AWR’s system planning software replaces spreadsheets

The irrepressible Sherry Hess over at AWR, the Microwave Office people, has released VSS (visual system simulator). This allows RF engineers to plan and architect RF signal chains. As AWR points out, you can use a spreadsheet to do this, but there are noise effects that won’t be accounted for in a spreadsheet. AWR has several white papers on their VSS landing page, so you see what the tool will do for you. There is a general white paper on VSS, as well as a system planning white paper by AWR’s Malcolm Edwards. According to the AWR press release:

• Architectural tools used by designers of RF and microwave communications systems include budget simulators, spur searching utilities, and frequency planning tools, all of which are often based on spreadsheets or hard-coded algorithms with a non-commercial user interface. This white paper outlines the benefit of using a commercial, specialized software program such as Visual System Simulator^TM (VSS) for end-to-end system design, while also embracing legacy approaches with the incorporation of spreadsheet views.