Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-optics-and-electrodynamics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/section-a/a2/a/solution
Past exam of the optics and electrodynamics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 Section A A2 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
The transmitting antenna is matched to its input transmission line, so its real terminal electrical resistance is . The identical receiving antenna has the same electrical impedance at the operating frequency. Its available received power for a matched load is the incident energy flux times its antenna effective area:The real receiving load is , so its voltage-wave reflection coefficient relative to is . The fraction of available power delivered to the output line isConsequently, neglecting path losses, mismatch of polarization of an electromagnetic wave and line losses,This is the Friis transmission equation with a receiving impedance-mismatch factor. For fixed , it scales as . That scaling is conditional on holding antenna gain fixed: a fixed physical aperture can instead have , and any wavelength dependence of the impedances also enters the expression. The matched-output check gives .
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