Company History

A brief history of EM Software & Systems

EM Software & Systems (EMSS) was founded in 1994, the year of South Africa's first democratic elections, by Frans Meyer and Gronum Smith as a company consulting in electromagnetics. This coincided with large budget cuts in the defence industry which had up to then been the main driving force behind R&D in the EM engineering industry due to international sanctions. The democracy, however, brought new opportunities to do business outside the country's borders.

Through consulting services EMSS identified the local and international need for the simulation of antennas on electrically large platforms. A hybrid solution between the accurate Method of Moments (MoM) and asymptotic high frequency techniques PO and UTD promised to be an elegant and practical solution. Cooperation between EMSS and Ulrich Jakobus, who did research on these hybrid techniques at the University of Stuttgart, followed and resulted in the commercial code FEKO.

Early projects on human exposure to electromagnetic fields, both locally and for international clients, established an in depth knowledge regarding the requirements in both analysis and exposure management. This knowledge has been extensively used and implemented in the products FEKO, IXUS and fieldSENSE.

More than 100 people are currently employed by the EMSS Group. The experience and knowledge built up over the past fifteen years are made available through industry leading products and used by EMSS to assist customers through contract work.

The EMSS Group now consists of three different companies and the main activities include:

  • EMSS-SA: Simulation software development (FEKO) and consultation on EM field analysis;

  • EMSS Consulting: Consulting and EMF compliance regulation (IXUS) for mobile network operators;

  • EMSS Antennas: Advanced antenna development.