electromagnetic Designs
(September 12, 2005) -- Flomerics announced that the new Version 7 of its MicroStripes electromagnetic design simulation software for microwave and antenna design substantially increases the speed with which users can tune their designs. The new version automatically runs a series of simulations while varying one or more design parameters over a user-specified range. This feature is supplemented by improvements in the accuracy of the automatic meshing algorithm. Furthermore, the new version enables users to inspect simulation results more quickly by simply running their mouse over the graphical output.
By allowing users to substitute variables for design parameters, the new version of MicroStripes speeds up the design process significantly. Users model their concept design, identify geometric entities as variables, pick upper and lower limits for each variable, and select a step size. The software then generates as many simulation iterations as are required to completely explore the design space defined by the user. The results of each simulation are plotted on a single graph so users can quickly determine which design parameter values provide optimal performance.
The automatic meshing algorithm in the new version automatically mimics what experienced users do when they manually fine-tune the mesh. The result is that the new version eliminates the need for such fine tuning, allowing automatically generated meshes to be used for nearly all simulations. The accuracy of the results produced by automatically generated meshes is now equivalent to that produced by hand-tuned meshes in the vast majority of cases.
The visualization of results in the new version has been improved to allow engineers to access the information they need to optimize their design more quickly. Running the mouse over a radiation pattern graph, for example, now yields the radiation magnitude at each point. Likewise, moving over electromagnetic field output produces field magnitude at any given point. The radiation pattern display has also been improved to directly show the antenna efficiency and gain. Polarization schemes can now be changed with a single click of the mouse.
MicroStripes electromagnetic analysis software differs from other electromagnetic simulation software in that it uses the Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) method for solving Maxwell's equations. A key advantage of the TLM method when applied to antenna design is that it solves for all frequencies of interest in a single calculation and therefore captures the full broadband response of the system in one simulation cycle. A further advantage is that the TLM method creates a matrix of equivalent transmission lines and solves for voltage and current on these lines directly. This uses less memory and CPU time than solving for E and H fields on a conventional computational grid.
Larry Fry of Prologic Inc., Uniontown, Pennsylvania, said: "I have used many electromagnetic analysis software products over the years ranging from simple NEC codes to more complex special-purpose programs. I think that Flomerics has hit a homerun with MicroStripes. It is easy to use, gives accurate results and the support is incredible. I would highly recommend MicroStripes to anyone that needs to solve complex, real-world 3D electromagnetic problems in a hurry."
MicroStripes 7 is now available for all 64-bit Windows editions (x64 and Itanium). On these platforms, it comes with a 64-bit solver capable of solving problems requiring over 2Gbytes of memory.
For more information, visit the MicroStripes Web site at www.microstripes.com
