ECE 350

• Electromagnetics, Optics and Remote Sensing

https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece350/

Spherical wave solutions of Maxwell's equations in radiating systems and transmission antennas; localized plane wave approximation of radiated fields and reflection and transmission; receiving antennas; dispersion in material media; waveguides and cavities.

Second course of engineering electromagnetics sequence in ECE:

• Radiation and transmitting antennas
• Plane waves, reflection and transmission at planar interfaces
• Dispersion, evanescence, tunneling
• Antenna reception
• Parallel plate, rectangular, and dielectric waveguides
• Microwave cavities and thermal noise

Topics:

Second course of engineering electromagnetics sequence in ECE:

• Radiation and transmitting antennas
• Plane waves, reflection and transmission at planar interfaces
• Dispersion, evanescence, tunneling
• Antenna reception
• Parallel plate, rectangular, and dielectric waveguides
• Microwave cavities and thermal noise

Some homework problems will require coding and plotting with MATLAB, Mathematica, or Python.

• Lumped and distributed circuit analysis techniques from ECE 210 and 329

N. N. Rao, Fundamentals of Electromagnetics for Electrical and Computer Engineering, Prentice-Hall, 2009.

Selected elective

Engineering Science: 2 credits or 67%
Engineering Design: 1 credit or 33%

This is the second course of the intermediate level electromagnetics sequence in the EE curriculum. Its goal is to provide an introduction to radiation theory; antennas, radiation fields, radiation resistance and gain; transmitting arrays; plane-wave approximation of radiation fields; plane-wave propagation, reflection, and transmission; Doppler effect, evanescent waves and tunneling, dispersion, phase and group velocities; waveguides and resonant cavities; antenna reception and link budgets.

A. By the time of Exam No. 1 (after 13 lectures), the students should be able to do the following:

• Understand that oscillating charges and time varing currents produce radiatation fields (1)
• Use the scalar and vector potentials in Lorenz gauge to derive the inhomogeneous wave equations from Maxwell's Equations and obtain their retarded potential solutions for radiation field calculations via A->J->B->E (1)
• Learn to conduct vector calculus in spherical coordinates (a, m) and calculate spherical wave solutions of the radiation equations for a Hertzan dipole (1)
• Calculate the Poynting vector of the radiation fields and relate it to the radiation resistance of dipile antennas (1)
• Calculate gain, directivity, and solid angle of antenna beam patterns and use constructive and destructive interference and pattern multiplication to design beam patterns of array antennas (1,2)
• Calculate and plot array beam patterns in 3D using scientific computing tools (1)

B. By the time of Exam No. 2 (after 23 lectures), the students should be able to do all of the items listed under A, plus the following:

• Understand the distinction of near and far fields of radiating systems and compute the localized plane-wave approximations of spherical waves in the far-field (1)
• Describe plane waves propagating in arbitrary directions in terms of wave vectors and phasors and derive the plane-wave form of Maxwell's Equations (1)
• Derive Snell's Law, phase matching, and compute reflection and transmission coefficients of TE and TM mode plane waves in oblique incidence (1)
• Compute and apply Brewster's and critical angles and describe evanescent fields produced under total internal reflection (TIR) (1)
• Compute the one- and two-way Doppler shifts in relativistic and non-relativistic limits and formulate Doppler shifted returns of backscatter radars from moving targets (1)
• Calculate dispersion effects, propagation constants, and phase and group velocities and delays in collisionless plasmas (1)

C. By the time of the Exam 3 (after 33 lectures), the student should be able to do all of the items listed under A and B, plus the following:

• Calculate reflectance and transmittance of incident waves on multi-slab channels supporting tunelling and propagating effects using transmission line analogies (1)
• Calculate dispersion and propagation effects of TE and TM mode fields in parallel plate wavguides and solve waveguide problems using transmission line analogy (1)
• Study dispaersion and wave guidance in rectangular and dielectric slab waveguides waveguides and optical fibers in terms of TE and TM modes (1)
• Calculate resonant frequencies of 3D rectangular cavities and associated Q's in terms of loss effects (1,2)

D. By the time of the Final Exam (39 lectures), the student should be able to do all of the items listed under A, B and C, plus the following:

• Compute the resonace fields, energy density, and energies of cavity modes in thermal equilibrium and relate to quantization of cavity fields and thermal noise in cavities and resistors (1,4)
• Compute available power of antennas in reception in terms of co-polarized field Poynting fluxes and effective antenna areas (1)
• Compute effective area of receiving antennas using reciprocity and antenna transmission gains (1,2)
• Compute received power in unmatched untenna terminations in terms of available power and the Thevenin equivalent models of receiving antennas and calculate communication link gains and signal to noise ratio using Friis transmission formula (1)