Abstract:

Radiofrequency and microwave courses in electrical and telecommunications engineering degrees, with a marked multidisciplinary nature, are typically conditioned by a limited number of teaching hours to cover a large and complex syllabus. In this context, the student capabilities to self-learn and consolidate theoretical concepts by practicing becomes essential. This perspective of an autonomy and independency of RF and microwaves students has acquired special relevance in the context of recently overcome context of semi-virtual teaching associated to the CoVID-19 pandemic.

However, today’s radiofrequency and microwave circuit simulation tools, commonly exploited in teaching labs in telecommunication and electronics degrees, are costly and sophisticated, resulting in many cases in a low slope of student learning. Moreover, their complexity sometimes makes their use difficult for the self-learning of a freshman student, especially when they carry with a high load of autonomous work.

Here, we make a viability study for the adoption of a teaching tool in the courses of microwaves and radiofrequency engineering to improve the teaching/learning processes. In particular, we have studied the employment of an in-house circuit simulator to build microstrip filters and simulate them for subsequent fabrication and measurement in the laboratory. The tool consisted of a software for the design of microwave filters based in microstrip technology with the capability to export the designed layouts to be later fabricated and characterized in the lab practices.

The developed tool had a three-fold objective:
i) to contribute to the autonomous learning of students with an intuitive user interface and a easily controllable number of options, enabling its full use after a short tutorial
ii) to be a useful tool in the laboratory to carry out practical lessons, as well as to enhance the theoretical-experimental connection for microwave and radio-frequency subjects, allowing students to self-assess their level of skills and guiding them in the process of learning,
iii) to facilitate the understanding and transfer of knowledge to students.

In particular, the graphic interface helps students understand the design flow and the procedures involved on it, enabling them to make the connections between the layouts of the high-frequency circuits and their previous low-frequency knowledge in the first years of the degree.

By providing the necessary tools for the student self-learning, it is possible to increase her/his interest for the course, enabling new ways for complex problem solving, improving their intuition with respect to the operation of the studied systems as a function of the different physical parameters and boosting their engineering skills. Moreover, the employment of attractive visual tools for problem solving, improves the comprehension of the physical phenomena involved in the design of circuits at high frequencies. The proposed study is extensible to other contents of the course as for example, matching networks.

Keywords:

Electronics, Engineering, Microwave, Radiofrequency, Simulations.