5/25/2024

Libyan Academy for Postgraduate Studies

(Ajdabiya, Libya)

Applied Electromagnetic Theory (EEM621)

M.Sc, Microwave and Communications Engineering
Lecture Notes (1) – Introduction to Applied Electromagnetic
Theory - Review of Coordinate Systems

Spring 2023
Dr. Izzeldin Idris Abdalla 1

Course Description
 This course covers Applied Electromagnetics Theory for
electrostatics, magnetostatics, induction, and Maxwell's equations.
 Applied Electromagnetics is a fundamental area of science, that
encompasses numerous applications of electromagnetic theory
in areas such as high frequency (RF, microwave) circuits;
antennas; wireless communications; electromagnetic wave
propagation; computational Electromagnetics; transmission
lines; particle accelerator science and technology; and
electromagnetic effects, etc.

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Course Outlines
 Advanced treatment of classical electromagnetic theory with
engineering applications.
 Boundary value problems in electrostatics.
 Propagation of EM waves in different media.
 Polarization, normal and oblique incidence. Diffraction
 Applications of Maxwell’s equations to the study of
waveguides resonant cavities.
 Propagation of EM waves over the surface or earth, an
overview of numerical techniques.
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Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course, the students should be able:
 To differentiate different types of coordinate systems and use them for
solving the problems of electromagnetic field theory.
 To describe static electric and magnetic fields, their behavior in different
media, associated laws, boundary conditions and electromagnetic potentials.
 To use integral and point form of Maxwell`s equations for solving the
problems of electromagnetic field theory.
 To describe time varying fields, propagation of electromagnetic waves
in different media, their sources & effects and to apply the theory of
electromagnetic waves in practical problems.
 To apply concepts of Wave reflection and refraction in practical Field.
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Course Textbooks & References

 Applied Electromagnetic Theory: Analysis, Problems and Applications, by S. R.
Deepa & B. Somanathan Nair, December 1, 2008.
 Theory of Reflection: Reflection and Transmission of Electromagnetic, Particle
and Acoustic Waves, by John Lekner (auth.), 2016.
 Transmission Lines and Wave Propagation, Fourth Edition, by Philip C.
Magnusson & Andreas Weisshaar & Vijai K. Tripathi & Gerald C. Alexander,
2000.
 Electromagnetic Wave Propagation, Radiation, and Scattering: From
Fundamentals to Applications (IEEE), by Akira Ishimaru, 2017.
 MATLAB-based finite element programming in electromagnetic modeling, by
Kuzuoglu & Mustafa & Özgün & Özlem, 2019.
 Computational Electromagnetics with Matlab, Fourth Edition, by Matthew N O
Sadiku, 2019.
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History: A Few of the Early Pioneers in Electromagnetics

Andre-Marie Ampere Michael Faraday James C. Maxwell Heinrich Hertz

Invented telegraph (among Invented electric motor Unified electricity, magnetism Proved existence of
many other things) (among many other things) and light into one theory electromagnetic waves

Nicola Tesla Guglielmo Marconi

Many, many others:
 James Prescott Joule
 Georg Simon Ohm
 Charles William Siemens
 Charles-Augustin Coulomb
 Joseph Henry
Invented AC, wireless Invented radio  Wilhelm Eduard Weber
power transfer communication
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Electromagnetism
 Electrostatics, magnetostatics
 Vector analysis
 Maxwell’s equations
 Plane waves, reflection, refraction
 Electromagnetic properties of materials
 Transmission line theory
 Radiation

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Careers in Electromagnetics
 Communications and radar systems
Cellphone systems, radar systems, base stations, etc.
Antennas, RF circuits, system level design, EM propagation
 Antennas and electromagnetic structures
Direction finding, signal intelligence, electronic warfare
High frequency circuits and components
 Optical and imaging systems
 Instrumentation
Measurement equipment, EMC/EMI testing (Electromagnetic Compatibility, Electromagnetic
Immunity)
 Companies or institutions where you can work:
Apple, Google, Huawei, Skyworks, Bell Labs China, General Atomics, Anokiwave, Intel,
Samsung, Facebook, Amazon, Microchip, Maxlinear, Broadcom, Motorola, Nokia, various
other national labs, universities, and small companies
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Coordinate Systems
 As we knew a vector in three-dimensional space can be defined as a linear
superposition of three orthogonal (perpendicular) unit vectors.
 Typically, we use a “coordinate system” to automatically determine the three
orthogonal unit vectors we need.
 There are about eight or ten other valid
coordinate systems, but we will study three
among them, each of these coordinate systems
will play an important part in solving the
problems.
 Rectangular (Cartesian) coordinate.
 Cylindrical coordinate.
 Spherical coordinate. Figure 1.1: A right-handed rectangular coordinate system
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Coordinate Systems
 The differential volume element in rectangular coordinates; dx, dy, and dz
are, in general, independent differentials.

Figure 1.1: The differential volume element in

Figure 1.1: The location of points P(1, 2, 3) and Q(2,−2, 1) rectangular coordinates
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Coordinate Systems
 The vectors rP, rQ, and RPQ are shown in Figure . The vector RPQ is
equal to the vector difference rQ − rP.

Example:

Figure 1.1: The vector RPQ

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Coordinate Systems
 The Cross Product.
 For the cross product of any vector with itself is zero

 or written as a determinant in a more easily remembered form

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Coordinate Systems

Table 1: Dot products of unit vectors in spherical and rectangular coordinate systems

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The Rectangular Coordinate System

 As we saw the three orthogonal unit vectors are ax, ay, and az, each of which
points in the direction of the corresponding axis. These three vectors,
multiplied by corresponding constants, can be added together to yield any
vector in three-dimensional space. An example is shown in Figure 1.2.

There are two ways that coordinate systems

can be designed: right-handed and left-handed.
using the right-handed coordinate system is
defined by the following relationships:
(1)

Figure 1.2: Representing a vector in rectangular coordinates

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The Rectangular Coordinate System

 In practice, it is sufficient to verify that one of these equations is true,
because then the other two are guaranteed to also be true.
 We will work with differential volume, surface area, and length. In
rectangular coordinates, you can think of a differential element as looking
like a small cube, as shown in Figure 1.2.
 Remember that in reality, the cube is very small.
 You can see that the three edges are labeled dx,
dy, and dz, and that makes it easy to calculate
the differential volume:
(2)
Figure 1.2. A differential element in rectangular coordinates
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The Rectangular Coordinate System

 In vector calculus, “areas” are defined to be vectors that are pointing
perpendicular to the surface and have a magnitude equal to the area of the
surface.
 For a closed surface (like a cube), the vector always points outward as shown
in Figure 1.2. Notice that for a cube, there will be six sides, which means six
differential surface areas and six vectors. Three of them are visible and
labeled in Figure 1.2. The equations for all six surfaces are:
Differential length is the distance from the
(3)
corner nearest the origin to the corner furthest
(4) from the origin. Referring back to Figure 1.2,
we can see that this can be represented as:
(5) (6)
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The Cylindrical Coordinate System

 The cylindrical coordinate system is the second of the three major
coordinate systems.
 To locate a point in cylindrical coordinates, you must specify one angle ( )
and two distances (A and Az).
 You first point in the direction of the angle, then move outward as specified
by A and then upward as specified by Az.
This is illustrated in Figure 1.3.
 One thing to notice about cylindrical
coordinates is that, although there is a unit
vector a , we don’t really “move” in the
direction of a .
Figure 1.3. Representing a vector in cylindrical coordinates
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The Cylindrical Coordinate System

 It is strictly an “aiming” operation, preparing to move first in the
direction outward and then in the z direction upward. For this reason,
we always append “with ” and its value at the end of the vector.
 It’s also worth noting that az in cylindrical coordinates is still in the
direction of the z-axis, which means that az in cylindrical coordinates is
precisely the same az as in rectangular coordinates.
 We can once again identify three cross product identities that will be
true in cylindrical coordinates for a right-handed coordinate system:

(7)

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The Cylindrical Coordinate System

 We will once again need to study a differential element in order to
determine the differential volume, differential surface areas, and
differential length in cylindrical coordinates, as shown in Figure 1.4.
 Of special interest in Figure 1.4 is the length of the inner curved
surface, which is d .
 Remember that this side needs to be a length, and
d by itself is not a length, it is a differential angle.
(This differential angle is shown in the x-y plane at
the bottom of the figure.) To make d into an arc
length, we must multiply it by the length of the
radius, which is in this case.
Figure 1.4. A differential element
 Thus, d is the arc length of the inner surface. in cylindrical coordinates.
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The Cylindrical Coordinate System

 Although the outer surface (the one furthest from the z-axis) looks like it is
longer than the inner surface (the one closest to the z-axis), this is an artifact
of how the differential element is drawn.
 Remember that d is actually infinitesimally small, and so those two surfaces
are actually close to each other, meaning they are the same size.
 Although it doesn’t look like it in Figure 1.4, this differential element is still a
cube.
 Thus, considering Figure 1.4, we find the following differential volume in
cylindrical coordinates: (8)
 The differential surface areas (all six of them) can be represented by the following
equations: (9) (10)
(11)
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Converting Vectors Between Rectangular and

Cylindrical Systems
 Finally, the differential length between opposite corners of the differential
element can be written as: (12)
 Since both rectangular and cylindrical coordinate systems can be used to
represent any point in three dimensional space, it follows that there
must be a mapping or conversion from one system to the other.
 To convert a vector, let’s first consider what the two vectors will look
like:
(13) (14)

 Note that, although there is no A component in Equation (14), we

must calculate and report as part of the final answer.
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Converting Vectors Between Rectangular and

Cylindrical Systems
 To perform the conversion from rectangular to cylindrical coordinates, we can use
the following three equations:
(16) (17)
(15)

 Equation (17) is only included for clarity, since no conversion is needed for the
z-component when converting between rectangular and cylindrical coordinates.
 To convert from cylindrical to rectangular coordinates, we use the following three
equations:
(18) (19) (20)

 Again, Equation (20) carries no useful information other than serving as a

reminder that no conversion is needed.
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Converting Functions Between Rectangular

and Cylindrical Systems
 In addition to converting a vector between rectangular and cylindrical
coordinates, we will sometimes need to convert an entire function from
one to the other.
 This is actually quite straightforward-simply replace each occurrence of
the old coordinate variable with a corresponding function from the new
coordinate variable according to the following equations:
(21)

(22)
Of course, no actual conversion of z is necessary when converting a function between rectangular and cylindrical coordinates.
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The Spherical Coordinate System

 Recall that when we studied the cylindrical coordinate system, we first
“aimed” using , then we moved away from the z axis a certain amount
( ), and then we moved straight upward in the z direction to reach our
destination.
 In spherical coordinates, we first aim in the
x-y plane using (the heading), then we
adjust our vertical direction using (the
elevation), and then we move outward in
the specified direction using r (the range).
This sequence is shown in Figure 1.5.
Figure 1.5. Representing a vector in spherical coordinates.
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The Spherical Coordinate System

 The relationships among the unit vectors in spherical coordinates are shown
below:
(23)
The differential volume, surface areas, and length are a bit more complicated to derive
in spherical coordinates than they were in rectangular or cylindrical coordinates. Two
of the sides (in the a and a directions) now require multiplication by r, since each of
them represents an angle in radians. Furthermore, an interaction between the and
directions requires the inclusion of a sin( ) factor in some of the elements. Here are
the differential elements in spherical coordinates:
(24)
(25) (26)
(27) (28)
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Converting Vectors Between Rectangular

and Spherical Systems
 The relationships among the unit vectors in spherical coordinates are
shown below:
(29) (30)
 To convert from rectangular to spherical coordinates, we can use the
following three equations:
(32)
(31)

(33)
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Converting Vectors Between Rectangular

and Spherical Systems
 To convert from spherical to rectangular coordinates, we use the
following three equations: (34)
(35)
(36)
 Important Note: There are equations that can be used to convert
between cylindrical and spherical coordinates, but this is a pretty
unusual task to perform. If you are required to do so, it is probably best
to just convert to rectangular coordinates as an intermediate step, then
convert to the desired coordinates from rectangular.
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Converting Functions Between Rectangular

and Spherical Systems
 Just as we saw with cylindrical coordinates, we can also convert
functions in either rectangular or spherical coordinates into the other
coordinate system using the following sets of equations.
 Everywhere the old variable appears in the original equation, it is
replaced by these functions:
(37)

(38)

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Coordinate Systems - Summary

 Points in three-dimensional space can be represented by a linear combination of three
orthogonal unit vectors.
 Rectangular, cylindrical, and spherical coordinate systems are the most common ways to
select those unit vectors.
 In each of these coordinate systems, we can consider a differential element (small cube)
to calculate the differential volume, differential surface areas, and differential length.
Each of these quantities will be useful when solving problems in electromagnetic fields.
 We will always use a right-handed coordinate system to solve our problems.
 We can convert either a vector or a function between rectangular and cylindrical
coordinates.
 We can also convert either a vector or a function between rectangular and spherical
coordinates.
 To convert between cylindrical and spherical coordinates, it is easiest to convert to
rectangular coordinates as an intermediate step.
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Problems
1) What is =3 +2 +1 in cylindrical coordinates?
2) What is =3 +2 (with =35°) in rectangular coordinates?
3) Convert f(x,y,z) = x2+3y3z into cylindrical coordinates.
4) convert f ( , ,z) = 2+z cos( ) into rectangular coordinates.
5) What is A = 3ax+2ay+1az in spherical coordinates?
6) What is B =5ar (with =35° and =60°) in rectangular coordinates?
7) convert f(x,y,z) = x2+3y3z into spherical coordinates.
8) convert f(r, , ) = r2+r∙cos( ) into rectangular coordinates.
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