ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES

AND TRANSMISION LINES

Prof. R. K. Shevgaon karnudeep

IIT BOMBAY
Overview

At low frequencies, an electrical circuit is completely characterized by the electrical parameters

like resistance, inductance etc. and the physical size of the electrical components plays no role in
the circuit analysis. As the frequency increases however, the size of the components becomes
important, that is to say that, the space starts playing a role in the performance of the circuit. The
voltage and currents exist in the form of waves. Even a change in the length of a simple
connecting wire may alter the behavior of the circuit. The circuit approach then has to be re-
investigated with inclusion of the space into the analysis. This approach is then called the
transmission line approach.

One can then conveniently divide the subject of electromagnetics in two parts, the static
electromagnetics and the time varying electromagnetics. As will be clear subsequently, the time
varying electric and magnetic fields always constitute a wave phenomenon called the
electromagnetic wave which is the prime subject of discussion of this book. The phenomenon of
electromagnetism in totality is governed by the four Maxwell's equations, which can be derived
from the physical laws like the Gauss Law, the Ampere's law and the Faraday's low of
electromagnetic induction. The electromagnetic theory is the generalization of the circuit theory,
or the circuit theory is rather a special case of the electromagnetic theory. Although every
phenomena of electricity and magnetism can be analyzed in the frame work of electromagnetic
theory, at low frequencies the circuit approach is adequate. As the frequency increases the
inadequacy of the circuit approach is felt and one is forced to follow the electromagnetic field
approach.

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Objectives
At low frequencies, an electrical circuit is completely characterized by the electrical parameters
like resistance, inductance etc. and the physical size of the electrical components plays no role in
the circuit analysis. As the frequency increases however, the size of the components becomes
important, that is to say that, the space starts playing a role in the performance of the circuit. The
voltage and currents exist in the form of waves. Even a change in the length of a simple
connecting wire may alter the behavior of the circuit. The circuit approach then has to be re-
investigated with inclusion of the space into the analysis. This approach is then called the
transmission line approach.

The voltage and currents exist in the form of waves. Even a change in the length of a simple
connecting wire may alter the behavior of the circuit. The circuit approach then has to be re-
investigated with inclusion of the space into the analysis. This approach is then called the
transmission line approach. Although the primary objective of a transmission line is to carry
electromagnetic energy efficiently from one location to other, they find wide applications in high
frequency circuit design. As the frequency increases, any discontinuity in the circuit path leads to
electromagnetic radiation. Also at high frequencies, the transit time of the signals can not be
ignored. In the era of high speed computers, where data rates are approaching to few Gb/sec, the
phenomena related to the electromagnetic waves, like the bit distortion, signal reflection,
impedance matching play a vital role in high speed communication networks. An antenna is a
device which can launch and receive electromagnetic waves efficiently. But for the large
antennas, the communication between an earth station and a satellite is practically impossible.
The communication which can be established with few watts of power, would need few MW of
power in the absence of proper antennas. However, antenna research is still very active. With
recent advances in mobile communication, design of compact, efficient, multi-frequency
antennas have received a new impetus in the last decade.

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 Table Of Contents

Sno Topic Page No

1 Transmission Lines 5-

2 Maxwell's Equations

3 Uniform Plane Wave

4 Plane Wave at Media Interface

5 Waveguides

6 Antennas

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Transmission Lines in Practice

Various Types Of Transmission Line

As the name suggests, the transmision line is a structure which can transport electrical energy
from one point to another.

At low frequencies, a transmission line consists of two linear conductors separated by a distance.
When an electrical source is applied between the two conductors, the line gets energized and the
electrical energy flows along the length of the conductors.

A two-conductor transmission line may appear in any of the forms shown in the figure

Co-axial cable

Consists of a solid conducting rod surrounded by the two conductors. This line has good
isolation of the electrical energy and therefore has low Electromagnetic Interference (EMI).

Parallel wire transmission line

Consists of two parallel conducting rods. In this case the electrical energy is distributed between
and around the rods. Theoretically the electric and magnetic fields extend over infinite distance
though their strength reduces as the distance from the line. Obviously this line has higher EMI.

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Microstrip line

Consists of a dielectric substrate having ground plane on one side and a thin metallic strip on the
other side. The majority of the fields are confined in the dielectric substrate between the strip and
the ground plane. Some fringing field exist above the substrate which decay rapidly as a function
of height. This line is usually found in printed circuit boards at high frequencies.

Balanced and Un-balanced line

If the two conductors are symmetric around the ground, then the line is called the balanced line,
otherwise the line is an un-balanced line. Transmission lines (a), (c) and (d) are un-balanced line,
whereas the line (b) is a balanced line.

Transit Time Effect

It is important to note that No Signal can travel with infinite velocity. That is to say that if a
voltage or current changes at some location, its effect cannot be felt instantaneously at some
other location. There is a finite delay between the 'cause' and the effect. This is called the
‘Transit Time’ effect.

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Consider the two-conductor line which is connected to a sinusoidal signal generator of frequency
‘f’ at one end and a load impedance at the other end. Due to the transit time effect the voltage
applied at AA' will not appear instantaneously at BB'.

Let the signal travel with velocity ‘v’ along the line. Then the Transit time

At some instant let the voltage at AA' be Vp. Then Vp will appear at BB' only after tr. However,
during this time the voltage at AA' changes to (say) Vq.

Important Observation
Even for ideal conductors i.e., no resistance, there is a voltage difference between AA' and BB'

When is transmit-time effect important?

Ideally the transit time effect should be included in analysis of all electrical circuits. However if

the time period of the signal is much larger than the transit time, we may ignore the
effect of transmit time. That is, the transit time effect can be neglected if

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Transit time effect becomes important when the length of the line becomes comparable to the
wavelength. As the frequency increases, the wavelength reduces, and the transit time effect
becomes more and more important.

Distributed Circuit Elements

Due to transit time effect, the Kirchhoff’s laws cannot be applied to the circuit at a whole.

However, if we take a small section of the line such that its length is , the transit time
effect would be negligible and consequently the Kirchhoff’s laws can be applied.

A conductor carrying a current has magnetic field and consequently has flux linkage. The
conductor therefore has inductance.

Similarly the two conductors form a capacitance.

Due to transit time effect the whole line inductance or capacitance cannot be assumed to be
located at a particular point in space. The inductance and capacitance are distributed throughout
the length of the line. These are therefore called the ' Distributed Parameters' of the line.

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Distributed Circuit Elements

For non ideal conductors there is resistance along the length of the line. Also if the medium
separating the conductors is non - ideal, there is leakage current through the medium which can
be accounted for by placing equivalent conductance between the conductors.

In the presence of transit time effect, all the line parameters, the inductance, the capacitance, the
resistance, and the conductance are of distributed nature.

The distributed parameters can be defined per unit length of the line.
R = Resistance of both conductors together for unit length of the line (ohms/m)
L = Inductance (self and mutual) for both conductors together for unit length of the line
(Henery/m)
C = Capacitance between two conductors for unit length of the line (Farad/m)
G = Leakage conductance between two conductors for unit length of the line (Mho/m).

Lumped Circuit Model

A small section of the line of length has

Resistance =

Inductance =

Capacitance =

Conductance =

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The lumped circuit for a small section of the line can be any one of that shown below :

Note

For the analysis of the transmission to be valid at all frequencies, should be much less than

at all frequencies. In other words the analysis is to be carried out in the limit .

All above representations are equivalent in the limit .

Transmission Line Analysis

Voltage & current equations for small section of a line

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Let us consider a small section of a transmission line of length . Let the voltage at the input
be V and current at the input be I.

Due to voltage drop in the series arm, the output voltage will be different from the input voltage,

say .

Similarly due to current through the capacitance and the conductance the output current will be

different from the input through the current, say . Then we can write

Now if the lumped circuit model should be valid for arbitrarily high frequency (i.e. arbitrarily

small ), the analysis has to be carried out in the limit

Important
In general, the voltage and the current are not related through algebraic equations but are
governed by differential equations.

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Comment
The lines are essentially electromagnetic field problem. The simplified circuit analysis based on
distributed circuit elements and the lumped circuit model gives the operating equation (in terms
of the terminal quantities) as a one-dimensional wave equation is a proof that the equivalent
circuit model is correct.

Solution of Voltage & Current equations of Transmission Line

Differentiating eqn. 2.1 and substituting from eqn. 2.2 we get,

Similarly differentiating eqn. 2.2 and substituting from 2.1 we get,

Let us define a parameter as

The physical significance of will be explained later.

However, is a parameter which depends upon the line parameters R, L, C and G and the
frequency, .
is called the propagation constant of the line, and is in general a complex quantity

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Both voltage and current are governed by the same second order differential equation i.e,

The time harmonic function is implicit in these equations. The general solution to the
differential equations with harmonic time function can be written as,

Where, are the arbitrary complex constants which are to be evaluated from the
boundary conditions.
Since is in general a complex quantity let us write

Substituting for , the voltage and current on any point of the line ' x ' at any instant,
' t ' can be written as

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Physical Interpretation of Voltage & Current Solutions

Let us now understand the phenomenon represented by the two terms of the voltage and current
solutions.
Let us consider the voltage solution. Take the first term of the solution

The first term therefore represents a voltage whose amplitude reduces exponentially with
distance, ' x ' and whose phase is a combination of space, ' x ' and time,’t '.
The voltage is composite function of space and time. Temporal variation of Voltage and
Current

For a given location on the line, is constant, and therefore voltage varies sinusoidally with

time, with amplitude and frequency ' '. The phase of the voltage is .

Spatial Variation of Voltage & Current

On the other hand, for a given time, is constant, and therefore the voltage has decaying

Spatial Sinusoidal function with spatial frequency and phase . That is, if we
instantaneously look at the voltage along the line we see decaying sinusoidal function in the
space (see figure)

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Forward Travelling Wave

Combining now the space-time we get what is called the 'Wave Motion'. See Figure. The voltage
pattern appears travelling from left to right.

The first term of the voltage solution represents a voltage travelling wave in

direction (left to right), and gives the amplitude of the wave at . We call this
wave, the ' Forward Travelling Wave’

Backward Travelling Wave

Similarly, the second term in the voltage solution gives a travelling wave but

travelling in negative' x' direction (right to left) as shown in Figure gives the

amplitude of the wave at . This wave we call the 'Backward Travelling Wave’.

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Current Travelling Waves

The first term of the current solution represents a current travelling

wave in direction (left to right), and gives the amplitude of the wave at . We call
this wave, the ' Forward Current Travelling Wave’

Similarly, the second term in the current solution gives a travelling wave but

travelling in negative ' x ' direction (right to left) as shown in Figure. gives the amplitude

of the at .This wave we call the 'Backward Current Travelling Wave' .

Important Conclusion

The Voltage and the Current exist in the form of waves on a transmission line.

In general, we can say that in a circuit, any time varying voltage and/or current always exist in
the form of waves, although the wave nature may not be evoked at low frequencies where the
transit time effects are negligible.

Complex Propagation Constant

The propagation constant in general is complex

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The wave amplitude varies as . That is denotes the exponential decay of the wave
along its direction of propagation. therefore is called the 'Attenuation Constant' of the line .
It has the unit Neper/m . For =1 Neper/m, the wave amplitude reduces to 1/e of its initial
value over a distance of 1m.
Many times the attenuation of a wave is measured in terms of dB/m. therefore can be given in
dB/m, where

1 Neper/m = 8.68 dB/m

Note
In voltage/current expressions, should always be in Neper/m. Therefore if is given in dB/m
it should be converted to Neper/m before it is used in the voltage/current equations.

The wave phase has two components

a. Time phase

b. Space phase
The parameter gives the phase change per unit length and hence called the 'Phase Constant' of
the line. Its units are Radian/m.

Now for a wave the distance over which the phase changes by is called the ' wavelength '

. Therefore the phase change per unit length

Characteristic Impedance of Transmission Line

Substituting the voltage and current solutions in the differential equations, and noting that the
equations must be satisfied by two waves indepentely we get,

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We define a parameter called the 'Characteristic Impedance' of the line as

Note

The ratio of Forward Voltage and Current waves is always , and the ratio of the Backward

Voltage and Current waves is always .

The parameters and completely define the voltage and current behaviour on a transmission
line. These two parameters are related to R, L, G, and C, and the frequency of the signal. In

transmission line analysis knowledge of and is adequate and the explicit knowledge of R,
L, G, C is rarely needed.

Standing Waves on Transmission Line & Impedance Transformation

How standing waves are formed on a line?

The voltage and current on the line are superposition of the two waves travelling in the opposite
directions

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Where is the distance measured from the load towards the generator

The result is a 'Standing Wave'. Of course in general it is a partial standing wave since the
amplitudes of the two travelling waves may not be equal.

Figure shows the voltage standing wave on the line. We may note how the nature of the wave
changes from 'travelling' to 'standing' when we vary V+ and V-

When V- =0, there is no backward wave and therefore the net wave is the 'Forward Travelling
Wave'.

Origin of Backward Wave

In our discussion, the generator is connected to the left end of the line. So a voltage travelling
wave moving away (the forward wave) from the generator is understandable. However, one
would wonder about the origin of the backward wave. There is no energy source at the right end
of the line.

The only possibility then is, that the forward wave reaches the right end of the line and does not
find correct conditions for transfering the full power to the load impedance. The part of the
energy then gets reflected from the load which results into the 'Backward Wave'.

The strength of the backward wave then should be related to the load impedance with which the
line is terminated.

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Since the forward wave carrys energy towards the load, we call this wave as the 'Incident Wave'.
The backward wave which carrys reflected energy from the load is called the 'Reflected Wave'.
We therefore have

Voltage Reflection Co-efficient and its Relation to Load Impedance

As a measure of reflected energy we define a quantity called ' Voltage Reflection Coefficient '
as

Impedance seen at any distance from the load in terms of the ' Reflection Coefficient ' then is

Inverting the relation we get the reflection coefficient at any point on the line which is at a

distance from the load is

Now at , the impedance . Therefore the reflection coefficient at

the load end of the line is

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Interesting to Note
The transmission line provides a medium of impedance for the energy flow. Any departure

from creates an impedance step. This impedance step disrupts the smooth flow of energy and
the part of the energy is reflected. Larger the impedance step more is the reflected energy and
higher the reflection coefficient.

Impedance at any Point on the Line

Impedance at a distance from the load is

Important
Impedance measured at line is not same as and is location dependent.

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Impedance seen by the generator for a given load impedance varies a function of the line length
and consequently the power supplied by the generator becomes a function of line length.

Just changing the connecting wires the circuit performance will change.
General Impedance Transformation
The impedance at any point of line is a transformed version of the load impedance.

Infact there is nothing special about the load impedance. The impedance transformation can be
between any two locations on the line. It should be remembered however, that the sign
convention for the distance on the line must be correctly taken.
If the length is measured towards the generator it is taken positive.
If the length is measured away from the generator, it is taken negative.

In the figure if we go from X to Y, ' is negative and if we go from Y to X, is positive.

If the impedance at is , its transformed version at will be given by

Inverting the relation we get,

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It can be noted that the above two expressions 2.3 and 2.4 are same expression with and

interchanged and replaced by

Conclusion
Expression 2.3 is the general impedance transformation relation which can be used for
transforming impedance on one location on the line to the other. If the impedance is transformed

to a point towards the generator, is positive, and if it is transformed to a point away from the

generator, is negative.

Analysis of Loss Less Transmission Line

In any electrical circuit the power loss is due to ohmic elements. A loss less transmission line

therefore implies and . For a loss less transmission line hence we get

then we have

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As we move towards the generator the phase becomes more negative and point P

rotates clockwise on the dotted circle. The radius of the circle is . Length of the vector OP

gives the magnitude of the quantity

Spatial Variation of Current & Voltage

The previous equations indicate that the amplitudes of the voltage and current vary as a function
of distance on the line.

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Wherever or even multiple of , the quantity in the brackets is maximum

in the voltage expression, and minimum in the current expression. That is wherever the
voltage amplitude is maximum, the current amplitude is minimum.

Similarly wherever , the voltage is minimum and the current is

maximum

Note The voltage and current variation at every point on the line is only.

The distance between two adjacent voltage maxima (or minima) or two adjacent current maxima
(or minima) corresponds to

The distance between adjacent voltage and current maxima or minima corresponds to

We then say that the voltage and current are in space quardrature, i.e, when voltage is maximum
the current is minimum and vice versa.

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Voltage Standing Wave Ratio
The maximum and minimum peak voltages measured on the line are

Let us define a quantity called ' Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) ' as

The VSWR is a measure of the reflection on the line. Higher the value of VSWR, higher is
i.e., higher is the reflection and is lesser the power transfer to the load.

Since , we get

VSWR of 1 corresponds to the . That is the best situation.

Ideally for a perfect match VSWR = 1. However, generally a is considered acceptable

in all experimental works.

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Return Loss & Reflection Co-efficient
The return loss is defined as

The return loss indicates the factor by which the reflected signal is down compared to the
incident signal.

For perfect match and the return loss is , whereas for the worst case of the
return loss is 0 dB

Higher the return loss better is the match. For acceptable value of VSWR = 2,

The return loss should be higher than 9.54

Impedance Characteristics of Loss Less Transmission Line

Impedance Variation on Transmission Line

The impedance at any point on the loss-less transmission line is

Substituting

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Which can be written in terms of normalized impedances as

The expression can be used for transforming impedance on any point on the loss-less
transmission line to any other point.

Maximum and Minimum Impedance seen on Transmission Line

The maximum impedance occurs where the voltage is maximum and current is minimum, and its
value is

Noting that the quantity inside the square bracket is the VSWR, we get

The minimum impedance occurs at a location where the voltage is minimum and the current is
maximum, and its value is

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The magnitude of the impedance at any point on the loss-less line is bounded by Rmin and Rmax

Important Characteristics of a Loss Less Transmission Line

(1) We know line characteristics repeat every , we have

Therefore,

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 (2) Normalized impedance inverts every distance

In this case,

Hence we get,

Note

It is the Normalized impedance which inverts every distance and not the absolute
impedance.

The input impedance of a line of length, which is terminated with an impedance is

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Interesting

An open circuited cable connected to the output of a circuit may heavily load the circuit if the

length of the cable is , since at the output of the circuit the impedance appeared will be
short circuit.

Caution

In circuit measurements we invariably make connections between a circuit and an oscilloscope.

For high input impedance oscilloscope we assume that the testing is carried out in almost open
circuit conditions. However, at high frequencies when the length of the cable connecting the

circuit and the oscilloscope becomes comparable to , the circuit does not see the open circuit.
For long cable the circuit sees short circuit and therefore the measurements may go
completely wrong.

(3) For load impedance , the impedance at any point on the line is

Important
If a line is terminated in the characteristics impedance , the impedance at every point on the

line is . That is the input impedance of the line is independent of the length of the line.

This is called the ‘Matched Load' condition’.

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Golden Rule

All high frequency measurements should be carried out in the matched load conditions

(i.e. ) so that the cable lengths used in measurement setups do not play any role.

Power Transfer through a Transmission Line

Power delivered to the load obtained using Circuit concept

Consider a loss-less transmission line with characteristic impedance . Let the line be

terminated in a complex load impedance . Since the load impedance is not equal
to the characteristic impedance, there is reflection on the line, and the voltage and the current on
the line can be given as

Since the reference point is at the load end, the power delivered to the load is

Since the difference of any complex number and its conjugate is in the purely imaginary part,

is a purely imaginary quantity. Therefore the power delivered to the load is

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The power delivered to the load can also be calculated using a different approach and that is, the
power given to the load is the difference of the power carried by the incident wave towards the
load and the power carried away by the reflected wave. Since the travelling waves always see the
characteristic impedance, the incident and reflected powers pinc and pref respectively are,

We therefore get

Complex Power at any point on the line

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Note

(i) The i.e., the power loss at any point on the line is same as that at the load. This
makes sense because since the line is lossless, any loss of power is only in the load impedance.

(ii) The imaginary power which is related to the energy stored in the reactive fields is a function

of length. This is due to the fact that for mismatched lines we have loads , and hence
there is voltage and current variations on the line due to standing waves. The capacitive and
inductive energies are different at different locations.

Evaluation of Arbitrary Constant

For Impedance calculations the knowledge of is not needed. However for power calculation

we need to know

We can obtain by transforming the load impedance to the generator end of the line and then
applying lumped circuit analysis.

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The transformed impedance at the generator end is

From circuit (b) the voltage and current at AA' are

From Fig(a) the voltage and the current at the generator end are

Equating the two voltages we get

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Since the line is lossless, the power supplied to the transformed impedance is same as that

supplied to the load .

Graphical Approach for Transmission Analysis

The graphical representation given in the following mainly describes the impedance/admittance
characteristics of a transmission line.
Complex Impedance (Z) & Reflection co-efficient ( ) planes

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Let us define the normalized impedance

For passive loads

A passive load can be denoted by a point in the right half of the complex Z-plane as shown in
Fig(a)
The complex Reflection Coefficient is

The complex can be expressed in Cartesian and polar form as

Since for passive loads , the reflection coefficient can be denoted by a point with the
unity circle in the complex - plane, as shown in Fig (b). 'R' denotes the magnitude of the
reflection coefficient and denotes the phase of the reflection coefficient.

Since there is one-to-one mapping between to , the entire right half Z-plane is mapped on to
the region within the unity circle in the -plane.

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Transformation from Z to
Let us transform the points from the - plane to - plane.

Separating real and imaginary parts, we get

Equations (2.5) and (2.6) are the equations of circles. Equation (2.5) represents constant
resistance circles and equation (2.6) represent constant reactance circles.

Constant Resistance Circles

The constant resistance circles have their centers at ( , 0) and radii ( ). Figure below

shows the constant resistance circles for different values of ranging between 0 and .

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We can note following things about the constant resistance circles.

(a) The circles always have centers on the real -axis ( -axis).

(b) All circles pass through the point (1,0) in the complex plane.

(c) For , the center of the circle lies at the origin of the plane and it shifts to the right

as increases.

(d) As r increases the radius of the circle goes on reducing and for the radius
approaches zero, i.e., the circle reduces to a point.

(e) The outermost circle with center (0,0) and radius unity, corresponds to or in other
words represents purely reactive impedances.

(f) The right most point on the unity circle, represents as well as .

Constant Reactance Circles

The constant reactance circles have their centers at and radii . The centers for these

circles lie on a vertical line passing through point (1,0) in the -plane. The constant reactance

circles are shown in figure below for different values of

Note again that only those portions of the circles are of significance which lie within the unity

circle in the -plane. The curves shown dotted portion do not correspond to any passive load
impedance.

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We can note following things about the constant reactance circles:

(a) These circles have their centers on a vertical line passing through point .

(b) For positive the center lies above the real -axis and for negative , the center lies

below the real -axis.

(c) For the center is at and radius is .This circle therefore represents a straight
line

(d) As the magnitude of the reactance increases the center moves towards the real -axis and
it lies on the real -axis at (1,0) for .
(e) As the magnitude of the reactance increases, the radius of the circle, ,decreases and it
approaches zero as .
(f) All circles pass through the point .

(g) The real -axis ( -axis) corresponds to and therefore represents real impedances,
i.e., purely resistive impedances.

(h) The right most point on the unity circle, , corresponds to as well as .

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