Feko is a computational electromagnetics software product developed by Altair Engineering.[3] The name is derived from the German acronym "Feldberechnung für Körper mit beliebiger Oberfläche", which can be translated as "field calculations involving bodies of arbitrary shape".[4] It is a general purpose 3D electromagnetic (EM) simulator.

Developer(s)Altair Engineering
Stable release
2020[1] / June 2020; 4 years ago (2020-06)[2]
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows and Linux
TypeEM simulation software
LicenseProprietary commercial software
WebsiteAltair website

Feko originated in 1991 from research activities of Dr. Ulrich Jakobus at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.[5] Cooperation between Dr. Jakobus and EM Software & Systems (EMSS)[6] resulted in the commercialisation of FEKO in 1997.[7] In June 2014, Altair Engineering acquired 100% of EMSS-S.A. and its international distributor offices in the United States, Germany and China, leading to the addition of FEKO to the Altair Hyperworks suite of engineering simulation software.[6][8][9][10]

The software is based on the Method of Moments (MoM) integral formulation of Maxwell's equations[11] [12] [13] [14] and pioneered the commercial implementation of various hybrid methods such as:

  • Finite Element Method (FEM) / MoM where a FEM region is bounded with an integral equation based boundary condition to ensure full coupling between the FEM and MoM solution areas of the problem.
  • MoM / Physical Optics (PO) where computationally expensive MoM current elements are used to excite computationally inexpensive PO elements, inducing currents on the PO elements. Special features in the FEKO implementation of the MoM/PO hybrid include the analysis of dielectric or magnetically coated metallic surfaces.[15]
  • MoM / Uniform Theory of Diffraction (UTD) where computationally expensive MoM current elements are used to excite canonical UTD shapes (plates, cylinders) with ray-based principles of which the computational cost is independent of wavelength.

A Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) solver was added in May 2014 with the release of FEKO Suite 7.0.[17]

References

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  1. ^ "Altair Announces Most Significant Software Update Release in Company History". 2020-06-03. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  2. ^ "Altair Announces Most Significant Software Update Release in Company History". 2020-06-03. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  3. ^ "Altair Feko™ Overview". Retrieved 2024-07-27.
  4. ^ "FEKO Suite 7.0 User Manual". Training.altairuniversity.com. EM Software & Systems-S.A. (Pty) Ltd. Archived from the original on 2015-04-03. Retrieved 2015-04-02.
  5. ^ "Archived copy: Ulrich Jakobus named IEEE Fellow". November 2012. Archived from the original on 2017-07-13. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  6. ^ a b "EM Software & Systems". Emss.co.za. Retrieved 2016-09-28.
  7. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-07-09. Retrieved 2015-04-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. ^ "Altair to Acquire EM Software & Systems – S.A. (EMSS)". Altair.com. 2013-12-10. Retrieved 2016-09-28.
  9. ^ "Altair and EM Software & Systems – S.A. (EMSS) Close Deal". Altair.com. 2014-06-24. Retrieved 2016-09-28.
  10. ^ "Altair and EM Software & Systems - S.A. (EMSS) Close Deal". Prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2016-09-28.
  11. ^ Jakobus, Ulrich (1995). Erweiterte Momentenmethode zur Behandlung kompliziert aufgebauter und elektrisch großer elektromagnetischer Streuprobleme. Düsseldorf: VDI Verlag.
  12. ^ Jakobus, U.; Van Tonder, J.J. (2005), "Fast Multipole Solution of Metallic and Dielectric Scattering Problems in FEKO", 21st Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics, Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES)
  13. ^ Jakobus, U.; Van Tonder, J.J. (2005), "Fast Multipole Acceleration of a MoM Code for the Solution of Composed Metallic/Dielectric Scattering Problems", Advances in Radio Science 3, Copernicus GmbH, pp. 189–194
  14. ^ Jakobus, U.; Van Tonder, J.J. (2006), "Challenges Regarding the Commercial Implementation of the Parallel MLFMM in FEKO", IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium 2006, IEEE, pp. 95–98
  15. ^ Jakobus, U.; Theron, I.P. (2003), "Analysis of Coated Metallic Surfaces with Physical Optics for the Solution of High-Frequency EMC Problems", 15th International Zurich Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, pp. 257–261
  16. ^ Jakobus, U.; Bingle, M.; Schoeman, M.; van Tonder, J.J.; Illenseer, F. (December 2008), "Tailoring FEKO for Microwave Problems", IEEE Microwave Magazine, pp. 76–85
  17. ^ "Archived copy: Release of FEKO Suite 7.0: Feature Overview". Archived from the original on 2017-07-14. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
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