Description

This course examines applications of electromagnetic waves. It begins with a brief review of Maxwell's equations, and proceeds to use the equations to consider different practical applications of unguided and guided electromagnetic waves.  Students learn about uniform plane waves, polarization of electromagnetic waves, plane wave reflection and transmission, normal and oblique incidence, retangular metallic waveguides, single-mode optical fibers, antennas, and antenna arrays.  This course builds on and supplements knowledge from ELEC 280.

Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)

• Understand Maxwell’s equations and the fundamentals of unguided electromagnetic wave propagation in lossless and lossy media (normal and oblique incidence, reflection and transmission, state of polarization, power flow),

• Understand the fundamentals of guided electromagnetic wave propagation in rectangular metallic waveguides and single-mode optical fibers (solution to Maxwell’s equations, propagation constant, waveguide dispersion and attenuation), and

• Understand the fundamentals of single element antennas (half-wave dipole antennas) and antenna arrays.

Credit Breakdown

Lecture: 3
Lab: 0.25
Tutorial: 0.5

Academic Unit Breakdown

Mathematics 0
Natural Sciences 0
Complementary Studies 0
Engineering Science 24
Engineering Design 21

Week 1: 1) Introduction, electromagnetic spectrum, applications; 2) Travelling waves representation; 3) Brief review of vectors, coordinate systems, and vector calculus

Week 2: 1) Time harmonic waves, phasors, Maxwell’s equations, material properties; 2) Wave equation, uniform plane waves in lossless media; 3) Plane wave in lossy media, loss tangent, material classification

Week 3: 1) Poynting vector, electromagnetic power density; 2) Current flow in good conductor; 3) Linear wave polarization, circular wave polarization

Week 4: 1) Elliptical wave polarization; 2) Wave reflection and transmission at normal incidence in lossless medium, power transfer; 3) Input intrinsic impedance, λ/2 and λ/4 matching

Week 5: 1) Wave reflection and transmission at normal incidence in lossy media; 2) Wave reflection and transmission at oblique incidence - perpendicular polarization, Snell's Law; 3) Wave reflection and transmission at oblique incidence - parallel polarization

Week 6: 1) Brewster angle, reflectivity, transmissivity; 2) Total internal reflection; 3) Guided electromagnetic waves

Week 7: 1) Metallic rectangular waveguides, transverse electric modes; 2) Transverse magnetic modes, propagation constant, β-ω diagrams; 3) Waveguide impedance and attenuation

Week 8: 1) Phase and group velocities; 2) Resonant cavities; 3) Optical fibers, propagation constant for single-mode fiber, fiber attenuation, modes

Week 9: 1) Fiber group delay and dispersion; 2) Gaussian pulse, DWDM

Week 10: 1) Herztian dipole antenna; 2) Radiation intensity, 3) Antenna radiation characteristics, directivity, efficiency, gain

Week 11: 1) Half-wave dipole antenna; 2) Effective area of a receiving antenna, Friis transmission formula; 3) Antenna arrays, two-element half-wave dipole array

Week 12: 1) N-element arrays; 2) Uniform phase distribution, uniform amplitude and phase distributions, linear phase distribution, uniform amplitude and linear phase distributions, electronic scanning, three-element half-wave dipole array; 3) Array feeding