Course overview
This course introduces the basics of RF Engineering. It covers a broad range of topics around RF devices and systems. The course illustrates how different building blocks such as amplifiers, oscillators and mixers, as well as guiding structures including transmission lines and waveguides, work together to build RF transmitters and receivers. It introduces important parameters and concepts related to these components, such as scattering matrices, impedance matching and non-linearities. The course shows how the electromagnetic theory applies to RF systems, and is a pathway towards more advanced courses on antennas & propagation and telecommunications.
Course learning outcomes
- Examine characteristics of guided waves with transmission line theory
- Analyse and design common transmission lines and waveguides
- Analyse RF sub-systems with microwave network analysis
- Calculate impedance matching network for RF systems
- Explain operation of nonlinear devices with small-signal approximation
- Examine characteristics of mixers
- Explain different types of nonlinear distortion with small-signal approximation
- Discuss how RF components constitute RF transmitters and receivers