CENOS Offers Small Engineering Operations Electrical Simulation Tools

Radio frequency, induction heating and wireless charging simulation tools for every engineer.

One of the big engineering product design buzzwords from the last decade is democratization. The idea is to give every person and engineer the tools they need to make products—or in this case, give every engineer the ability to use simulation software.

Mihails Scepanskis and his cofounders at CENOS, a 3D electronics simulation software company targeting those new to these tools, are big believers in the need for simulation software for all. The engineering world isn’t fair, says Scepanskis, because engineers at the world’s largest corporations have access to cutting-edge tools while the engineers at small companies use what is available and fits within smaller budgets.

Engineers simulate a radiation pattern. (Image courtesy of CENOS.)

Engineers simulate a radiation pattern. (Image courtesy of CENOS.)

This is intuitive on some level, as we all know that engineering companies make software decisions based on cost. But the reverse makes sense as well, if everyone in the world could access simulation tools tomorrow and the computational resources to work them, then humans could do great things.

Currently, this isn’t possible—everyone works with the tools they have on hand to the best of their ability. However, CENOS wants to ensure that the tools available for users, especially those who lack huge resources, are the best that they can be.

Scepanskis and his partners started CENOS, short for Connecting Engineering Open Source, in 2017 based on the idea of making low-cost tools that produce results with a high degree of fidelity. To do this, the company brings together a series of open-source software pieces (like Salome, GetDP and ParaView) and connects them into a full simulation platform. The CENOS platform then acts as a common base from which to launch different simulation studies and functionalities. As a result, each simulation tool on the platform has a similar workflow that starts with setting up a design’s geometry, inputting the physics and settings of the model, meshing the geometry, and finally calculating the results. This means, in theory, that a new electrical simulation application can be added without having to build an entirely new platform.

The company is using this open-source architecture to leverage agile tools that are full of options and features. A look at its track record shows a commitment to adding new functionality while making smaller changes to the existing offerings. Recent announcements also show that CENOS is starting to enter partnerships with other companies to swim a little deeper into the open-source pool. CENOS isn’t actively trying to compete with the big dogs of simulation but is instead trying to give smaller engineering groups the same caliber tool that a Fortune 500 company might use.

CENOS Started with Radio Frequency and New Additions Are Coming

The big three modeling functions currently offered by CENOS are radio frequency, induction heating and wireless charging simulations. Applications in the beta stages revolve around microwave heating, busbar design, solenoids actuators, electromagnetic stirring and transformer simulations. Clearly, the company is focusing on enabling electrical engineering to simulate projects. This makes sense because of the electrification trends happening in various industries.

Users can import STEP and IGES files, or work with FreeCAD in the CENOS environment. (Image courtesy of CENOS.)

Users can import STEP and IGES files, or work with FreeCAD in the CENOS environment. (Image courtesy of CENOS.)

The interface for CENOS looks incredibly simple. The platform does enable engineers to create geometry, but for most users, it will make more sense to input CAD models by importing IGES and STEP files. Workflow moves from geometry to visualization in four phases and various tutorial videos on the company website show how studies are run from start to finish in just a few minutes.

Each of the four workflow phases has several GUI windows full of options. The platform also makes it possible to run several studies with slightly different geometries for optimizations and comparisons. This is one of the ways that CENOS looks like it isn’t trying to compete with Ansys and Altair, but instead providing an alternative that shows users exactly what can be done on a simple platform. CENOS also doesn’t have the classical simulation options like structural analysis or computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and that’s one aspect where the giants of simulation have an advantage. However, partnership with more open-source software tools will bring additional applications into the CENOS family.

What Does It All Mean?

CENOS is doing several smart things with its simulation offerings and business models. For instance, it’s using open-source modality to build a simulation platform and then applying different tools to the platforms depending on its user’s needs. This theoretically gives all users and customers a bigger voice in the direction of the simulation tools, or at least for users who want to poke around in the open-sourced guts of the beast. Repeating this software development model is compelling because it shows the possibilities of what a true open-source tool might be. CENOS could license partners to develop tools that they add to the platform to take the simulation software a step or two further—or even branch it into new functions far beyond its current offerings.

Wireless charging simulates charging situations when parts are static or moving. (Image courtesy of CENOS.)

Wireless charging simulates charging situations when parts are static or moving. (Image courtesy of CENOS.)

The other thing that makes me feel good about CENOS is that the company allows its software to be used for free for academic or noncommercial purposes. This reinforces the idea that the engineers at CENOS are trying to democratize software instead of just selling licenses. Giving engineers tools that will ultimately create better designs and products—on a personal or corporate global scale—is good for all of us. Again, this is a smart move because academic users can become future customers.

The global trend toward vehicle electrification means that electronics design is more important than ever, and designing better components and systems will help all of us. CENOS is producing new affordable tools, and enhancing current tools, to help these efforts.