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SmartDO for High Frequency Electromagnetics Automatic Design Optimization : the Dual Polarization Aperture Coupled Antenna

SmartDO empowers high-frequency antenna engineers with AI-powered, multiphysics automatic optimization that goes far beyond manual trial-and-error. For the dual-polarization aperture-coupled antenna (ACMA), SmartDO transforms a highly interdependent electromagnetic system into a globally optimized design, meeting strict Ka-band performance requirements with exceptional efficiency.

This particle shows how ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) achieve high performance design for ACMA in push-button with SmartDO, and with cutting-edge computing efficiency.

Reference : Dual polarization aperture coupled antenna, 2025 SmartDO Conference for Smart Design (Rui-Hung Chen/Engineer/Information and Communications Research Laboratories/ITRI)

Design Purpose & Principle Of The Dual Polarization Aperture Coupled Antenna

The antenna uses two orthogonal H-slot apertures to establish independent LHCP/RHCP coupling, and stacked radiators with multi-layer dielectrics to broaden bandwidth and preserve polarization purity. This structure achieves high isolation, low feed radiation, and wide operational stability.

Figure 1 shows the functionality and Mechanism of The Dual Polarization Aperture Coupled Antenna

Parametric CAD Of The Dual Polarization Aperture Coupled Antenna

The Aperture Coupled Microstrip Antenna (ACMA( design contains 25+ interactive geometric parameters (patch size, slot dimensions, layer thicknesses, feed offsets). These strongly cross-coupled variables make manual tuning inefficient. SmartDO forms a closed-loop CAD–EM model with HFSS, automatically exploring the full design space.

Figures 2 show the parametric CAD of the ACMA.

SmartDO Optimization Formulation

SmartDO was integrated with HFSS to automatically evaluate and improve antenna performance across 27–30 GHz , with the following optimization formulation :

• OBJ_01: maximize LHCP gain
• OBJ_02: maximize RHCP gain
• OBJ_03: maximize Total performance
• S11 < -10 dB
• S22 < -10 dB
• S21 < -15 dB
• Axial Ratio < 3 dB

SmartDO Optimization Result

The SmartDO-optimized geometry satisfies all axial-ratio targets and delivers clean, stable circular polarization across 8-16 GHz. Both X-band and Ku-band tests confirm strong CP conversion and significantly enhanced performance.

SmartDO demonstrated cutting-edge computing efficiency, cutting simulation iterations by more than 50%, and enabling engineers to achieve superior antenna performance in dramatically less time.

• OBJ_02 (RHCP Gain): from 6.98 to 14.53, > 108% improvement
• OBJ_03 (Total antenna performance): from 18.47 to 34.55 > 87% improvement
• OBJ_01 (LHCP Gain): from 8.21 to 6.96 : a small and acceptable decline; this will be fully recoverable by promoting OBJ_01 to a constraint in the next optimization phase

All Ka-band constraints were satisfied simultaneously:

• Return loss (S11/S22) maintained < -10 dB
• Isolation S21 maintained < -15 dB
• Axial Ratio < 3 dB across the 27-30 GHz band

Figure 3 shows the Initial and Optimal results of the S-Parameter.

Figure 4 shows the the Initial and Optimal results of the antenna radiation pattern on XZ and YZ plane.

Figure 5 show the the Initial and Optimal results of the axial ratio.

Advantages of SmartDO AI-Power + Multidisciplinary/Multiphysics Automatic Design Optimization

With Cutting-Edge Computing Efficiency, SmartDO provides engineers with a seamless Push-Button Automatic Design Optimization Solution and a Digital Production Integration and Automation Platform with the following unique features

• One-page GUI configuration
• One-click automatic optimization design
• Proved in optimization problems with more than 240 design variables
• Multidisciplinary/Multiphysics automatic design optimization

For more information about SmartDO, please contact us.