After a year of hard work and dedication we are happy to announce the release of IXUS 3.3. Improving IXUS in terms of usefulness, efficiency and user friendliness has helped many operators, assessors and consultants to become experts in the field of electromagnetic safety. The quality and accuracy of the results combined with the efficiency of the management system reduces the need to consult with, or appoint highly qualified and expensive personnel.
In keeping up with the fast pace of technology IXUS now supports all the latest LTE wireless communication standards at the various frequency bands in use. A highly requested feature was added to allow users to calculate an exclusion zone at a user specified level of the selected standard. This allows assessors to simulate an exclusion zone at variable levels for example at 25% of the specified standard.
We also improved the integration between IXUS and the Online Antenna Portal making it easy to get the antennas that are not available on your database.
After marketing and investing internationally we have successfully entered the North American markets by supporting the compliance standards published by the FCC and Industry Canada Safety Code 6. We will continue to update and improve the IXUS calculator and we hope that this is the start of many new good relationships.
Please download the latest version of IXUS Solo Modeller or evaluate the latest IXUS Manager online from our download page.
IXUS and fieldSENSEwill be attending the CTIA WIRELESS 2012Conference & Expo at Ernest N. Morial Convention Centre in New Orleans, Louisiana from 7th until the 10th of May 2012. We will be joining more than 1000 companies that will be exhibiting their latest mobile industry technologies. More than 27,000 square meters of exhibition space will be on show. Come and visit us in Hall F booth number 5062.
The conference will kick off a tour of the United States and Canada where IXUS will be visiting prominent EM compliance companies. If you would like to be visited as well, let us know by sending an email to contact@emssixus.com
IXUS and fieldSENSE will be at the Mobile World Congress at Fira Montjuïc in Barcelona from 27 February until 1 March 2012 in Hall 2 stand B70. This will be IXUS’ second year at the Congress. The venue covers more than 165,000 square meters of mobile exhibits and conferences covering all facets of the mobile industry. Over 1,400 exhibitors are expected to present their products and services. Come and visit us and see what exciting new developments are in store for IXUS in the near future. If you are already registered for the Mobile World Congress, add us as a favourite. Hope to see you there.
It has been a busy year for the IXUS team and we are very proud to announce the launch of IXUS 3.0. The product has evolved over time into a more complete, comprehensive EMF compliance solution that we are all very proud of. It’s been simplified into pluggable modules giving users the option to select only the functionality required, be it EMF simulation, RF measurement, or just data management and reporting.
It’s been extended to contain various internationally accepted EMF standards like ‘FCC (OET65)’ used in the USA, ‘BRV B11’ used in Germany, and the Canadian ‘Safety code 6’. An uncertainty model in line with IEC 62232 was developed making it possible to adjust the confidence interval for the simulation results. IXUS 3.0 has a new fresh look and feel that we hope breathes a bit of new life into the repetitive nature of the job. Improvements in reporting allows both custom template reports to be added and existing report templates to be edited using Microsoft Word, making reports fully customisable.
Various standards are being used globally for evaluating compliance for human exposure to radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted and used recognised safety guidelines since 1985. The FCC guidelines were derived from recommendations of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The exposure limits used by the FCC are expressed in terms of electric and magnetic field strength and power density for transmitters operating at frequencies from 300kHz to 100GHz.
The actual values used in IXUS software when selecting the FCC standard have been published by the FCC and can be found in either of two informational bulletins on the FCC Web site at OET Bulletin 56 or OET Bulletin 65.
These FCC guidelines were set up in consultation with, and from research supported by various federal health and safety agencies such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Countries in Europe, Africa and Asia have adopted exposure guidelines developed by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). The ICNIRP safety limits are generally similar to those of the NCRP and IEEE, with a few exceptions.
The NCRP, IEEE and ICNIRP exposure guidelines identify similar threshold levels at which harmful biological effects may occur. The level of exposure recommended by ICNIRP is somewhat different in the lower and upper frequency ranges and for localised exposure. In addition, the NCRP, IEEE and ICNIRP guidelines for maximum permissible exposure are different for different transmitting frequencies.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) EMF Project is working towards providing a framework for harmonisation of these different international of RF safety standards. IXUS Software now allows the user to select the required exposure levels from a selection of different internationally accepted standards.
IXUS now has a built-in, user customisable uncertainty model. The newly published IEC 62232 Standard requires an uncertainty model for the ray tracing assessment method used in IXUS Modeller software.
Users can choose to include or exclude feed system loss and scattering and reflection uncertainties in the model and have the option to run simulations at the following confidence intervals:
Upper two-sided 95%
Upper two-sided 80%
Best estimate
Lower two-sided 80%
Lower two-sided 95%
An upper 2-sided 95% confidence interval means that there is a 97.5% certainty that the simulated fields are conservative over the actual fields. This will typically be used by operators who want to ensure that the calculations they do with IXUS and the resulting control boundaries around antennas are conservative. A lower 2-sided 95% confidence interval means that there is a 97.5% certainty that the simulated fields are lower than the actual fields. This might be used by regulators who investigate RF compliance at sites and who want to be confident about non-compliance findings. ‘Best estimate’ refers to the statistically most likely value. This is where the simulated value is most likely to equal the actual field value.
In the past performing a compliance assessment that included uncertainty estimations was a laborious process. This feature simplifies the process and reduces the effort required. See the attached example for more information on base station compliance assessments and uncertainty.
Full uncertainty analyses were performed for the ray tracing assessment method, as required by the IEC 62232 standard. A 95% Confidence Interval (CI) is used in the results and related control boundaries presented, ensuring conservative results for 97.5% of all cases.
IXUS was recently represented at the 33rd annual meeting of the Bioelectromagnetics Society in Halifax, Canada where we presented the innovative techniques used for optimisation of ray-tracing algorithms for EMF safety assessments of base stations.
We would like to thank all those who attended the meeting, for many fruitful discussions on IXUS Software and EMF safety in general. We look forward to meeting again, if not sooner then at the next BEMS meeting. View the abstract or have a look at our presentation if you want to know more.
This video shows the basic functionality of the IXUS Measurement Module. Base stations are assigned to specific surveyors and measured using the Narda SRM 3006. The Narda SRM measures GPS coordinates and records a voice message with each measurement. Afterwards it is connected to a PC and measurements are associated and uploaded to the IXUS Manager server. On the IXUS Manager you can download a .GPX file that opens in Google Earth. Create aerial pictures and upload them in the Manager along with photos of the base station. Automatically generate a report using all the base station information, measurements, aerial pictures and photos.
A new version of IXUS EMF Simulation software, the Solo Modeller was released today and is available for download. Access the download here to get your update. The following list of features and improvements were implemented.
Multi-core calculation implemented improving calculator speed on dual and quad core machines. See the comparison in the previous post.
Exclusion zone imprints improved and extended to appear on ground as well as on geometry as shown in this video.
Signs can be added and used in the Modeller physically and as labels
Duplicate and move functionality now available in both the 3D view and the object tree
Caution lines functionality improved
Far-field patterns are now included for custom antennas resulting in more accurate calculations outside bounding block. (Antenna models have to be updated to see the effect)
Antenna label moves towards front of antenna when viewing from the top
An environmental slice label was added to differentiate between environmental slices
Default rotation axis orientation changed according to local coordinates of target objects
Memory hedge provided for safe out of memory situations
These days most entry level desktop machines and even notebooks are equipped with dual- or even quad-core processors. Software that makes use of parallel processing capabilities manage to solve simulation problems much faster, especially when it comes to calculating blocks of electromagnetic field values and rendering objects in 3D.
The exclusion zone calculator implemented in the IXUS Modeller has recently been optimised and updated to support multi-core calculation methods and the results speak for themselves. The graphs below depict the differences in the calculation times on a four core desktop machine before and after the implementation of the optimisations. On large sites the calculator is almost four times faster. You might not have enough time to get a coffee…
Various standards are being used globally for evaluating compliance for human exposure to radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (
A new version of IXUS EMF Simulation software, the Solo Modeller was released today and is available for download. Access the 
