SBIR Phase II: A Search Engine for Antenna Design

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在开发和推出一种软件工具，将先进的人工智能算法应用于天线设计和优化。手动天线设计和优化方法耗时费力，复杂性有限，需要大量专业知识。遗传算法（GA）优化在快速找到有效的天线设计解决方案方面取得了成功，而这些解决方案通常是通过工程直觉找到的。为了利用这些搜索算法的力量，工程师必须是气体和电磁学方面的专家。在第一阶段，演示了一种高度自动化设计方法的可行性，该方法可以在不需要重要指导的情况下生成有用的天线：用户只需输入设计要求（例如，射频性能，尺寸等），然后自动优化产生兼容的设计。如果成功，这项技术有望改善商业和政府客户未来天线应用的性能和经济性。世界正处于新的无线、移动和射频系统数量的爆炸式增长之中，所有这些系统都依赖于一个或多个天线。然而，天线设计在过去二十年里几乎没有什么变化，前期成本高昂，而且采用缓慢、低效的试错方法。X5 Systems正试图将设计天线的新一代方法推向市场：更快、更好、更便宜。所提议的软件系统的商业潜力包括移动和无线、RFID、消费电子以及政府机构等公司感兴趣的应用领域——特别是具有严格性能、进度和成本要求的应用程序。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to develop and launch a software tool that applies advanced AI algorithms to antenna design and optimization. Manual antenna design and optimization methods are time- and labor-intensive, limit complexity, and require significant expertise. Genetic algorithm (GA) optimization has demonstrated success at quickly finding effective antenna design solutions not ordinarily found through engineering intuition. To harness the power of these search algorithms currently, an engineer must be an expert in both GAs and Electromagnetics. In Phase I, feasibility of a highly-automated design approach where useful antennas can be generated without requiring significant guidance was demonstrated: the user simply inputs design requirements (e.g., RF performance, dimensions, etc.), and an automated optimization produces compliant designs. If successful, this technology promises to improve the performance and economics of future antenna applications for commercial and government customers. The world is in the midst of an explosion in the number of new wireless, mobile, and RF systems - all of which rely on one or more antennas. Yet antenna design has changed little in the past two decades, with large up-front costs and slow, inefficient trial-and-error methods. X5 Systems is attempting to bring to market a next generation way to design antennas: one that is faster, better, cheaper. The commercial potential of the proposed software system encompasses application areas of interest to companies in mobile and wireless, RFID, and consumer electronics, as well as government agencies - especially applications that have exacting performance, schedule, and cost requirements.