When designing electromagnetic components and systems, engineers are often constrained by the limitations of parametric CAD definition. While they can analyze almost any design with high-frequency EM simulation, they can only iterate on that design by manipulating its CAD parameters. The way to transcend these limitations is by adopting a non-parametric design optimization workflow using a toolset like CST Studio Suite + Tosca Optimization Suite. In this article, we’ll go through that workflow and easily produce an antenna design that is effective, manufacturable, and beyond the imagination of the parametric approach.
Simulating electrically large and highly complex structures is a challenging task due to the high aspect ratio between the smallest details and the overall calculation domain. Analyzing these multi-scale problems can be time-consuming and can demand substantial computational resources if you use a single numerical method (Brute force method). A more efficient way to perform a system-level electromagnetic analysis is to divide the large problem into sub-domains.