| |
|
|
Software |
 |
 |
EurAAP Working Group on Software
Introduction
One of the trends observed in most engineering fields for the last 25 years is the increasing importance of software, more specific CAE tools to model, design, and synthesize the devices under consideration. The global antenna and propagation community is no exception.
In many engineering fields, at this moment, there are well-established standard CAE tools that can be used with a very high degree of reliability. Unfortunately, the commercial antenna/propagation codes do not give all the answers. As a consequence, at this moment, a lot of European universities, research institutes, and companies have developed and still are developing their own (in-house) antenna and propagation software.
Goals reached within ACE
Before the ACE network, from an economic perspective, the “return on investment” of the enormous amount of labour intensive work spent to the development of antenna and propagation software codes was low. That is why ACE-1 started mobilizing the European antenna community towards a mutation in coordination and planning of the development of antenna software. Three activities were organized around three questions:
-
Inventory: What do we have?
-
Benchmarking: How good is it?
-
Standardization: How can we make it better?
ACE-2 continued this effort and has produced very concrete results. An inventory has been made, a standardized benchmarking procedure has been installed, and the definition of the so-called Electromagnetic Data Exchange language (EDX), a common way to exchange electromagnetic data, was initiatedachieved and the development of the Electromagnetic Data Interface (EDI). At the end of ACE, the three questions were partially answered, but the available resources was by far finished.
Goals within EurAAP
The main goal is to continue the effort that has been started under the ACE umbrella:
-
to monitor and follow-up new developments in the antenna and propagation software community,
-
to continuously update the inventory of software tools,
-
to organize a yearly benchmarking cycle for antenna and propagation software, linked to the EuCAP conference,
-
to further discuss, develop, and promote the EDX effort and continue the EDI development and maintenance,
-
based on the EDX, and following similar initiatives in other fields of science, to work towards a European Library of Software routines for antenna and propagation analysis.
Organization
The working group is subdivided in three subgroups:
-
the benchmarking subgroup
-
the EDX subgroup
-
the European library subgroup
Each subgroup is managed its subgroup leader. The WG is represented in the EuRAAP by a delegate.
|
|
|
|
