Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Flomerics | Subject: MicroStripes
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 05 December 2005
EM simulation produces optimised PC
antennas
Itronix has cut the time required to integrate extended wireless capabilities into PCs by using computer simulation to evaluate antenna performance without a physical prototype.
Itronix has substantially reduced the time required to integrate extended wireless capabilities into personal computers by using computer simulation to evaluate antenna performance without a physical prototype For example, the company recently designed an EVDO receive antenna in much less time that would have been required using the conventional build and test method
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 10 May 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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"Using traditional methods I would have probably built and tested about six prototypes, which would have taken maybe six months", said Mike Decker, Principal Electrical Engineer for Itronix.
"Using the MicroStripes simulation software I optimised the design in about two weeks and then built one prototype to verify the simulation, for a total of about six weeks".
With customers that include world recognised organisations such as Sears, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy, US Marines, FBI, Verizon and Florida Power and Light, Itronix is one of the world's leading providers of wireless, rugged mobile computing solutions.
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One of Itronix' key differentiators is its wireless integration expertise, which includes a comprehensive offering of wireless mobility solutions.
Itronix engineers recently designed a second EVDO antenna with the goal of improving receive performance in a notebook that already had EVDO and Bluetooth antennas.
The main challenge in this application was the limited amount of space that was available for the third antenna and the potential for interference with the existing Bluetooth transceiver.
Itronix designed the antenna using the MicroStripes electromagnetic simulation software from Flomerics.
"We selected MicroStripes because it is so much easier to use than the other packages we looked at", Decker said.
"When we were considering the software we modelled many of our existing designs and checked the simulation results against physical testing and found that it matched very closely".
Simulation showed that the initial design concept for the antenna was tuned to too high a frequency and had an unacceptably high return loss at the desired frequency.
Decker continuously improved the antenna design through a step-by-step process of modifying the model and resimulating to determine the impact of his change.
Decker spent about 40 hours in total to design the new antenna, using about 20 iterations to tune the antenna to the desired frequency and another 10 iterations to optimise its performance.
Only when simulation results indicated that he had achieved all the performance that could be squeezed out of the antenna, did Decker order his first prototype.
The physical testing results matched the simulation so the design was ready to go to market.
"This example is typical of the time savings that we achieve on a regular basis by simulating antenna designs prior to building prototypes", Decker said.
Decker added that additional performance improvements can be achieved with a new feature of the software that runs a series of simulations while automatically varying one or more design parameters over a user-specified range. Request a free brochure from Flomerics ...
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