Agilent Announces New Antenna Design, Optimization Features

Venice, Florida — Agilent Technologies Inc announced the availability of its latest Antenna Modeling Design System (AMDS) release. The full-wave 3-D electromagnetic (EM) modeling and simulation software contains a scripting feature based on the Python language for performance optimization and automation of complex designs such as patch array antennas, allowing designers to fine tune antennas for the best performance within electronic devices, such as handheld wireless cell phones.

Python is a popular open-source object-oriented programming language that supports integration with other languages and tools, and comes with extensive libraries.

Modeling, simulating and optimizing complex antenna systems is an intricate process that includes setting up layout and simulation parameters and mathematical post-processing of the simulation results. Due to the time-consuming nature of placing and analyzing many elements in a system, designers frequently simplify simulations and use external tools to perform the necessary computations. This process is cumbersome and introduces design risk. The new scripting capability in this fifth release of AMDS allows designers to write their own programs to automate element placement and incorporate mathematical functions to perform virtually any analysis on the antenna design before it is integrated into the complete mobile wireless device. Designers also can use equations to define the geometry of complex antennas (such as those with fractal and conformal surfaces) to optimize performance.

AMDS is a full-wave, 3-D EM design, modeling and verification tool dedicated to antenna and antenna systems design. It meshes, simulates and optimizes an entire wireless device, together with its surrounding real-world environment, to analyze compliance standards such as HAC, SAR (Specific Absorption Rate), and antenna diversity and MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple Output).

Agilent's AMDS 3-D EM feature set includes:

• efficient importing of CAD data from product designers, reducing or eliminating EM design iterations.
• Python scripting, allowing modeling and simulation of complex antenna systems such as patch array antennas.
• Verification of antenna compliance with legal and operational standards such as SAR, HAC, Over-the-Air Performance and MIMO.
• Optimization of MIMO performance by analyzing antenna placement and diversity for the entire physical wireless appliance.
• Optimization of device performance, including modeling the interaction between a human's head and the wireless device.

The Agilent AMDS is available now with prices starting at approximately $50,000. To request a demonstration of AMDS or additional technical or sales information, visit www.agilent.com.