Highlights of the 2025.1 Release
The Feko 2025.1 release features extensions to many different solvers - enhancing Feko's capabilities in propagation modelling, network planning as well as general and specialist EM analysis application areas. There are various performance improvements, interoperability, and API extensions, enabling more flexible workflows and automation.
Feko
Performance of RL-GO
The speed and accuracy for RL-GO was improved. Significant run-time reductions (dependent on the example, several orders of magnitude) and accuracy improvements when incident plane waves are used as excitation.
Examples showing the run-time reductions and accuracy improvements when incident plane waves are used as excitation.
New Iterative Solver & Preconditioner
- A new iterative solver (FGMRES) was added for the MLFMM, hybrid FEM/MoM, hybrid FEM/ MLFMM and FEM simulations. This iterative solver provides an improved rate of convergence and monotonically decreasing residuum.
A comparison of FGMRES) and RBi-CGstab for a Cassegrain reflector (35 GHz) at 12U CubeSat.
- A new Domain-Level Preconditioner (DLP) was added for the MLFMM that has repeatable memory requirements and is more efficient for massive parallel scaling.
Distributed FEM Line Port
Support was added for a FEM distributed line port that defines a Norton equivalent circuit port in a FEM region. The two terminals of the port are formed by two N-point polylines defining the start and end points, respectively, of N discrete lines.
- The distributed FEM line port can be used as a replacement for the FEM line port, where a distributed excitation current or lumped-element loading along two selected edges (a positive edge and a negative edge) in the FEM model is preferable to a single point excitation/load.
- The distributed FEM line port may also be used as a replacement for waveguide/modal or microstrip-port excitations/loads on structures such as coaxial lines and microstrips where a uniformly distributed current or load is preferred.
A dielectric resonator antenna excited using a FEM modal port, a distributed FEM line port and a FEM line port respectively. S-parameters computed using the distributed FEM line port impedance agree far better with the FEM modal excitation, but the port may be used to apply a lumped excitation or load rather than a mode-based excitation/termination.
Perfect Magnetic Conductors (PMC's)
A MoM surface or region can now be set to perfect magnetic conductor (PMC), in a similar way to PEC. Support was also added to treat dielectric boundary faces on the outside of FEM regions as perfect magnetic conductors (PMC’s) rather than absorbing boundaries when decoupled from the MoM.
Example of where the boundaries of PCB cutout are modeled as perfect magnetic conductor. The S-parameter comparison in frequency range 50 MHz – 20 GHz. FEM using distributed line ports (decoupled from MoM, PMC BC), FEM using waveguide ports (decoupled from MoM, PMC BC) and SEP using waveguide ports (bounded by MoM PMC triangles) are compared.
Component Library
A sinuous spiral antenna was added to the Component library in CADFEKO. The antenna model is parametrised with six design variables.
Extensions to Meshing
The following extensions were made to the meshing workflow in CADFEKO:
- Simulation mesh from unlocked and locked parts are now loaded from legacy .cfx files. No re-meshing is done after loading the model until changes are made. This behaviour is the same as in legacy CADFEKO.
- Added the Create Mesh button where the meshing scope can be specified on the Create Mesh dialog. Specifying the scope allows you only to mesh a selected entity or multiple selected entities. All parts in a mesh group are meshed.
- Added the option to activate and deactivate smart refinement to account for the proximity of objects when meshing a model or a specific primitive part. In previous CADFEKO versions, the impact of proximity of parts was always considered.
Objects for which proximity meshing is disabled are meshed in isolation, and the mesh and characteristics of nearby parts will have no effect on the meshing. You can control the application of proximity meshing during meshing (global) for a specific part and can also define the default behaviour to be used for new models.
- You can now choose to terminate an ongoing meshing process. For larger meshes it may take time for mesher to be stop. A progress bar is shown to indicate that the termination process is ongoing.
Remote Execution
The Feko GUI components now support remote execution using PowerShell-Invoke. The setting is available on the Launch Options dialog.
WinProp
Beam Steering
Beam steering was improved for Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) scenarios to determine the optimum direction that maximises the received power. The API now also supports beam steering in 5G networks based on phased array antennas, where the antenna array forms a focused beam in the desired direction and can track the movement of users.
An example showing the beam steering for a user along a trajectory. The two bottom images show the beam steering in NLOS scenarios.
Standard Ray Tracing (SRT)
The Standard Ray Tracing (SRT) in ProMan was extended for computing reflections at pixel topography. You can now define tiles on which a reflection is being searched for. For each tile at maximum one reflection can be searched for. There can be multiple reflections between transmitter and receiver at multiple tiles.
An example where reflections are computed on pixel topography for SRT.
4D Radar
The FMCW radar post-processing algorithms were extended to include:
- Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR)
CFAR is a widely used algorithm in radar systems for target identification while minimizing false positives. It adaptively sets the detection thresholds based on the surrounding noise to maintain a constant false alarm rate.
- MUSIC (Multiple Signal Classification)
MUSIC is a high-resolution subspace-based algorithm used for angle-of-arrival (AOA) estimation. It can estimate the angular directions (azimuth or elevation) of targets with high accuracy. However, it is not always necessary for 4D radar due to its computational complexity, which makes it less practical for real-time systems compared to FFT-based AO Aestimation.
An example of an 8x8 MIMO radar with the following configuration for range angle.
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) using bistatic RCS
The handling of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) using bistatic RCS computed in Feko was improved for a single incidence direction. You can compute the RCS for the desired incidence angle in Feko and then set the azimuth adjustment correctly in ProMan.
An example where the RCS was computed in Feko and then the azimuth was adjusted in ProMan.
WRAP
File and Data Interoperability
- Support was added for Microsoft SQL Server 2022 as a database engine.
- Added support for the import of Ofcom WTR Database.
- The British National Grid was added to the recognized coordinate systems. Area patches in Shapefile format may now use coordinate systems other than Lat-Long WGS84, if a standard project file (.prj) is supplied.
Samples from building height vector data based on GBNG, converted to the WRAP format.
Licensing
A license pool for API licenses has been added. A single license is checked out at the start of WRAP. At exit, WRAP will check in all of the checked-out licenses. Using the license pool will let the API calls execute immediately, without any lengthy license checkout, if a license is available.
Units
Units can now be converted between m and feet and between km and NM on the Radio Calculator dialog.
Review Dates
Review date has been added to the following:
- Allotments: The review date is included in allotment searches both from GUI and API.
- Equipment: The review date is added for all types of Equipment and included in their associated search functions.
API
Added the feature to allow the user to save allotments, stations and equipment to read-only databases using the API. Also, the .wpc file has been extended to handle preferred allotments and multiple modes on equipment.
