AN INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENT FOR THE NUMERICAL MODELING OF COMMUNICATION ANTENNAS BASED ON RELATIONAL DATABASES

Abstract

As modeling systems mature, they become larger, more complex, and more difficult to maintain. Modeling tools increase in number and complexity. Frequently they are written in different languages and require data in different formats. Databases also increase in size as modeling systems are applied to new and more complex problems. Engineers spend large amounts of money trying to integrate tools and data that are basically incompatible. Unfortunately, budgets do not grow at the same rate as the complexity of our modeling systems and databases. To maintain productivity, it is necessary to design modeling environments that can handle large amounts of data in flexible ways and are simple to maintain and upgrade. This paper describes a new environment developed by the authors for the modeling of communication antennas based on a relational database management system. This approach simplifies the task of integrating a set of heterogeneous programs with incompatible data formats. The relational database provides a common store for all modeling objects including the antenna, platform, ground, electromagnetic sources, currents, charges, and fields, and model history. The database management system provides the organization, storage, and retrieval functions and some of the data input, validation and display functions for the antenna models. The main advantages of this approach are its ability to grow as new tools and capabilities are added, its portability to other machines and operating systems, and the ability it provides engineers to easily share data among themselves and with other modeling applications. This work was conducted for the Naval Ocean Systems Center as part of the Navy Summer Faculty Research Program, a cooperative program with the American Association for Engineering Education (ASEE). [Vol. 8, No. 2 (1993), pp 114-127]