An Introduction to Electromagnetic Wave Propagation & Antennas

This highly illustrated and accessible text will be an ideal introduction to the application of electromagnetics (EM) following an initial course in basic EM theory. The book covers the well established structure of elementary EM courses, beginning with Maxwell's equations in integral form and developing the wave equation to show the essential properties of waves.



In addition to providing a grounding in this traditional curriculum, the principal concern throughout is to make difficult concepts of electromagnetism more accessible. The adoption of time domain methods for this purpose is the book's most important breakthrough, allowing the fundamentals of applied electromagnetics to be introduced with a clarity and simplicity not available through the conventional route. Another new aspect of this book is the integration of computational modelling methods with the standard theory of electromagnetic waves. The author presents a set of example programs written in the MATLAB language to support the ideas outlined in the text.



The book is organized in a logical progression of ideas, starting with the general idea of wave motion and showing how the equations of electricity and magnetism lead to the existence of electromagnetic waves through the Maxwell's equations. These ideas are then applied to simple accelerating charge models used in the engineering design of wire antennas. The concepts of resonance and antenna impedance are then treated from a time domain point of view.



To reinforce the concepts of wave propagation, a chapter on computer modelling shows the rigorous procedures required to generate accurate numerical models of wave dynamics. The author extends these ideas to consider the properties of aperture antennas, showing how their important properties can be incorporated with the basic themes introduced earlier in the book. Finally, the important topic of wave scattering is introduced, once again from the point of view of time domain concepts.