Short-term project on microwave passive planar circuits: an educational approach

The paper presents a short-term project on microwave planar circuits proposed to undergraduate students at Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, in the frame of a basic course on microwave engineering. It helps the students to familiarize with all circuit aspects at microwaves and millimeter waves: they design, analyze, realize, and measure a planar passive component operating in the frequency range 0-40 GHz. Their attention is especially focused on microwave concepts: modeling a transmission line behavior and its limitations, spurious effects at high frequencies (radiation, coupling, and reactive behavior from higher order modes), influence of etching, mechanical tolerances, and wide-band behavior. The educational relevance of the project results from the opportunity given to the students to obtain in a very short period of time an actual component by combining up-to-date theoretical models, modern etching facilities, and measurement equipment, like in industry. Such an opportunity is rather unique and of prime interest for their possible future career in the growing area of microwave and millimeter wave communications.