Release Notes: Altair Feko 2019.3.1

Altair Feko 2019.3.1 is available with new features, corrections and improvements. This version (2019.3.1) is a patch release that should be applied to an existing 2019 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.

Feko 2019.3.1 Release Notes

The most notable improvements to Feko are listed by component.

CADFEKO

Resolved Issue

  • Resolved an issue where the Optenni Lab plugin terminated with the error attempt to index field "FarField" (a nil value).

POSTFEKO

Resolved Issue

  • Fixed a problem affecting Linux platforms where using OpenGL rendering for 2D graphs caused the application to crash.

WinProp 2019.3.1 Release Notes

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

ProMan

Features

  • Implemented an initial algorithm for beam assignment for 5G, where phased-array antennas can switch among many possible beams and even employ multiple beams. For each pixel (mobile station) the full algorithm for the cell assignment is used for each of the antenna patterns available at the base station. Open the Edit Project Parameter dialog and click the Air Interface tab to specify cell-assignment criteria based on signal level or SNIR. The best cell/carrier/beam will be selected based on the results of the cell assignment.
  • Implemented an option to avoid long simulation times for 5G models in which phased-array antennas may employ multiple beams. This is controlled with the Apply Antenna Masking for Network Planning check box on the Edit Project Parameter dialog, Network tab. If selected:
    • Propagation results are computed and presented based on an isotropic pattern.
    • Network Planning can efficiently use multiple different antenna patterns by “masking” (adjusting) the propagation results according to those patterns.
    If not selected, Propagation results are based on an actual pattern and network planning uses that pattern for both control and data.
  • Envelope patterns for control and for data can now be different from each other.
  • Enhanced the set of results that is produced during EMC analysis of a network planning project. The result tree will show two types of results. The results related to human-safety standards are listed under EMF. These are the same results as before carrying a new label. The new results related to an electromagnetic compatibility standard can be found under EMC.
  • The effects of the curvature of the earth are now considered in point-mode predictions with the dominant path model in rural scenarios.

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed a bug that treated every antenna in the components catalogue as an isotropic (omni-directional) antenna.
  • Fixed a bug where, if one combined vegetation with a courtyard, one could get diffractions at the vegetation. Vegetation is not supposed to have such interactions.
  • Fixed a bug that led to higher received power being obtained when Fresnel coefficients are used for propagation computations of a full polarimetric project that uses an omnidirectional antenna as transmitter.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the use of the student edition of WinProp.
  • Coherent superposition of the electric field is now correctly considered in the deterministic two-ray propagation model.
  • Fixed a bug that led to a crash when carrying out auto calibration of the SRT propagation model.
  • Fixed a bug in the consideration of phase information, due to geometrical positioning of array elements, during the computation of the MIMO condition number in a full polarimetric project.
  • Fixed a bug that resulted in the same elevation angles being computed for the direct and ground reflected rays, for a project solved with the deterministic two-ray model.
  • Antennas with input power larger than -80 dBm are now also considered during network planning. This value is aligned with the limit used for propagation computations. Previously, a minimum input power of -40 dBm was required for an antenna to be used in network planning.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the phase of the field reported in some RunMS results, such as Channel Matrices per Point, to differ from the correct phase reported in the .str file.

WallMan

Feature

  • Added support for automatically shifting buildings atop the topography when an urban database, including topography, is converted to an indoor database.

Resolved Issues

  • Streamlined and modernized the code for intelligent ray tracing (IRT) pre-processing, which resulted in a speed-up. Furthermore, the pre-processing can now be done on many more parallel threads than before, and can also be done in parallel on Linux through the WinProp API.
  • The default values for the scattering matrix in the material catalogue have been set to Svv = Shh = 0.1 and Svh = Shv = 0.01. The value of 0.1 brings these entries in agreement with the default value for the empirical scattering loss of 20 dB.

CompoMan

Resolved Issue

  • Fixed a bug that treated every antenna in the components catalogue as an isotropic (omni-directional) antenna.

Application Programming Interface

Feature

  • Added support for Monte Carlo analysis for 5G applications to the WinProp API.

Resolved Issue

  • Fixed a bug that resulted in an error when converting an open street map (.osm) database into WinProp's binary format through the API.