Altair > Case Studies > Accelerating Antenna Design: Reducing Phased Array Antenna Design Time by 25% with Altair® Feko®

Accelerating Antenna Design: Reducing Phased Array Antenna Design Time by 25% with Altair® Feko®

Technology Category

Networks & Connectivity - Gateways
Networks & Connectivity - RF Transceivers

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Digital Twin
Virtual Reality

Services

System Integration
Testing & Certification

About The Customer

RF2B is a wireless design services company that offers custom antenna design and validation services across various air interfaces and bands. The company's mission is to enhance quality and shorten time to market for radio frequency integrated circuits developers, manufacturers, and satellite system providers. RF2B provides validation services based on a disruptive system level methodology and turn-key development of application reference radio frequency integrated circuit designs. The use of fast, accurate simulation is key to its efficiency. The company's customer applications span across mobile, medical, trackers, gateways, home automation, and gaming accessories.

The Challenge

RF2B was tasked with developing a phased array antenna proof of concept design for small cell Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) base stations at 3.5GHz for its customer Menlo Micro, a developer of high-performance RF MEMS switch integrated circuits. The challenge was to achieve enough azimuth and elevation beam steering range with enough grating lobe suppression and higher efficiency. This required high-level design analysis to decide the number of columns and rows, element type, element spacing, angular step size, and amplitude tapering for the antenna array. Another challenge was the overall complexity of the design, requiring a time-efficient antenna array simulation and design methodology that included the feed network. The antenna array also needed to be optimized in its mechanical environment, including the enclosure and radome.

The Solution

Altair Feko was used to address these challenges. It comes with a feature called finite array analysis, plus a built-in script that synthesizes the antenna array. These features significantly sped up the high-level trade-off analysis due to model building acceleration and lower memory consumption leading to much quicker simulation times, which is critical during the high-level design phase. At earlier stages, the various blocks were modeled with multiport S-parameters which integrated well into the Feko non-radiating network schematic function. Careful trade-off analysis for materials used and separation to the antenna array used when adding the antenna enclosure and especially the radome by Feko analysis made it possible for the optimized antenna array design.

Operational Impact

The use of Altair Feko led to the successful design and fabrication of the antenna array as simulated. The design was validated in an anechoic chamber with test results for the achieved gain, steering range of the beam, and antenna array efficiency. Excellent agreement with Feko simulations was observed, demonstrating the effectiveness of the solution. The design was able to meet the end customer's schedule deadline, despite the complexity of the project. The use of Feko also allowed for the optimization of the antenna array in its mechanical environment, including the enclosure and radome, further enhancing the overall design.

Quantitative Benefit