everything RF 1 recently interviewed Jeff Barney, a Product Manager at Remcom, and Greg Skidmore, Director of Remcom’s Propagation Software Group. Jeff heads the strategy for XFdtd, a full-wave electromagnetic simulation tool used for applications including antenna design, MRI, optics, and RCS. He also contributes to IEC/IEEE standardization for electromagnetic exposure from 30 MHz to 300 GHz. Greg Skidmore oversees research and development and the product vision for Remcom’s wireless communication and radar products, including Wireless InSite 3D wireless prediction software, WaveFarer radar simulation software, and XGtd EM simulation software. He also manages Remcom’s government and commercial contracts for projects related to wireless propagation and radar scattering.
Q. Can you give us a brief history of Remcom?
Jeff Barney / Greg Skidmore: Remcom was formed in 1994 by three researchers - H. Scott Langdon, Raymond Luebbers, and Christopher Penney - as an extension to the research they were conducting at The Pennsylvania State University. The team created one of the very first electromagnetic simulation software tools, XFdtd. Over the past 25 years, Remcom has grown to be a market leader and key innovator in the electromagnetic industry, simplifying EM analysis for a wide variety of applications including 5G-enabled mobile device antenna design, outdoor and indoor mmWave planning, automotive radar, and more. Additional product offerings have also been developed, including Wireless InSite, a unique ray-tracing tool for the analysis of site-specific radio wave propagation and wireless communication systems, and WaveFarer, a radar simulator used for automotive drive scenarios and indoor sensor applications.
Q. What software products have you developed? Can you tell us about each product?
XFdtd® 3D Electromagnetic Simulation Software: XF includes full-wave, static, bio-thermal, optimization, and circuit solvers to tackle a wide variety of applications, including general antenna design and placement, mobile device design, biomedical and SAR, ESD testing, microwave devices, radar and scattering, automotive radar, and more. A full-featured electromagnetic simulation solver, XF outpaces other methods in efficiency as the number of unknowns increases.
Wireless InSite® 3D Wireless Prediction Software: Wireless InSite is a suite of ray-tracing and semi-empirical models for the simulation and analysis of RF propagation for 5G, WiFi, and other applications involving wireless signals or communication links. Specialized features allow for the analysis of MIMO channel characteristics, including detailed multipath in dense urban environments, office floor plans, or other scenarios with challenging physical environments. Through its combination of models and capabilities, Wireless InSite provides RF engineers with the tools to design wireless links, predict antenna coverage, and assess key channel and signal characteristics for RF and millimeter wave frequency bands.
WaveFarer® Radar Simulation Software: WaveFarer is a high-fidelity radar simulator that is designed to support all applications relevant for simulation and analysis of a radar system. It accounts for multipath and scattering from structures and vehicles in the immediate environment of a radar system as well as key atmospheric and scattering effects for frequencies up to and beyond 100 GHz. Applications include simulation of automotive drive scenarios, indoor sensors, and far field radar cross section (RCS).
XGtd® EM Simulation Software: XGtd is a ray-based electromagnetic analysis tool for assessing the effects of a vehicle or vessel on antenna radiation, predicting coupling between antennas, and predicting radar cross section (RCS). It is ideally suited for applications with higher frequencies or very large platforms where the requirements of a full physics method may exceed available computational resources.
Q. What differentiates your software products from those developed by other companies?
Jeff Barney / Greg Skidmore: Jeff Barney / Greg Skidmore: As a company, we are solely focused on electromagnetic modeling and simulation, allowing us to focus our knowledge, expertise, and R&D resources to ensure we excel in this core area. Our products have always focused first on accuracy in the physics calculations, with emphasis on optimizations and accelerations, such as the GPU-acceleration that is present in most of our products, in order to provide results within a reasonable time.
Q. What Application/market segments use Remcom products? What application/market segment is the largest for you?
Jeff Barney / Greg Skidmore: Remcom’s products are used for a very wide range of applications. Mobile device design and 5G MIMO are probably our two largest, overlapping with general antenna design and wireless applications.
5G MIMO:
- MIMO and array design for 5G antennas
- 5G urban small cells
- Fixed Wireless Access (FWA)
- Indoor wireless applications
Mobile Device Design:
- LTE with carrier aggregation
- 5G array analysis
Wireless Propagation Applications:
- 5G MIMO
- Base station coverage analysis
- Indoor WiFi device performance analysis
- Microcell coverage
- 5G NR, WiFi n/ac/ax, and LTE throughput
- Ad-hoc and temporary networks
- Moving vehicle or aircraft
- Tower placement in urban environments
Antenna Design and Analysis: From general antenna design to new technologies such as 5G arrays at mmWave frequencies, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and 6G antennas in the terahertz range.
Automotive Radar: Sensor design and placement, and drive scenario simulation.
Antenna Placement Analysis: On-platform and integrated antennas.
Biomedical (MRI and Implantable): Pre-prototype simulation of device performance in preparation for certification. Calculation of Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), plus realistic, poseable human body models and SAM phantom.
ESD Testing: TVS diodes, dielectric breakdown prediction, circuit component overvoltages and overcurrents, and more.
Radar and Scattering: Radar Cross Section (RCS) computation, radar antenna design, and scattering applications in the RF range or optical frequencies.
Q. Can you tell us about some interesting applications that have been simulated using Remcom products?
In the area of antenna design, mobile devices are among the most complicated devices we see, with numerous antennas and even more bands that need to be supported with impedance and aperture tuners. It’s amazing to see what the industry is able to accomplish.
In wireless communications and radar, the challenges at mmWave, MIMO beamforming, and effects of mobility on the channel have provided numerous interesting new applications for our propagation and radar simulation tools.
Q. How often do you add new features to your EM Simulation Products?
A significant amount of Remcom’s resources are devoted to R&D, and new feature development is a continuous process with our products. As an example, XF generally gets updated with two major releases each year, and Wireless InSite is typically updated with one major release each year, frequently alongside custom feature development for specific customers.
Q. Can your products be customized to meet a user's specific requirement?
Yes. XF and WaveFarer have built-in scripting capabilities, and our Wireless InSite product line includes an application programming interface (API) that allows users to build custom applications that access our models. We also regularly develop custom features through scripting and have a flexible development schedule so customer needs can be met.
Q. Who are some of your customers? Where are they based?
Remcom’s customers are based all over the world, with the highest concentrations in the U.S and Asia. Our tools are catered towards challenging R&D problems where senior engineers need reliable tools to produce production level devices and perform measurements. Corporations prefer to work with Remcom as the cost-value proposition enables them to scale licensing to large antenna engineering teams.
Q. What EM Consulting Services do you offer? What type of customers use these services?
Remcom Consulting is an ideal solution for those organizations that need an electromagnetic expert without an ongoing need for in-house electromagnetic modeling software. Remcom provides EM modeling experts, software developers, and high-end computational resources to meet customers' more challenging EM simulation analysis needs.
In addition to commercial consulting, Remcom regularly performs research and development under contracts with the U.S. government. These include Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contracts as well as more general longer term development and support contracts.
Remcom's engineers and physicists have extensive experience in electromagnetic applications, particularly antennas and biological electromagnetics, propagation research including radio meteorology and terrain effects, antenna radiation, scattering, and formal software development. We have used our unique skills and capabilities in EM modeling and simulation and software development to provide critical capabilities to customers across the DOD, various other government agencies, and the wireless industry.
