M.

Sc MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS

RF AND MICROWAVE ENGINEERING LABORATORY WORK

PREPARED BY : NWACHUKWU HOPE NZE

IC. NO / PASSPORT NO: A03020839

LECTURER : Dr. ALI O ABID NOOR

TABLE OF CONTENTS Title page---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 Table of contents------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Aims and objectives--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Theory------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 Experiment procedures-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 Results------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6 Discussion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7 Conclusion-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3a -- Standing Wave measurement system configuration----------------------------------5 Figure 3b -- Standing Wave measurement screen----------------------------------------------------6

TITLE: RF AND MICROWAVE ENGINEERING 1.0 INTRODUCTION

A wave is a disturbance or oscillation that travels through space-time, accompanied by a transfer of energy. Wave motion transfers energy from one point to another, often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium. Waves are classified as either Mechanical or electromagnetic and depending on the direction of oscillation, they are either transverse or longitudinal. A Standing wave is a wave that remains in a constant position. This phenomenon can occur because the medium is moving in the opposite direction to the wave, or it can arise in a stationary medium as a result of interference between two waves traveling in opposite directions. Waves have several properties such as reflection, refraction, etc but the reflection property of waves will be considered in this experiment. Standing waves in Transmission Lines will be considered in this experiment and standing waves ratio (sometimes called voltage standing waves ratio) is the focus of this experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org)

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The aims and objectives of this laboratory work are as follows: (a) Understand the concept of standing waves (b) Measure the standing wave pattern for different attenuation values using Wave Antenna Training System (WATS) (c) Calculate standing waves ratio (d) Understand how this is applied in Transmission Lines

2.0

THEORY

When the transmission line is terminated with a load impedance ZL , there will be positively travelling waves Interaction of these two waves resulting in a standing wave. The ratio of the maximum to minimum values for the envelope is called standing wave ratio (SWR). The maximum value of the envelope corresponds to the sum of the amplitudes of the direct and reflected waves, while the minimum correspond to the difference between the two. The standing wave repeats its pattern at every /2 along the transmission line. For a pure standing wave, SWR becomes an infinite value whereas for a matched load, SWR takes a unity value (Kwang-Wook and Che-Young, 2004). In telecommunications, standing wave ratio (SWR) is the ratio of the amplitude of a partial standing wave at an antinode (maximum) to the amplitude at an adjacent node (minimum), in a transmission line (http://en.wikipedia.org).

3. 3.0

EXPERIMENT PROCEDURE: EQUIPMENTS USED AND SET UP:

The equipment employed for the Standing wave ratio experiment is the Wave and Antenna Training System WATS-2002 The set up of the experiment is shown in fig 3a. Two PCB antennas on the transmitter and receiver are placed facing each other and the RF cable connected to the WATS

Fig 3a Standing Wave measurement system configuration

3.1

PROCEDURES (1) The WATS is turned on, WATS-2002 is double clicked from the programs, com port 1 is selected and this opens the main window of the software (2) VSW (Voltage Standing Waves) icon is selected, the WATS is reset and ok botton is selected to bring the experiment window (3) Reflector is selected, an attenuation value is selected (initially zero) and VSW is clicked (4) Continously clicking on VSW will read the voltage standing wave data till it is completed thus the system then tells the user that the data measurement is completed (5) This pattern is plotted for only one wavelength. This is observed on the distance indicator moving from 0 to lamda () shown between the signal source and reflector (6) The attenuation value, distance and data accumulated is displayed on the right hand side of the screen

(7) This procedure is repeated for -4dB and -8dB to obtain the Standing Wave measurements for the attenuation value selected (Kwang-Wook and Che-Young, 2004) 3.2 RESULTS

Fig 3b Standing Wave measurement screen From the graph, the SWR for attenuation values of 0dB is highlighted with red, -4dB with green and -8dB with blue. The frequency used is 914MHz and each pressing of the VSW button moves the distance by /36. For example, with attenuation=0dB, the initial power value is -43.375dB for 0, it increases till it reaches a maximum value of -9.391 at 9/36 then it goes to the minimum value of -43.570 at /2 and this pattern is repeated for the other /2 with same minimum and maximum. Also for -8dB attenuation value, it is seen that the minimum values are at 0 and with -22.867dB, the maximum for the first and 2nd /2 are 12.320dB and -12.516dB respectively and -23.648dB at /2. From the graph, it is observed that with decreasing attenuation, there is decreasing maxima value and increasing minima value likewise the values at 0 and becomes greater than the values at higher attenuation. The graphs intercepts at some points but one point of intersection which can be read from the values is at 34/36 where the 0 attenuation intersects with the -8dB attenuation (-20.328dB value). The first maximum is seen at /4 and is repeated at another /4 while the 1st minimum is at the termination and next at /2

4.

DISCUSSION

The voltage component of a standing wave in a uniform transmission line consists of the incident or forward wave (with amplitude Vf) superimposed on the reflected wave (with amplitude Vr). Reflections occur as a result of discontinuities, such as an imperfection in an otherwise uniform transmission line, or when a transmission line is terminated with a load other than its characteristic impedance. The reflection coefficient is defined thus:

is a complex number that describes both the magnitude and the phase shift of the reflection. The simplest cases, when the imaginary part of is zero, are:

: maximum negative reflection, when the line is short-circuited, VSWR= : no reflection, when the line is perfectly matched, VSWR=1 : maximum positive reflection, when the line is open-circuited. VSWR= , denoted by , is of interest.

For the calculation of VSWR, only the magnitude of Therefore, we define .

At some points along the line the two waves interfere constructively, and the resulting amplitude is the sum of their amplitudes:

At other points, the waves interfere destructively, and the resulting amplitude is the difference between their amplitudes:

The voltage standing wave ratio is then equal to:

As , the magnitude of always +1. (Pozar, 2005)

, always falls in the range [0,1], the VSWR is

The case seen in the experiment and experimental results corresponds to a situation where the load impedance is less than the characteristics impedance. In this case, the 1st maximum is at /4 from the termination and the 1st minimum is at the termination, the forward waves (incident waves) and the reflected waves are out of phase at the termination and /2 from the termination as seen from the above equation, they add up at the maxima and subtract at the minima. The VSWR depends on the value of the characteristics impedance and load impedance as seen in the reflection coefficient equation above.
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PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The most common case for measuring and examining SWR is when installing and tuning transmitting antennas. When a transmitter is connected to an antenna by a feed line, the impedance of the antenna and feed line must match exactly for maximum energy transfer from the feed line to the antenna to be possible. The impedance of the antenna varies based on many factors including: the antenna's natural resonance at the frequency being transmitted, the antenna's height above the ground, and the size of the conductors used to construct the antenna. When an antenna and feedline do not have matching impedances, some of the electrical energy cannot be transferred from the feedline to the antenna. Energy not transferred to the antenna is reflected back towards the transmitter. It is the interaction of these reflected waves with forward waves which causes standing wave patterns. Reflected power has three main implications in radio transmitters: Radio Frequency (RF) energy losses increase, distortion on transmitter due to reflected power from load and damage to the transmitter can occur. Matching the impedance of the antenna to the impedance of the feed line is typically done using an antenna tuner. The tuner can be installed between the transmitter and the feed line, or between the feed line and the antenna. Both installation methods will allow the transmitter to operate at a low SWR, however if the tuner is installed at the transmitter, the feedline between the tuner and the antenna will still operate with a high SWR, causing additional RF energy to be lost through the feedline. Many amateur radio operators consider any impedance mismatch a serious matter. Power loss will increase as the SWR increases. For example, a dipole antenna tuned to operate at 3.75 MHzthe centre of the 80 meter amateur radio bandwill exhibit an SWR of about 6:1 at the edges of the band. However, if the antenna is fed with 250 feet of RG-8A coax, the loss due to standing waves is only 2.2dB, which may seem like a small loss, but is on a logarithmic scale. If running a typical 100W transmitter on the HF band, 2.2dB of loss would reduce the output power to 60W. That is a 40% reduction in power. Feed line loss typically increases with frequency, so VHF and above antennas must be matched closely to the feedline. The same 6:1 mismatch to 250 feet of RG-8A coax would incur 10.8dB of loss at 146 MHz However; a length of 250 feet would not likely be used for 2m VHF radios. Antennas for the 80m band frequently involve large or complex designs typically mounted on a tall tower with great distances needed between buildings and thus the transmitter. VHF requires a much smaller antenna, and unless being used on a high powered repeater, does not have a very tall tower. The most common usage of 2m band is mobile single or dual band VHF or VHF/UHF mobiles. Also in part due to the typical output power of a VHF band is 50W, due to the FCC requirement of RF exposure evaluations needing to be conducted on power greater than 50W in the 2m band. This 50W with the 250 feet of cable would be reduced to a tiny 5W with 10dB of loss. On the rarer occasion where a long transmission line
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is needed for 146 MHz, a higher quality low loss transmission line would be used instead of the relatively cheap RG-8A (http://en.wikipedia.org). IMPLICATIONS OF SWR ON MEDICAL APPLICATIONS VSWR can also have a detrimental impact upon the performance of microwave based medical applications. In microwave electrosurgery an antenna that is placed directly into tissue may not always have an optimal match with the feedline resulting in an SWR. The presence of SWR can affect monitoring components used to measure power levels impacting the reliability of such measurements (http://en.wikipedia.org)

5. CONCLUSION SWR is used as an efficiency measure for transmission lines, electrical cables that conduct radio frequency signals, used for purposes such as connecting radio transmitters and receivers with their antennas, and distributing cable television signals. A problem with transmission lines is that impedance mismatches in the cable tend to reflect the radio waves back toward the source end of the cable, preventing all the power from reaching the destination end. SWR measures the relative size of these reflections. An ideal transmission line would have an SWR of 1:1, with all the power reaching the destination and no reflected power. An infinite SWR represents complete reflection, with all the power reflected back down the cable. The SWR of a transmission line can be measured with an instrument called an SWR meter, and checking the SWR is a standard part of installing and maintaining transmission lines. In a nut shell, these standing waves needs to be eliminated in order to acheive a perfect transmission and this is achieved by matching the load impedance to the characteristics impedance.

REFERENCES David M. Pozar, 2005. Microwave Engineering. 3rd ed. New Jersey:John Wiley and sons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/standing_wave_ratio Kwang-Wook, Jung and Che-Young, Kim, 2004. Wave Propagation and Antenna Experiments. Kyungbook: Man & Tel Co., Ltd