RFlect

The RF engineer's toolkit for antenna measurement visualization and analysis.

Documentation · Quickstart · MCP Recipes

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RFlect takes raw antenna measurement data and turns it into publication-ready 2D/3D radiation pattern plots, TRP calculations, polarization analysis, and efficiency metrics — all validated against IEEE-standard methods. Whether you're characterizing a BLE chip antenna or qualifying a cellular array, RFlect handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on the engineering.

New in v4.1

• Advanced RF analysis suite — 5 new analysis modules: Link Budget/Range Estimation (Friis with protocol presets), Indoor Propagation (ITU-R P.1238/P.2040), Multipath Fading (Rayleigh/Rician CDF + Monte-Carlo), Enhanced MIMO (capacity curves, combining gain, MEG), and Wearable/Medical (body-worn patterns, dense device SINR, SAR screening).
• Professional 3D antenna plots — DUT orientation triad (X=green, Y=red, Z=blue) matching the physical chamber marker, equal aspect ratio, box-edge labels that are never occluded, and consistent layout across all four 3D routines.
• Maritime/horizon antenna plots — 5 plot types for on-water antenna analysis: Mercator heatmap, conical cuts, gain-over-azimuth, horizon statistics table, and 3D pattern with horizon band highlighting.
• Smart presets — Protocol presets (BLE, WiFi, LoRa, Zigbee, LTE, NB-IoT) and environment presets (Office, Hospital, Industrial, etc.) auto-populate analysis parameters.
• Non-blocking update checker — Startup update check runs in a background thread instead of blocking the GUI.
• 448 tests — Up from 346 in v4.0, with 55+ new tests for advanced analysis, maritime plots, and batch processing.

New in v4.0

Ground-up overhaul from v3.x — new GUI, new analysis engine, new integrations, and corrected RF math throughout.

• UWB analysis — System Fidelity Factor via cross-correlation, phase reconstruction from group delay, Touchstone .s2p support, transfer function extraction, and impulse response characterization.
• Modern dark GUI — Complete visual redesign with dark ttk theme, color-coded log output, keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+R/F5), and WCAG AA contrast compliance.
• Zero-dependency, deterministic — No LLM, no API key, no subscription (the in-app AI was removed in v5.0.0). Every metric is computed and reproducible.
• MCP server with 41 tools — Programmatic antenna analysis for Claude Code and other MCP clients, including comparison, S11/VSWR, group delay, link budget, MIMO diversity, active-cal, and UWB characterization. Cross-platform (Linux/macOS/Windows).

See RELEASE_NOTES.md for the full changelog.

Quick Start

Windows: Grab RFlect_Installer_vX.X.X.exe or the standalone RFlect_vX.X.X.exe from the latest release.

Linux: Download RFlect_vX.X.X_linux from the latest release, then chmod +x and run.

From source:

git clone https://github.com/RFingAdam/RFlect.git
cd RFlect
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate  # or .venv\Scripts\activate on Windows
pip install -r requirements.txt
python run_rflect.py

What It Handles

Scan Type	Input Format	What You Get
Active TRP	WTL .txt (V5.02/V5.03)	TRP, H/V power, 2D/3D radiation patterns
Passive Gain	WTL HPOL + VPOL .txt pairs	Total/H/V gain, efficiency, directivity
S-Parameters	Copper Mountain .csv	S11, VSWR, return loss with limit lines
Group Delay	2-port VNA .csv, Touchstone .s2p	Group delay vs frequency, peak-to-peak, distance error
UWB Analysis	S2VNA .csv, Touchstone .s2p	SFF, transfer function, impulse response, impedance BW
CST Far-Field	.txt simulation files	ECC, fidelity factor, group delay

Usage

1. Select scan type — Active, Passive, or VNA
2. Adjust settings — cable loss, limit lines, frequency range, 3D scale
3. Import your files via the Import button or Ctrl+O
4. View results — plots render automatically; hit Ctrl+R to reprocess

Example Results (click to expand)

Passive Measurements

G&D Comparison — Efficiency, gain, and directivity across multiple scans:

HPOL/VPOL 1D — Efficiency and total gain vs frequency:

2D Azimuth Cuts — Gain pattern across theta angles:

Datasheet Plots — Peak gain per polarization, polar cuts at key planes:

3D Radiation Patterns — Total gain with turbo colormap:

Active TRP Measurements

VNA / S-Parameters

Group Delay Analysis:

Key Features

• Polarization Analysis — Axial ratio, tilt angle, XPD, and polarization sense (LHCP/RHCP) from HPOL/VPOL data with interactive and batch export modes
• Batch Processing — Process an entire folder of HPOL/VPOL pairs or TRP files automatically, with organized per-pair output
• Report Generation — Export DOCX reports with embedded plots, measurement summaries, and deterministic data-driven prose (or narrative authored by the driving MCP agent)
• 3D Visualization — Perceptually uniform turbo colormap, transparent panes, coordinate axes, and manual or auto Z-axis scaling

Zero-dependency, MCP-driven (v5.0.0)

RFlect makes no outbound LLM/API calls and needs no API key or subscription. It is a deterministic RF analysis + rendering toolkit. When driven over MCP, the AI agent is the LLM: it calls RFlect's tools for data and — if a report needs narrative prose — authors it itself and passes it to generate_report. Everything RFlect computes is reproducible, not generated.

See MCP_STATUS.md for the full tool inventory.

MCP Server

RFlect ships with an MCP server — 41 tools that let an AI agent like Claude Code import your measurements, run analysis, compare antennas, estimate link budgets, generate reports, and perform UWB/MIMO characterization programmatically. No GUI required.

See rflect-mcp/README.md for setup and the full tool reference.

Project Structure

RFlect/
  plot_antenna/           # Core application
    gui/                  #   GUI mixins (callbacks, tools, dialogs, AI chat)
    ai_analysis.py        #   RF analysis engine (gain stats, pattern, polarization)
    calculations.py       #   TRP, passive gain, efficiency computations
    file_utils.py         #   WTL/VNA file parsers
    plotting.py           #   2D/3D matplotlib rendering
    uwb_analysis.py       #   UWB analysis (SFF, transfer function, Touchstone)
    uwb_plotting.py       #   UWB-specific plot functions
    llm_provider.py       #   Multi-provider LLM abstraction
    api_keys.py           #   Secure key storage (keyring + Fernet)
    save.py               #   DOCX report generation
  rflect-mcp/             # MCP server for programmatic access
  tests/                  # 450 tests (pytest)

Development

pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
python -m pytest tests/                    # run tests
pyinstaller RFlect.spec                    # build exe

See CONTRIBUTING.md for coding standards, architecture details, and how to get involved.

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later

Relicensed from GPL-3.0 to AGPL-3.0-or-later to match the rest of the RF/EMC engineering toolkit's licensing policy — see eng-mcp-suite's licensing summary for the rationale.