K. W. Whites
EE 481/581 Course Syllabus
Page 1 of 4
EE 481/581 Microwave Engineering
Fall 2016
Instructor:
Dr. Keith W. Whites
Office: 317 Electrical Engineering/Physics (EEP) Building
Email: whites@sdsmt.edu
Web: http://whites.sdsmt.edu
Office hours: MWF 11-11:50 AM
To contact the instructor, please use e-mail rather than the telephone. All e-mail will be
answered. The instructor will be available for assistance during the hours listed above, as well as
other times when his office door is open.
Catalog Description: (3-1) 4 credits. Prerequisite: 382 completed or concurrent. Presentation of
basic principles, characteristics, and applications of microwave devices and systems.
Development of techniques for analysis and design of microwave circuits.
Time and Location: The lectures for this course will meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
from 10:00-10:50 AM in room 255 EEP. Laboratory work will be performed in 230 EEP. There
is no common laboratory time for this course.
Use of Electronic Devices in Class: The use of electronic devices during lecture can be very
disruptive to your learning, to those around you, and to the instructor. To maximize your
learning opportunity during lecture, laptops may be used for notetaking, but only as a tablet. The
use of laptops with the cover open and in the vertical position are not permitted. The use of
smartphones and other electronic devices during the lecture are not allowed.
Course Reference Materials: The required materials for this course are
 D. M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering, New York: John Wiley & Sons, fourth ed., 2012,
which is available at the SDSMT Bookstore.
 Additionally, the lecture notes K. W. Whites, EE 481 Microwave Engineering Lecture
Notes, 2016, are available from the course web page.
Grading:
50 % – Three exams (two semester exams and the final exam)
30 % – Laboratory
20 % – Homework
Homework Policy: One homework set will generally be assigned each week, usually on Friday.
The homework assignments will be distributed through the EE 320 web page accessible from the
URL above. One problem from this set will be randomly selected for you to turn in at the
beginning of class on the due date and will be graded. Please use engineering paper and write
your name and student number on your homework. Please begin each problem on a new sheet of
paper and do not write on the back side. Late homework will be penalized with a 10% score
reduction per calendar day and will only be accepted when you show the instructor that all of the
problems for that set have been completed.
Labwork Policy: Near the middle of the semester, we will begin the first of approximately four
to five labs for the course. These will involve the design, construction, and measurement of
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Revised 8/20/16
K. W. Whites
EE 481/581 Course Syllabus
Page 2 of 4
passive and, possibly, active microwave circuits. The labs will also require the simulation of
your circuits using Advanced Design System (ADS) from Agilent Technologies. Measurements
will be performed in the Laboratory for Applied Electromagnetics and Communications (LAEC)
located in room 230 EEP using Agilent 8753ES vector network analyzers. Laboratory work will
be performed in pairs of students maintaining one laboratory notebook and open lab hours will
be posted. Late lab reports will be assessed a 10% per calendar day reduction in points.
Exam Policy: The exams will be closed book and closed notes with no formula sheets. Using or
referring to equations stored in a calculator is not allowed, even if these equations come preprogrammed into the calculator. If you feel an exam problem was graded incorrectly, it must be
resubmitted to the instructor within 24 hours from the time the exam was returned. Failure to
write an exam will result in a score of zero. No makeup exams will be given. Allowances will be
made for extreme circumstances that were out of the student’s control.
Honor System: All work written in the exams, homework, and the laboratories must be your
own. Failure to abide by this rule will result, at a minimum, in a zero score for the assignment
and/or further action following SDSMT regulations. Homework solutions and laboratories can
be discussed with your colleagues but the work you submit must be your own.
Course Outcomes: Upon completion of this course, students should demonstrate the ability to:
1. Analyze basic transmission line problems containing generator and load mismatches, and
compute such basic quantities as reflection coefficients, standing wave ratio, delivered
signal power, etc.
2. Use the Smith chart for basic transmission line calculations.
3. Design and analyze transmission line matching devices including L-networks, parallel
single stub tuners and quarter-wave transformers.
4. Understand and use two-port parameter models of simple circuit elements (Z, Y, ABCD and
S) to analyze microwave circuits.
5. Use signal flow graphs to represent simple microwave circuits and solve for quantities of
interest, such as reflection coefficients.
6. Design and analyze microwave power dividers (T-junction and Wilkinson) and hybrids (90º
and 180º) constructed from printed microstrip.
7. Design and analyze microwave filters (low- and band-pass) constructed from printed
microstrip.
8. Design and analyze coupled-line and Lange microwave couplers constructed from printed
microstrip.
9. Design and analyze microwave coupled resonator filters constructed from printed
microstrip.
10. Use Advanced Design System (ADS) to design and analyze simple passive microwave
circuits.
11. Construct simple printed microstrip circuits from circuit boards and end launchers.
12. Make proper microwave-cable connections using torque wrenches.
13. Understand the thru-reflect-line (TRL) calibration model for vector network analyzers.
14. Calibrate a vector network analyzer and use it to make simple passive microwave
measurements.
15. Measure the response of simple printed microstrip circuits using a vector network analyzer.
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Revised 8/20/16
K. W. Whites
EE 481/581 Course Syllabus
Page 3 of 4
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Statement: Students with special needs or requiring special
accommodations should contact the campus ADA coordinator, Megan Reder-Schopp, at 394-6988 and/or the
instructor at the earliest opportunity.
Freedom in Learning Statement: Students are responsible for learning the content of any course of study in which
they are enrolled. Under board of regents and university policy, student academic performance shall be evaluated
solely on an academic basis and students should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in
any course of study. Students who believe that an academic evaluation is unrelated to academic standards but is
related instead to judgment of their personal opinion or conduct should contact the dean of the college which offers
the class to initiate a review of the evaluation.
EE 481/581 Class Schedule
Fall 2016
#
Date Sections
1
2
3
4
5
6
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7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
–
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
8/22
8/24
8/26
8/29
8/31
9/2
9/5
9/7
9/9
9/12
9/14
9/16
9/19
9/21
9/23
9/26
9/28
9/30
10/3
10/5
10/7
10/10
10/12
10/14
10/17
10/19
10/21
10/24
10/26
10/28
10/31
11/2
11/4
Chapter 1
2.1
2.1-2.3
2.3
2.6
2.4
–
5.1
5.2
2.5, 5.4
3.1, 3.3
3.7
3.8
Notes
4.2
4.3
–
4.3
4.3
Notes
Notes
–
4.4
4.5
Notes
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.5
7.8
7.6, 7.7
8.3
8.4, 8.6
32
33
11/7
11/9
8.5
–
Topics
Introduction. Pre-assessment. Overview of pertinent electromagnetics.
Telegrapher equations for transmission lines. Power flow.
Phasor wave solutions to the telegrapher equations. Termination of TLs.
TL input impedance, time average power, return and insertion loss. VSWR.
Generator and load mismatches on transmission lines.
The Smith chart.
No class.
Transmission line matching using lumped L networks.
Single-stub tuning.
Quarter-wave-transformer matching.
TEM, TE, and TM modes for waveguides. Rectangular waveguide.
Dispersion. Stripline and other planar waveguides.
Microstrip. ADS and Linecalc.
Simple quasi-static moment method analysis of a microstrip.
Impedance and admittance matrices.
S parameters and the scattering matrix.
Exam #1.
Properties of S matrices. Shifting reference planes.
S parameters and time average power. Generalized S parameters.
Vector network analyzer.
Proper microwave laboratory practices.
No class.
Transmission (ABCD) matrix. (Lab #1 assigned.)
Signal flow graphs.
Measurement errors. TRL calibration of a vector network analyzer.
Basic properties of dividers and couplers.
T-junction and resistive power dividers.
Wilkinson power divider. (Lab #1 due. Lab #2 assigned.)
Quadrature (90º) hybrid.
The 180º hybrid.
Coupled line and Lange directional couplers.
Microwave filter design by the insertion loss method.
Scaling of low pass prototype filters. Stepped impedance low pass filters.
(Lab #2 due. Lab #3 assigned)
Stub synthesis. Kuroda’s identities.
Exam #2.
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Revised 8/20/16
K. W. Whites
EE 481/581 Course Syllabus
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34
35
11/11
11/14
11/16
–
8.5
8.4
36
37
–
–
38
39
40
41
42
11/18
11/21
11/23
11/25
11/28
11/30
12/2
12/5
12/14
11.1
11.1
–
–
11.2
11.3
11.3
–
–
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No class.
Stub low pass filters.
High pass and bandpass microwave filters. Resonant stub filters. (Lab #3
due. Lab #4 assigned.)
Active microwave circuits.
Two-port power gains.
No class.
No class.
Amplifier stability.
Single stage amplifier: Design for maximum gain.
Single stage amplifier: Design for specific gain. (Lab #4 due.)
Post-assessment. Course evaluation.
Final Exam, 1:00-2:50 PM, room 255 EEP.
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Revised 8/20/16