Modeling of Complex Antenna Arrays on Aircrafts, Ships and Ground Vehicles

DESCRIPTION:
Virtual EM Inc.’s software product VirAntenn™ has been developed under a Navy Phase II SBIR project (Contract No. N68335-03-C-0204) and is currently being tested at a number of prime contractors (Raytheon, L-3 Communications, Ball Aerospace, and ATK to name a few), government labs and small businesses. A perfect example of the capability of the software is the tapered slot array antenna shown in the figure. The array is built starting from the individual elements and all the way to a frequency selective surface (FSS) layer on top of the array. Both the array and the FSS layer are large periodic structures and VirAntenn™ software is more efficient than any other method or software reported in the literature in modeling such structures. VirAntenn™ software utilizes the latest advances in computational engine technology including the fast multiple method (FMM), Domain Decomposition, and preconditioning (for faster convergence). VirAntenn™ is also capable of predicting the effect of the platform on the antenna pattern by a hybrid arrangement whereby the output of the full-wave engine is fed into a high-frequency code (utilizing multi bounce PO), which models the rest of the platform.

SBIR TOPIC #: N131-008 (Phase I)