INTEGRATED Engineering Software has announced that its SINGULA high frequency tool can now simulate large phased array antennas. It is an easy-to-use 3D full-wave electromagnetic simulator based on Combined Field Integral Equation (CFIE), making it suitable for high frequency applications such as conductors, power bus structures, microwave circuits and now large phased array antennas.

Large phased array antennas can be used for electronic steering of beams and are used in a wide variety of applications, including the aerospace and defense industries, satellite communication, remote sensing and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). They are complicated to computer simulate. Considering the mutual coupling between any two elements of the array, estimating the radiation characteristics of the large arrays leads to a very complex model. This is solved by using the parallel processing Moment of Method solution with the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique.

SINGULA uses the Boundary Element method coupled with Physical Optics (PO) and the FFT method to speed up the matrix-vector multiplication. It calculates near and far field results, power and directive gain, radar cross-section, axial ratio, and input impedance, admittance and scattering parameters. Powerful parametric solvers allow designers to automatically vary and experiment with geometry, materials and sources – reducing the tedious, repetitive task of fine-tuning multiple design parameters.

Bruce Klimpke, Technical Director at INTEGRATED said, "We are constantly updating our products to keep pace with the needs of our customers and with technological advances. This new feature in SINGULA will make the formerly difficult processes of using computer simulation to model large array antennas into a relatively simple one. As such, the development time and cost of these antennas can be significantly reduced."