Skip to main content

ECE 540 Electromagnetic Fields

3 Credit Hours

This course provides a mathematical foundation to solve advanced electromagnetic problems both analytically and numerically. Students will study wave propagation effects and interactions at boundaries to predict phenomena in both isotropic and anisotropic media. Methods for solving electromagnetic boundary value problems are introduced and applied to waveguide and resonator configurations. Finally, computational methods for both time and frequency domain problems are studied as students create their own computational codes to solve and visualize EM problems using the finite difference method and the method of moments.

Prerequisite

Undergraduate courses in engineering electromagnetics  and microwave circuits (ECE 303 and ECE 422 or equivalent).

Course Objectives

Understand and apply key electromagnetic concepts, equations, and theorems.
Analyze wave phenomena, including reflection, transmission, and polarization in isotropic and anisotropic media.
Develop solutions for electromagnetic boundary value problems in various coordinate systems.
Recognize and compute special functions for cylindrical and spherical systems.
Derive and analyze finite difference time domain (FDTD) methods for electromagnetic and other differential equation-based problems.
Develop point matching solutions using the method of moments (MoM).
Write and test MATLAB-based codes for electromagnetic simulations using FDTD and MoM.

Course Requirements

Homework: (weekly for first half of class)  30 %
Midterm: (open book and notes) 20 %
Course Projects: (Matlab codes for FDTD and MoM) 25 %
Final Exam: (open book and notes) 25 %

Course Outline

1. Intro and review of Maxwell’s equations and constitutive relations
2. Analytical electromagnetics
3. Plane wave propagation, reflection, and transmission
4. Solutions to bounded electromagnetic problems in rectangular coordinates
5. Wave solutions in cylindrical and spherical coordinates
6. Midterm exam
7. Computational electromagnetics
8. Finite difference time domain method
9. The method of moments
10. Finite element method and hybrid methods
11. Final exam

Textbooks

Required:  Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics, (Wiley), 2nd edition, 2012.

Software Requirements

Matlab

Created 10/24/2023