UTD Settings

A number of optional settings are available for the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD) to solve a face or faces.

On the Solve/Run tab, in the Solution Settings group, click the  Solver Settings icon. On the Solver Settings dialog, click the High frequency tab.

Decouple from MoM solutions

This option ignores the UTD surfaces when calculating the MoM currents. The runtime and memory will be less compared to a fully coupled (default) solution. For example, the input impedance of a dipole antenna in close proximity to a PEC plate, where the dipole is solved using the MoM and the plate using UTD, will (incorrectly) be the same as that of the MoM dipole in free space. If equivalent sources, such as far field or near field sources, are used, this option will have no effect.

Tip: Use this option where the MoM and UTD regions are electrically far apart.

Maximum number of ray interactions

This option limits the number of ray interactions (reflection and diffraction combined). For example, if this parameter is set to 3, a ray can have three reflections, or two reflections and a diffraction. A value of 0 means that only direct rays are taken into account.

Note: For faceted UTD, this setting only affects the reflected rays and higher-order effects.

Export ray data for post-processing to

*.bof file (default)

This option exports the rays during the UTD solution process to the .bof file for visualisation in POSTFEKO.

*.ray file

This option exports the rays during the UTD solution process to a .ray file. This text file can be used for custom post-processing.

Note: Large .ray files are possible when the MoM and UTD solution have not been decoupled and the MoM part contains a large number of mesh elements.

Enable acceleration (for faceted UTD)

An acceleration technique for faceted UTD can be used to speed-up the search process for ray paths significantly but could result in some rays not being found in exceptional cases.

Auto

The Solver determines automatically if the acceleration technique should be used for the model (if the method is likely to speed up the solution).

On

This option enables the acceleration technique. Runtime decreases but technique could result in some rays not being found in exceptional cases.

Off

This option disables the acceleration technique at the expense of a runtime increase.