COMMUNICATION LAB Project (EC304)

Report

On

Experiment 10, 11, and 12

Submitted by

K. Srikar Siddarth
(181EC218)

VI SEM B.Tech (ECE) 

Under the guidance of 

B. Nagavel Prabu K.
Assistant Professor Assistant Professor
Dept of ECE, NITK Dept of ECE, NITK
Surathkal  Surathkal 

in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

Bachelor of Technology

in

Electronics and Communication Engineering

At

Department of Electronics and Communication

Engineering

National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal.

April 2021
 Experiment No.10
Formulation of N-port scattering parameters into 2-port
reflection and transmission coefficients
Aim:
Concept of Generalized N-port scattering parameters, and
formulation of these parameters into 2-port reflection and
transmission coefficients.

Objective of Experiment:
This experiment is designed to explain the concept of
scattering parameter of one-port, two-port, three-port and N-
port network.

Theory:
One Port Network - One-port network can be considered as a
transmission line with one end either open-circuited, short-
circuited, terminated with matched load or terminated with an
arbitrary load.

Two Port Network - A two-port network is an electrical circuit

or device with two pairs of terminals connected together
internally by an electrical network. Two terminals constitute a
port if they satisfy the essential requirement known as the port
condition (the same current must enter and leave a port).
A two-port network makes possible the isolation of either a
complete circuit or part of it and replacing it by its
characteristic parameters. Once this is done, the isolated part
of the circuit becomes a “black box” with a set of distinctive
properties, enabling us to abstract away its specific physical
build-up, thus simplifying analysis. Any linear circuit with four
terminals can be transformed into a two-port network provided
that it does not contain an independent source and satisfies the
port conditions.

Three Port Network - Power dividers and directional couplers

are some 3-port passive microwave components used for
power division or power combining. A 3-port network will have
9 elements in its scattering matrix. Three port network is shown
in the figure, with incident and reflected voltage wave:

n-Port Network
Curves:
For One Port Network
Short Circuited Load
Open Circuited Load
Matched Impedance
Arbitrary Impedance
Two-Port Network

S11

S12
S21

S22
Pi – Network
Input Parameters

S11
S12

S21

S22
Transmission Line

S11
S12

S21
S22

Conclusion:
This experiment gives a vision to see the scattering
parameters, and formulation of these parameters into 2-port
reflection and transmission coefficients.
 Experiment No. 11

Find the change in characteristics impedance and

reflection coefficients of the transmission line by
changing the dielectric properties of materials
embedded between two conductors.

Objective of the Experiment:

This experiment will make you familiar to the design of the

various transmission lines and the differences in their
geometry. Here, one can get the brief description of the
transmission line parameters as well. This experiment shows
the change in the dielectric property of the material effects the
characteristic impedance (Zo) and the reflection coefficients (Г)
of the transmission lines. In this experiment, one can see the
variation of the reflection coefficient magnitude (|Г|) and the
phase with the frequency. Here, you can get well acquainted
with the geometry of the various transmission lines and the
difference between them.

Theory

Transmission Lines: The transmission lines are used as wave-

guiding structures for transferring power and information from
one point to another. Transmission line is often schematically
represented as a two wire line, since transmission lines always
have at least two conductors. A maximum transfer of power
from a given voltage source occurs under "matched
conditions". A line is matched when the load impedance is
equal to the characteristic impedance of the line.
 Fig.1 Transmission line terminated with a load impedance ZL

For a finite transmission line having characteristic impedance

Zo terminated by a load impedance of ZL, and the length of line
is "ℓ". A sinusoidal voltage source Vg with an internal
impedance Zg is connected to the line at z=0. In such a case,
total voltage on the line can be written as the sum of incident
and reflected waves.

Coaxial Transmission Lines: This consists of an inner conductor

and a coaxial outer conducting sheath separated by a dielectric
medium. This structure has an important advantage of
confining the electric and magnetic fields entirely within the
dielectric region. No stray fields are generated by a coaxial
transmission line, and little external interference is coupled into
the line. Examples are telephone and TV cables and the input
cables to high - frequency precision measuring instruments.
Characteristic Impedance, Z0 can be given as:

Zo = (1/2π)*√(µ/ε)ln(D/d) = (138/√εr)log10(D/d)

Advantages:
1.It supports TEM mode.
2.chief advantage is its ability to minimize radiation losses
as in a coaxial line no electric or magnetic fields extend
outside of the outer conductor.
Disadvantages:
1.It is expensive to construct.
2.Very bulky in nature.
3.It must be kept dry to prevent excessive leakage between
the two conductors.

Parallel Plate Transmission Line : This type of transmission line

consists of two parallel conducting plates separated by a
dielectric slab of a uniform thickness. It is the simplest type of
the transmission lines.
For a parallel plate transmission line with perfectly conducting
plates of width 'w' and separated by a lossless dielectric slab of

thickness d, the characteristic impedance, Zo is d/w times the

intrinsic impedance η of the dielectric medium.Characteristi c
Impedance, Zo of the parallel plate transmission line can be
obtained from the relation:
Z0 = (d/w)*√(µ/εr) = (d/w)*η

Strip Lines: This is a planar type of transmission line that lends

itself well to microwave integrated circuitry and
photolithographic fabrication. A thin conducting strip of width
'W' is centered between two wide conducting ground planes of
separation 'H', thickness of strip is 'T' and the entire region
between the ground planes is filled with dielectric, εr . Since
strip line has two conductors and a homogeneous dielectric, it
can support a TEM wave, and this is the usual mode of
operation.
The phase velocity of a TEM mode is given by,
vp = where c is the speed of
c/√εr light in vaccuum

The characteristic impedance is given by :

Zo = (30π/√εr)*[b/(We + 0.441b)];

where We is the effective width of the center conductor given

by,
We/ for W/b >
= W/b - 0
b 0.35

= W/b - (0.35 - for W/b <

 
W/b)2 0.35.

The microstrip line is one of the most popular types of planar

transmission lines, because it can be fabricated by
photolithographic processes and is easily integrated with other
passive and active microwave devices. The geometry of a
microstrip line is shown in the figure below. A conductor of
width 'W' is printed on a thin, grounded dielectric substrate of
thickness 'h' and relative permittivity ε r.

The presence of the dielectric, and particularly the fact that the
dielectric does not fill the air region above the strip,
complicates the behavior of microstrip line. The microstrip has
some (usually most) of its field lines in the dielectric region,
concentrated between the strip conductor and the ground
plane, and some fraction in the air region above the substrate.
For this reason the microstrip line cannot support a pure TEM
wave, since the phase velocity of TEM fields in the dielectric
region would be c/√εr, but the phase velocity of TEM fields in
the air region would be c. Thus , a phase mismatch occurs at
the dielectric- air interface.
Microstrip lines support quasi-TEM mode. Since some of the
field lines are in dielectric region and some are in air, the
effective dielectric constant satisfies the relation :
1 < εe < εr

and is dependent on the substrate thickness, h, and the

conductor width, W. The effective dielectric constant of a
microstrip line is given approximately by,
εe = (εr + 1)/2 + [(εr - 1)/2]*[1/√(1 + 12h/W)]

For given dimensions of the microstrip line, the characteristic

impedance can be calculated as:
Z for W/h
= (60/√εe)ln(8h/W + W/4h)
o ≥1

= 120π/√εe[W/h +1.393 + for W/h

 
0.667ln(W/h + 1.444)] ≤1

For given characteristic impedance Zo and dielectric constant

εr, the W/h ratio can be found as:
W/ for W/
= 8eA/(e2A - 2)
h h≤2

= (2/π)[B - 1 - ln(2B - 1) + (εr - 1)/ for W/

 
2εr {ln(B - 1) + 0.39 - 0.61/εr}] h≥2
where A = (Zo/60)√(εr + 1)/2 + {(εr - 1)/(εr + 1)}*(0.23 + 0.11/
εr) and B = 377π / (2Zo√εr)

Observations

Task1 :
Compare the reflection coefficient magnitude and phase
variation with frequency for dielectric material Teflon and
Alumina in case of microstrip transmission line and note
down the observations.

Frequency = 7Hz

Alumina Teflon
Input Impedance 16.1724 -10.0331i 50.4187 +0.243066 i
Reflection Coefficient -0.477244 -0.22398i 0.00417526
 +0.00241042 i
epsilon 9.1 2.1
Characteristic 25.6872 50.2791
Impedance

Output curves for reflection coefficient for Alumina

Output curves for reflection coefficient for Teflon

Task2:
Explain the change in characteristic impedance and
reflection coefficient magnitude and phase for coaxial
transmission line. Plot the reflection coefficient magnitude
and phase vs. frequency graph for parallel plate
transmission line for dielectric material resin.

• The characteristic impedance is independent of frequency,

hence it doesn’t change for a particular frequency.
• The magnitude of reflection coefficient reflects whether
line is matched or not. Reflection coefficient=0 means the
line is matched.
 Amplitude vs Frequency of reflection coefficient for Resin

Phase vs Frequency of reflection coefficient for Resin

Conclusion
The experiment shows the change in dielectric properties
of a material embedded between the two conductors
change the characteristic impedance and reflection
coefficients. This experiment provides the better
understanding of geometry of transmission lines. Here one
can observe the reflection coefficient magnitude and phase
variation with frequency.
 Experiment No.12
Measure the Characteristics of Directional Coupler

Aim:
To Measure the characteristics of a Directional Coupler.

Pre-requisite Knowledge:
Scattering Parameters of microwave devices.

Theory:
A. Directional Coupler Fundamentals: Directional Coupler (DC)
is a passive, reciprocal, four-port device, where one port is
isolated from the input port. Some commonly used schematics
for the DC are shown in Figure 9.1 below.

The three characteristic parameters of a DC are defined as

follows:

Here Pi denotes the power measured (in linear scale) at the i-th
(i=1, 2, 3 and 4) port of the DC. Since practically the powers at
different ports are measured in dBm using power meters, we
can use the following relations for calculation of coupling (C),
directivity (D) and isolation (I) in dB scale:

The directivity of a coupler is the measure of the coupler’s

ability to isolate forward and backward waves, as is the
isolation [1]. An ideal DC would have infinite directivity and
isolation. But practically if the port-2 of the DC is not
terminated by matched load, it will lead to some finite
reflection. In that case, the voltage at port-4 can be written as:

Here, CV and DV are the coupling and directivity in the linear

scale, when the ratios are calculated in voltage scale, instead of
the power scale. ΓL is the reflection coefficient at port-4:

The quantities β, l and λ are the propagation constant, length

traversed by the wave and the operating wavelength
respectively, which yield the value θ, the delay in the phase.
So, the power measured at port-4 is given by:
Curves:

Figure 9.6 shows the power (in dBm) at ports 2, 3 and 4 for
default values of input power, coupling factor, directivity and
reflection coefficient at the load. We can observe that since
some finite load reflection coefficient (30 dB) is present, the
isolation (=47.0115 dB as calculated from definition) is not
equal to the sum of coupling factor (=20 dB) and directivity
(=30 dB). It can be found that the isolation becomes 50 dB
when the reflection coefficient of the load is made 80 dB.
Conclusion:
This experiment gives a vision to see the characteristics of a
Directional Coupler and their variations depending on different
input port parameters.