What are the current capabilities of the harmonic electromagnetic finite element solver?

My university has access to the PDE FEM harmonic electromagnetic solver provided by Matlab (2023). Before investing too much time, we would like to better understand the current capabilities of the Matlab electromagnetic solving capacity. Particularly, we would like to use Matlab to solve harmonic 3D antenna problems using the finite element method. Our antenna designs contain multiple material types and our ultimate goal is to calculate the 3D realized gain as well as the scattering parameters. We would also like to import complex CAD models that are created from external software, is this a possibility? We can export to the standard types: STL, STEP etc. Does the harmonic solver have distributed computing capabilities yet?

Would someone mind elaborating on the current state of this Matlab toolbox? Thanks very much for your time in advance!

Answer 1

[Ayush]

Hey Jacob,

I understand that you are trying to grasp the capabilities of MATLAB Electromagnetic solver for solving harmonic 3D antenna problems using finite element method. You are also looking for importing complex CAD models in MATLAB and are trying to understand whether harmonic solver has distributed computing capabilities.

The MATLAB software offers a wide range of capabilities for electromagnetic analysis, including solving harmonic 3D antenna problems using the finite element method. The Antenna Toolbox in MATLAB provides a comprehensive set of functions for analyzing antennas and arrays, enabling you to calculate the 3D realized gain and scattering parameters.

The “HarmonicResults” object in MATLAB is a useful tool for postprocessing and visualization. It contains the electric or magnetic field values, frequency, and mesh information in a convenient format. The field values are calculated at the nodes of the triangular or tetrahedral mesh generated by the “generateMesh” function. Electric field values can be accessed through the “ElectricField” property, while magnetic field values are available through the “MagneticField” property. If you need to interpolate the electric or magnetic field to a custom grid, you can use the “interpolateHarmonicField” function.

To solve a harmonic electromagnetic analysis problem, you can utilize the solve function in MATLAB. This function returns a solution in the form of a “HarmonicResults” object, which can be further processed and analyzed.

When it comes to importing complex CAD models, MATLAB provides the ability to import models created using CAD or 3D modeling tools into a Simulink 3D Animation virtual world. You can import CAD models from file formats such as STL, FBX, VRML, and CATIA software. Additionally, visual representations of robots can be imported from URDF, STL, SDF, and Collada DAE files.

To enhance the computational speed of the harmonic solver, MATLAB offers distributed computing capabilities through the Parallel Computing Toolbox. This allows you to distribute computations across multiple processors or machines, enabling faster solution times for large-scale electromagnetic simulations.

For more information on using the above mentioned function, you can refer to the documentation here:

1. Harmonic electromagnetic solution - MATLAB - MathWorks India
2. Use CAD Models with the Simulink 3D Animation Product - MATLAB & Simulink - MathWorks India
3. Parallel Computing Toolbox Documentation - MathWorks India

Hope this helps !!

Regards,

Ayush Goyal

[Jacob Wilson]

Thank you for your answer Ayush.

Is there a specific method that we can use to import a .STEP file to perform meshing prior to solving? Also, is there a method to utilize mulitple materials in a simulation? We can't seem to find any example utilizing multiple materials, we only see simulations using conductors where every conductor is modeled as an electric boundary condition.