pcbAntennaDesigner Optimization does not seem to run with Parallel Compute option enabled.

What I want to do:

I'm looking to simulate a Meandered Inverted-F Antenna for a 4-Layer PCB stackup in pcbAntennaDesigner. I have already set it up using the references from the TI AN043 application note, and was able to run all the S-Parameter and Impedance plots. I then wanted to run optimization to optimize the antenna for my particular fabricator's stackup.

What I'm having trouble with:

When I selected the 'W2' design parameter (which is the width of each arm Actual Value=0.5, Lower and Upper Bound at 0.35 and 0.65), when optimizing for Minimum Bandwidth with a constraint of "S11 < -4dB", center frequency 2.45 GHz and frequency range of 2.35:0.05:2.55 GHz, it only works if I have the parallel computing checkbox de-selected. I have the Parallel Computing toolbox installed and I can clearly see the workers being started up, but then the main matlab window seems to hang, and any commands I type in do not respond. The only way to exit this state is to force stop MATLAB.

What happens when I have parallel computing disabled:

The pcbAntennaDesigner window displays a graph, the stop button isn't greyed out. The objective function and Design Vector fields at the bottom of the app update, and the "Frequency Sweep" box with "Calculating solution for x/N frequency points" pops up, and it seems like things are happening.

Troubleshooting Steps:

• Checked for process, thread and file descriptor limit on my system as a troubleshooting step with parallel computing toolbox. Everything seemed fine.
• Had a friend running MATLAB on windows try the same thing with my file. He waited for 2 hours and nothing really seemed to be happening.
• Reduced the Mesh Size, and Quality Parameters. Similar result.
• Finally, tried removing PCB layers.

I theorized that maybe this issue has something to do with my particular stackup, so I removed all layers except my Antenna, First Dielectric and the Ground Plane.

With the SADEA optimizer with 10 iterations, this reduced stackup PCB had the optimization completed in 48 minutes. I could see the graphs plotting and everything as it happened, and the GUI actually updated.

Now with parallel computing enabled, nothing seems to actually happen. It took 45 minutes for the first "Frequency Sweep" popups to start showing on the reduced stackup PCB, and I see two graphs for population diversity and Convergence trend. It took 62 minutes to actually complete.

This doesn't happen on the PCB stackup with all the layers, I left it running overnight for over 14 hours, and I see nothing. It'd be nice if someone can explain what exactly happens, and why parallel computing enabled takes longer to run. I've attached a link to my .mat file that you can import into PCB Antenna Designer. Unfortunately, since its greater than 20MB, the forum doesn't let me attach it.

Could someone please confirm whether this is intended behaviour? Is this a bug? Please help. Thanks!

Link to .mat file to import to pcbAntennaDesigner

Computer Specs:

GPU: RTX4060 8GB

CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS 8 Core Processor

OS: Fedora 42

Screenshot of the CommandWindow, where it won't respond to any commands after starting the optimization process.

Answer 1

[Mukul]

Okay, using TR-SADEA instead of SADEA seems to work. Stuff seems to be happening and my optimization completed relatively quickly.