AUTONOMOUS EDUCATION IN MICROWAVE AND RF SUBJECTS: DEVELOPMENT OF HOME-MADE SOFTWARE

Subjects related to the analysis and design of radiofrequency (RF) and microwave circuits and systems are characterized by the necessity of multidisciplinary knowledge, and usually conditioned by a very limited number of teaching hours, taking into account the quantity of new concepts and their complexity. Therefore, autonomous education has to be the leading mechanism for the students to reach the expected capacities, especially according to the philosophy of the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE).

In this context, the development of new tools that allow the independent evolution of the students has to be one of the basic pillars to adapt RF and microwave subjects to ESHE. The use of Information Technology (IT) can help to create tools that allow both, improving the theoretical teaching and helping the students with their autonomous learning. Moreover, we do believe that the learning process can be improved further if the student takes part in the software development process, whenever these tools are useful to consolidate the theoretical concepts. The idea is that, every year, the students of the considered courses develop new tools and also validate and improve the software codified in precedent courses. Finally, the students participate in an evaluation process of each piece of software, including a set of possible improvements of the codes in the forthcoming years.

In this work we will present some of the computer tools that have been developed in the last few courses by the students under our supervision. These tools include, among other functionalities, the simulation of scattering parameters (S parameters) of microwave networks, the determination of stability curves and noise parameters of RF and microwave transistors, the visualization of electromagnetic waves inside waveguides, etc. We will show that home-made codes of relative simplicity can be of great help in the autonomous work of the students to consolidate quite hard concepts such as those related to microwave amplifiers or multiport networks analysis and design.