1.5: Summary

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The RF spectrum is used to support a tremendous range of applications, including voice and data communications, satellite-based navigation, radar, weather radar, mapping, environmental monitoring, air traffic control, police radar, perimeter surveillance, automobile collision avoidance, and many military applications.

In RF and microwave engineering there are always considerable approximations made in design, partly because of necessary simplifications that must be made in modeling, but also because many of the material properties required in a detailed design can only be approximately known. Most RF and microwave design deals with frequency-selective circuits often relying on line lengths that have a length that is a particular fraction of a wavelength. Many designs can require frequency tolerances of as little as \(0.1\%\), and filters can require even tighter tolerances. It is therefore impossible to design exactly. Measurements are required to validate and iterate designs. Conceptual understanding is essential; the designer must be able to relate measurements, which themselves have errors, with computer simulations. The ability to design circuits with good tolerance to manufacturing variations and perhaps circuits that can be tuned by automatic equipment are skills developed by experienced designers.