ECE 329 - Fields and Waves I

Spring 2024

TitleRubricSectionCRNTypeHoursTimesDaysLocationInstructor
Fields and Waves IECE329E32666DIS31300 - 1350 M W F  2017 Electrical & Computer Eng Bldg Lara Waldrop
Fields and Waves IECE329F32667DIS31400 - 1450 M W F  2015 Electrical & Computer Eng Bldg Xu Chen
Fields and Waves IECE329X32668DIS31200 - 1250 M W F  3081 Electrical & Computer Eng Bldg  Victoria Shao

Official Description

Electromagnetic fields and waves fundamentals and their engineering applications: static electric and magnetic fields; energy storage; Maxwell's equations for time-varying fields; wave solutions in free space, dielectrics and conducting media, transmission line systems; time- and frequency-domain analysis of transmission line circuits and Smith chart applications. Course Information: Prerequisite: ECE 210.

Subject Area

  • Electromagnetics, Optics and Remote Sensing

Course Director

Description

Elementary electromagnetic field theory as summarized in Maxwell's equations for time varying fields in integral and differential form, energy storage, and quasistatic fields; and time-domain analysis of waves.

Topics

This course is designed to serve as the first course in electromagnetics to fulfill the requirements of the electrical engineering and computer engineering core curricula.

  • Static and quasi-static electric fields
  • Polarization, conduction, capacitance
  • Static and quasi-static magnetic fields
  • Induction and inductance
  • Dynamic fields and Maxwell's equations
  • Wave solutions of Maxwell's equations in free space and homogeneous media
  • Time- and frequency-domain analysis of waves in transmission line circuits and Smith Chart

Detailed Description and Outline

  • Static and quasi-static electric fields, polarization, conduction, capacitance
  • Static and quasi-static magnetic fields, induction and inductance
  • Dynamic fields and Maxwell's equations, wave solutions in free space and homogeneous media
  • Time- and frequency-domain analysis of waves in transmission line circuits and Smith Chart

Topical Prerequisites

  • Vector calculus basics form MATH 241
  • Electric and magnetic field basics from PHYS 212
  • Linear circuit and system analysis tools from ECE 210

Texts

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

Required, Elective, or Selected Elective

Required

ABET Category

Engineering Science: 100%

Course Goals

This is the first course of the intermediate level EM sequence in ECE curricula. It is required for both electrical engineering and computer engineering majors. Its provides an introduction to EM fields and waves and their engineering applications.

Instructional Objectives

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

  • Use Lorentz force equation to calculate the electric and magnetic fields in a region for a specified set of forces on moving charges, use Coulomb's or Gauss' Laws to calculate the electric field due to a charge distribution, apply the same principles in reverse to design a charge distribution that produces a specified electric field (1,2)
  • Calculate the electrical potential of curl-free static electric fields using Poisson's or Laplace's equations, understand the lumped circuit voltage concept in terms of potential differences of quasi-static fields surrounding compact circuit components (1)
  • Relate curl of a field to its circulation, understand Maxwell's boundary condition equations and use them to calculate static electric fields and displacement from specified surface charge distributions (1)
  • Calculate static polarization field and displacement in dielectric media bounded by conductors, understand the Drude-Lorentz models for conductivity and susceptibility, calculate capacitance and conductance in slab, cylindrical, and spherical geometries (1)
  • Calculate static magnetic fields due to simple current distributions and understand them to be manifestations electrostatic fields seen from reference frames in constant relative motion (1)
  • Calculate circulation and curl of magnetic fields and relate them to linked currents and local current densities using Ampere's Law, calculate magnetic fields of infinite current sheets and solenoids, understand the vector potential and its use for static magnetic field calculations under Coulomb's gauge (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 induction and Faraday's law, calculate induced emf from linked magnetic flux variations, calculate inductance for solenoids and cylindrical geometries (1)
  • Express charge conservation in terms of a continuity equation and understand the need for a "displacement current" term in Ampere's Law (1)
  • Obtain the TEM wave-equation from the full set of Maxwell's equations, calculate its d'Alembert wave solutions in free space, relate the solutions to radiation from time-varying current sheets (1)
  • Calculate the stored energy and transported power densities of TEM waves in the context of Poynting Theorem, and express monochromatic plane wave solutions using phasors and frequency-domain form Maxwell's equations (1)
  • Calculate the attenuation of TEM plane waves in lossy media (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:

  • Analyze the polarizations of plane waves (emphasis on linear and circular polarizations and handedness), design current sheet antennas to generate waves with desired polarizations (1,2)
  • Calculate reflection and transmission coefficients of normal incidence plane waves and relate to radiation pressure and surface resistance (1)
  • Derive Telegrapher's Equations for guided TEM waves expressed in terms of distributed voltage and current variables and distributed capacitance, inductance, and conductance parameters (1)
  • Calculate time-domain solutions of transmission lines terminated by resistive loads using the bounce diagram technique (1)
  • Calculate the resonance frequencies of open and shorted transmission line stubs, analyze/design filter circuits including stubs (1,2)
  • Analyze quarter- and half-wave transformers and design transmission line circuits containing such transformers (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:

  • Calculate load and line impedances, generalized reflection coefficients, and VSWR in losless transmission line circuits using Smith Charts as needed (1)
  • Design quarter-wave and stub-tuners for matching arbitrary loads to transmission line circuits (1,2)
  • Understand the sources of losses in transmission line circuits and compute propagation and attenuation constants on lossy lines (1)

Last updated

1/14/2019by Erhan Kudeki