Xpatch® Electromagnetic Simulation ToolKit

Featured Highlights

Graphical User Interface

The Xpatch^® graphical user interface (GUI) provides a revolutionary new way of setting up, visualizing, and launching Xpatch toolkit computation runs. The typical tasks for computing radar signatures are broken up into a process flow. Changes in settings are instantly displayed in a 3D window.

• Intuitive process flow and input page verification for each simulation mode guides users through setup
• Support for multiple electromagnetic (EM) simulation modes: asymptotics (Xpatch far-field, Xpatch near-field), exact solver (FISC), and hybrids (Xpatch far-field with three different levels of hybrid interactions)
• Visualization of layered material stacks showing relative thickness and permittivity (epsilon)
• 3D visualization of computer-aided design (CAD) geometries, aspects (incident and observer), diffractive components (edges and incremental length defraction coefficients), near-field trajectories, and near-field antenna patterns
• 3D signature extents overlay, which shows current range profile or synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image signature extents with respect to CAD geometries
• Arbitrary cuts (general conic and great circle) in addition to simple sweeps and lists for specification of incident/observer aspects
• Automatic verification of input page settings before running Xpatch software jobs - checks consistency of material IDs and component IDs between CAD models, material settings, and other features
• Context-sensitive help for mode and settings currently being modified

Xpatch EM Simulation Code

The latest Xpatch EM simulation code was rewritten in a C++ object-oriented framework, and combines the Xpatch 2.4 toolkit version of XpatchF and XpatchT into a single product. Major improvements include the following:

• Full (XpatchF style) materials support for time-domain as well as frequency-domain runs
• Enhanced support for IGES models, including trimming, IGES 114, IGES 128, and many more IGES entities
• Hybrid capability to solve part of a geometry with an exact method and the rest of a geometry with an asymptotic method
• Near-field capability added to simulate missile fuzing applications, turntable, ground based radar/missile fly-by, range gates, and near-field SAR support
• Channel and Boss incremental length defraction coefficients (ILDCs) to model cracks and semicircular bumps (such as weld beads)

Signature Analysis

• Ability to perform signature analysis in one of three different modes: radar cross-section (RCS), range profile, or SAR
• Maintenance of a large database of both measured Xpatch toolkit-generated synthetic radar signature data
• Comparison of measured and synthetic data sets by clicking on the 3D sphere
• Metrics computations to quantize differences in signatures in all modes
• Visualization of models (IGES, facet, and edge) and signature data in a interactive 3D environment
• Easy-to-see metrics results through color-coding of regions on the 3D sphere
• Ability to visualize metrics results as histograms, scatter plots, SAR images, and 2D line plots

Visualization and Articulation

• Quick navigation through the part hierarchy models with the ability to manage level of detail and hide parts on the fly
• Articulation and hierarchy management capabilities -- rotate, translate, add, replace, and rename components
• Balance high detail on the parts you are working on with low detail on background parts to improve performance

CAD Visualization and Editing

• New consistent editing dialogs for IGES and facet formats
• Additional facet utilities to patch gaps and repair models
• More file types supported: ILDC, antenna patterns, scattering centers
• Ability to assign icomponent and icoat materials for each part of IGES and facet models
• Visualization of scattering center files from Xpatch EM simulation runs
• Ray shooting enhanced to support both far-field and near-field
• New traceback tool showing correspondence between features in an SAR image and parts of the CAD geometry

Cause and Effect Analysis

• Support for visualization of range profiles and SAR imagery
• New IGES and Coe114 target model overlay support
• Includes McRange functionality for loading .range files
• New trace file format providing container for traceback data from many aspects
• Ability to load and select between multiple geometries and signatures
• Scrolling main viewing window for unconstrained SAR image size
• Template/Target overlay from the Xpatch signature analysis tool for facet and IGES geometries

Plotting

• Cartesian and polar plotting of RCS data, range profiles, and other tab-delimited ASCII data
• Used to display data generated from the Xpatch toolkit

Data Organization and Visualization

• Hierarchical organization of the Xpatch toolkit data, measured data, images, movies, and simple geometry visualization
• Support of RCS data; range profiles; SAR images; and scattering center processing, visualization, and plotting
• Direct operation on .field, .ss, .si, and .sc data formats Global visualization capability for multiple aspect frequency sweeps and range profiles
• Ability to produce SAR images from the Xpatch toolkit computed or measured data

Notice: Xpatch^® is either a registered trademark or trademark of Science Applications International Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.