FASANT: past computer tool for the analysis of on-board antennas

FASANT is a computer tool for the analysis of antennas on-board satellites, ships, aircraft, and other complex bodies. The structure under analysis, which can be metallic or dielectric (with and/or without losses), must be modeled by plane and/or curved surfaces. The geometrical input files are in DXF format, and can be generated by the most commonly used computer-aided geometrical-design (CAGD) tools. The code can also be applied to the analysis of arrays and arbitrarily shaped reflectors. The kernel of the code is based on the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD). Special algorithms have been developed to speed up the ray-tracing computation for both flat and curved surfaces. FASANT can obtain far-field patterns, field levels at points near the structure, can calculate the mutual coupling between antennas or between array elements, and can show each ray-tracing mechanism.