Advanced RF Simulation Reduces Cost and Schedule Risk

Designing the next generation of RF systems, such as high performance active electronically scanned arrays (AESA), requires contributions from a multidisciplinary team of engineers. Customers within the Department of Defense (DoD) require performance beyond the current state of the art in order to stay ahead of adversaries' capabilities. As engineering teams work to meet these requirements, invariably, limitations in the available design, fabrication, and verification technologies consume the teams' budget for design flexibility, performance, and novel solutions. Ultimately, this leads to concessions in the design and puts the overall project at risk for cost and schedule overruns.

Teams must consider the sources of error that drive down design margins and seek newer technologies to ensure projects meet performance and cost objectives on schedule. The process of going from ideation to simulated design to fabricated and measured prototype accrues errors at each step. Identifying technologies that can advance the design process while reducing such errors becomes more critical as the systems become more complex. Leveraging the latest advancements in RF simulation software is one such area that can reduce critical errors while also improving the timeliness of the design process (see Figure 1).