The explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and continued proliferation of mobile communication devices is driving the demand for simulation tools to design and integrate antennas on complex structures and platforms. In addition is the need to design radio components and systems used in these mobile wireless communication devices. With the release of ANSYS HFSS 16.0, we deliver a new interface with advanced design and solver technology that allows users to design and optimize these wireless components and systems and leverage them throughout the complex supply chain.
ANSYS HFSS 16.0 adds a new integrated electronics desktop that combines circuit and full wave simulation in the same interface. This new interface includes a 3-D component library model framework with password protection, hybrid assembly modeling with efficient meshing. In addition, ANSYS continues to deliver solver advances for both its frequency domain finite element and method of moment solvers as well as its time domain finite element transient solver. These new capabilities enable antennas to be rapidly designed and optimized and then allow these virtual prototypes to be studied when integrated into complex platforms all within a highly efficient HPC enabled simulation environment.
IoT requires antennas placed upon and integrated within various platforms including possibly the human body, common appliances, vehicles, buildings, wireless base-stations, and many other likely unforeseen devices and structures. The design of military and civilian UAVs and their commercial drone complements requires multiple antennas on complex aircraft layouts made of a variety of composite materials. The new 3-D component modeling with password protection allows users to encrypt their component model into a black box that can be shared between component designers and system integrators. Only users with the component’s password can bring the design into HFSS for integration and simulation. Using this technology designers can capture the EM interaction between components in a completely rigorous fashion, which provides a much more accurate model than just cascading s-parameters while providing protection of the component’s IP. This will have a big impact in areas where antenna and other components such as high-speed connectors are being developed by RF engineers but being used by designers with less experience in RF design but need to comprehensively include their effects such as IoT wireless integration. The new mesh assembly allows antennas and other components of a design to be modified without re-meshing the entire structure thus allowing rapid component placement studies and optimization.
New solver improvements in HFSS include an enhanced matrix solver with new rapid extraction of multiport frequency domain s-parameter models. When analyzing electrically large radiating or scattering problems there is a new multi-level fast multiple method (MLFMM) solver for HFSS hybrid and HFSS-IE. For the time domain compliment to HFSS, HFSS Transient, a new implicit finite element time domain solver has been added which provides extremely fast time domain analysis especially for designs that are electrically small such as electrostatic discharge or lightning strike up to devices that are on the order of a few wavelengths in size.
Simulating all aspects of a product’s behavior early in the design process leads to improved engineering productivity and overall profitability and will continue to be the focus of ANSYS simulation software development efforts. Today, complete product simulation includes not only the electrical performance but also the mechanical and thermal properties that will impact the electrical performance and reliability. This becomes very important in IoT applications such as wearable electronics where the behavior of the antenna and radio system become very susceptible to the influences of the environment, whether that’s close proximity to a human body or a harsh industrial environment. ANSYS simulation tools support the flow of design information between engineering disciplines and captures coupled physics with the ability to solve very general electrical and multi-physics problems.
Forward thinking companies are looking to make RF/microwave component design and integration more efficient and cost effective. While this makes economic sense, it will require a fundamental change from the traditional build, test and tune engineering approach that is the hallmark of analog design. Highly-customized, engineering intensive product development will need the design automation that leverages existing design knowledge (and component libraries) with the capability to explore new design space. ANSYS is working hand in hand with leading technology companies to advance EM simulation from an analysis tool to an enterprise-serving physics-based design flow, leveraging high performance computing.
Engineers familiar with circuit-based component libraries and design kits will easily recognize the power of fully parameterized HFSS-based component libraries, customized to their company’s proprietary designs that can be shared among members of their design team, with customers and across generations of designs. Along with multi-physics analysis, HFSS-based parameterized component library support is a very exciting evolution in EM technology and a capability that is well-timed with the need to empower every engineer for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
To learn more about ANSYS HFSS, I invite you to join our webinar on March 4th entitled ANSYS HFSS 16.0 Update: New Methodologies for 3D Electromagnetic Simulations.
Additional resources:
http://www.ansys.com/Products/ANSYS+16.0+Release+Highlights/HFSS+3-D+Components
http://www.ansys.com/Products/Simulation+Technology/Electronics/Signal+Integrity/ANSYS+HFSS
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