GPS antenna integration on the SWARM satellite
The performance of the antenna including spacecraft interference was calculated with MLFMM. The spacecraft/satellite is mainly covered by large solar panels, consisting of metal films embedded in a dielectric material. Small details compared to the wavelength were removed and all parts of the antenna and the satellite were assumed to be PEC, an acceptable assumption for the frequencies considered.
Fig1: CAD Model of Swarm Satellite
Results
This test case deals with the coupling between two broad band microstrip antennas mounted on a generic aircraft. It shows the large savings in memory and computational time when using the FDTD-FEM solver compared to standalone FDTD solvers when parts of the geometry need a much finer grid than needed to resolve the wavelength in the problem. This is often the case for antenna installation analysis.