Far Field and Near Field

From the theoretical point of view, ray optical algorithms can only be used in the far field of the antenna and are only valid if the obstacles are large compared to the wavelength. Additionally, they do not consider coupling between adjacent antennas.

If the near field must be computed, models based on the electromagnetic field theory are required, for example, the method of moments (or something similar). But these models suffer from long computation times.

MASC uses ray optical methods and not the method of moments (MoM) because of the computation time. Short computation times are only achievable with ray optical models. And the error concerning the accuracy is acceptable.