Release Notes: Altair Feko 2022.0.2

Altair Feko 2022.0.2 is available with new features, corrections and improvements. This version (2022.0.2) is a patch release that should be applied to an existing 2022 installation.

Feko is a powerful and comprehensive 3D simulation package intended for the analysis of a wide range of electromagnetic radiation and scattering problems. Applications include antenna design, antenna placement, microstrip antennas and circuits, dielectric media, scattering analysis, electromagnetic compatibility studies including cable harness modelling and many more.

WinProp is the most complete suite of tools in the domain of wireless propagation and radio network planning. With applications ranging from satellite to terrestrial, from rural via urban to indoor radio links, WinProp’s innovative wave propagation models combine accuracy with short computation times.

newFASANT complements Altair’s high frequency electromagnetic software tool (Altair Feko) for general 3D EM field calculations, including, among others, special design tools tailored for specific applications like complex radomes including FSS, automated design of reflectarrays and ultra-conformed reflector antennas, analysis of Doppler effects, ultrasound systems including automotive or complex RCS, and antenna placement problems. Advanced solver technologies like the MoM combined with the characteristic basis functions (CBFS), PO/GO/PTD, GTD/PO and MLFMM parallelised through MPI/OpenMP, being some of them especially efficient for the analysis of electrically very large problems.

WRAP is a comprehensive tool for electromagnetic propagation, antenna collocation and spectrum management. WRAP combines propagation analysis, often over large areas with many transmitters and receivers, with system analysis to include complex non-linear equipment properties.

Feko 2022.0.2 Release Notes

The most notable extensions and improvements to Feko are listed by component.

CADFEKO

Resolved Issues

  • Resolved an issue with the handling of cable loads in models with multiple configurations. Additional (unrequested) load results could sometimes be available in POSTFEKO due to loads not being cleared correctly between configurations.
  • Avoid creating zero volume tetrahedral mesh elements in models with symmetry.

POSTFEKO

Resolved Issues

  • Resolved several issues with the handling of filenames containing multiple full stops (periods).
    • POSTFEKO session files containing multiple full stops can now be saved through the API.
    • Error and warning messages are corrected to reference the complete filename.
    • The specified filename is now used in full when exporting currents or near field results.

Solver

Feature

  • Significantly improve memory usage when activating ray export for the RL-GO.

Resolved Issues

  • When interrupting a simulation on Windows by pressing Ctrl+C, orphan solver processes will no longer remain and licenses will be released correctly.
  • Resolved the problem that licenses were not checked back in upon cancellation of a parallel Feko run, resulting in an incorrect accumulation of checked out units in subsequent runs. This was caused by a regression in Feko 2022.
  • An error resulting in higher memory usage than expected for MLFMM has been resolved.
  • Resolved an error in a model with cable harnesses having multiple configurations.
  • An informative error message is now issued for cases where the orientation of cable segments, relative to nearby geometry, may be problematic during the solution.
  • The processing of receiving antennas in wideband simulations using asymptotic solvers has been optimized. This will result in faster overall simulation times.
  • Resolved an internal error during geometry processing of a VEP model with metallic faces.

Shared Interface Changes

Features

  • Added the Create Frequency Ranges macro to create sub-models in a directory for each frequency range specified. A specific solver (MoM, MLFMM, ACA) can be assigned to each frequency range to optimise run time. Use the Combine Results macro in POSTFEKO to merge the results across the different frequency ranges.
  • Updated the Optimise model in HyperStudy macro to automatically create a HyperStudy session with the Feko model, solver, variables and output data sources set up in the session.

Support Components

Resolved Issue

  • Removed the incorrect unit displayed for the XPR axis for the MIMO Performance Evaluation application macro.

WinProp 2022.0.2 Release Notes

The most notable extensions and improvements to WinProp are listed by component.

ProMan

Features

  • Improved the behavior of the window scroll when deleting a site or antenna in a long list. Now the window cursor stays where the deleted site or antenna was, instead of scrolling to the top of the list.
  • Added support for time-variant predictions, in point mode, in a static indoor database.
  • Added a new transmitter type, the repeater. This enables simulation of an important class of communication scenarios in which a signal reaches its destination via single or multiple “hops”.
  • The consideration of propagation phenomena, such as reflection, diffraction, transmission and scattering, of different materials in a database can now be set or modified in ProMan. In previous releases, such changes were only possible in WallMan.

Resolved Issues

  • Improved the robustness of duplicate ray detection during IRT predictions.
  • Resolved a bug that resulted in a crash when simulating a time-variant project with multiple prediction heights using IRT.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the use of the parabolic equation solver.
  • Resolved potential inaccuracies in point mode results due to numerical precision issues.
  • The combination of time-variant simulation and trajectory mode is no longer allowed, unless all dynamics along the trajectory are zero.

WallMan

Feature

  • Improved .gml database conversion to the WinProp indoor and outdoor binary formats.

AMan

Resolved Issue

  • Increased the number of input files that can be converted to beam and envelope patterns to more than 500.

Application Programming Interface

Feature

  • Site ID related network planning results, such as cell area and number of receiving sites, can now be computed with the WinProp API.

Resolved Issue

  • Resolved a bug that resulted in a crash during OFDM network planning predictions of a project, with prediction planes, simulated with the API. Additionally corrected the used transmitter power, in the API, for a project with a transmitter set to non-EIRP mode.

newFASANT 2022.0.2 Release Notes

The most notable extensions and improvements to newFASANT are listed by component.

Solver

Resolved Issue

  • Resolved a slowdown with the hybrid MPI/OpenMP simulations when using the MoM module.

WRAP 2022.0.2 Release Notes

The most notable extensions and improvements to WRAP are listed by component.

General

Features

  • Provided more guidance with messages when a user opens a project with a GeoClass that differs from the GeoClass of other open projects.
  • Added a collocation interference diagram that shows at a glance the level of interference, if any, between all pairs of transmitters and receivers.
  • Added support of exporting line results in .kml or .kmz file formats.
  • Implemented a frequency sweep capability, with proper graphical results presentation, in the Collocation-Interference tool.

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed a crash that could occur when creating and working with a radio net without having defined valid from and valid to.
  • Fixed a bug due to which ITU-R P.526 did not respect the user-defined values for temperature and water vapour density in the calculation of atmospheric attenuation.
  • Fixed a bug in the temperature dependence of atmospheric attenuation. Atmospheric attenuation now decreases with increasing temperature in accordance with ITU-R P.676-2.
  • Fixed inaccurate coverage results that could occur when using ITU-R P.2001 over both land and sea in the same simulation.
  • Resolved a crash that could occur when a group is dragged and dropped from the project view into the map view.
  • Avoided rare cases where the Coverage calculator might not release the license when done.
  • Corrected the searching algorithm for stations close to national borders.
  • Added the missing option This Project in the selection of a station template in the Cost and Coverage Optimizer.
  • Improved the robustness of WRAP by reducing the number of compiler warnings in multiple places.