The 2021 SIMULIA Champions come from locations around the world, as well as from a variety of industries. Several of them have agreed to share their stories about how they are using simulation and what led them to the engineering field.

​​​​​​​Dr. Arshad Mehmood is an RF Engineering Team Lead at ALCAN Systems, located in Darmstadt, Germany. The company manufactures phased array antennas out of liquid crystal technology. Liquid crystal is sandwiched between two sheets of glass to make phase shifters, which are then used to design the phased arrays. This is a brand new technology that is produced on the same production lines that produce LCD screens or televisions. This sounds simple, but it requires tremendous attention to detail, according to Dr. Mehmood.

CST has been extremely valuable in developing these antenna arrays, which require multiple simulations of smaller components which then need to be combined. Dr. Mehmood cites CST’s large suite of solvers, including Microwave Studio and the Schematic features, as playing a critical role by simplifying complex system simulations.

Dr. Mehmood was first introduced to CST during his PhD studies at Darmstadt University of Technology, where he also received his Master of Science. Prior to that, he received his Bachelor of Science from COMSATS University Abbottabad Pakistan. His PhD research topic was Dielectric Resonator Antennas from new glass ceramic materials, an area of study that led him directly into his position with ALCAN Systems.

“These keywords like antennas, electromagnetics, wireless, radar, they were quite fascinating,” he explains. “I never had them in my Bachelors, so at Masters level I pursued this because I liked it.”

Outside of work, Dr. Mehmood’s interests include football, hiking, and reading, particularly nonfiction. While at work, he spends most of his time working with CST, which he has been using for 12 years. Developing antennas would not be possible without simulation, he says, as they are so complex that they cannot be designed with simply pen and paper.

Dr. Mehmood’s advice to aspiring engineers is to learn the fundamentals as well as programming. He advises that new users of CST software take advantage of the help that SIMULIA offers, and to see if simulations make sense according to the basics. Sometimes, he adds, our expectations do not match the results of simulations; it is a learning process.

He finds it exciting to work with a technology that he describes as disruptive, new and still interesting. The antenna arrays that he works on at ALCAN Systems are low-cost and low-power, therefore improving the world and the lives of their consumers. The company is constantly growing, and he hopes to continue learning and managing the ever-changing technology in the future.

“I love simulation because you can see the flow of energy,” he says. “You can see the invisible.”