6.

014 Lecture 1: Introduction to Wireless Communications

A. Wireless communications are ubiquitous

This first section of 6.014 Electrodynamics focuses on wireless communications, which

can involve point-to-point communications, broadcasting (one point to many), or passive sensing
of natural or man-made signals.

The original point-to-point wireless communications links for telephone and telegraph
circuits sometimes were direct paths and sometimes involved ionospheric reflections. They were
largely superceded, first by coaxial cables and microwave links from tower to tower, and later by
satellite links and then optical fibers and cellular technology. Each technical advance has
markedly boosted capacity and generally increased reliability.

Homes and offices are now generally served by twisted pairs of wires for point-to-point
services, although coaxial cables, satellite links, and even wireless services are making inroads.
All of these modalities will be addressed in 6.014. The most common wireless services currently
include cell phones, wireless phones (within a home or office), walkie-talkies (dedicated mobile
links), satellite links, microwave tower links, and many specialized variations for private or
military use. In addition, optical air links between buildings offer instant broadband connectivity
for the “last mile” to the consumer, which accounts for a significant fraction of all installed plant
cost. Weather generally restricts optical links to very short hops or to weather-independent
optical fibers. Specialized medical devices, such as RF links to video cameras inside swallowed
pills, are also being developed.

Broadcast services now include AM radio near 1 MHz, FM radio near 100 MHz and
higher frequencies, TV in several bands between 50 and 600 MHz for local over-the-air service,
and TV and radio delivered by satellite at many GHz. Shortwave radio below ~30 MHz also
offers global international broadcasts dependent upon ionospheric conditions, and is widely used
by radio hams for long-distance communications.

The intensities of thermal and non-thermal microwave radiation from the terrestrial
atmosphere and surface can be passively sensed for meteorological and other geophysical
purposes. Similar passive sensors can monitor patients for medical purposes and artifacts of
interest, such as motors, computers, or wildlife tracking devices.

Wireless services are so ubiquitous today that we may take them for granted, forgetting
that a few generations ago the very concept would have been considered magic. Despite the
wide range of services already in wide use, it is reasonable to assume that over the next few
decades numerous other wireless technologies and services will be developed by today’s
engineering students.

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B. Communications requires power and energy

Even the best current radio receivers require a certain amount of energy per bit of
information, Eb, whether that information is analog or digital. The current nominal state-of-the-
art receivers require at least ~4×10-20 Joules per bit of information, and so the power required at
the receiver is simply EbM, where M is the bit rate per second. The remarkably low values for
Eb imply enormous data transfer rates are possible at very reasonable power levels that are easily
achieved via wire or fibers, and that useful data rates are possible even via air links that are
extremely weak.

Although electromagnetic waves are slightly absorbed by losses in air, we shall ignore
these for now and shall assume power is conserved as it propagates, even though it may weaken
as it spreads out far from the transmitter. For example, a transmitter antenna radiating
isotropically PR watts would produce a wave in direction θ,φ having Pr(θ,φ,r) [Wm-2] = PR/4πr2
at distance r [m]. It follows that PR = ∫4π Pr(θ,φ,r) r2 sinθ dθ dφ. Most antennas are designed,
however, to concentrate their power in desired directions, offering some “gain over isotropic”
G(θ,φ) = Pr(θ,φ,r)/(PR/4πr2); antenna gain is a dimensionless quantity. The shapes of typical
antenna gain patterns are suggested in L1-4 and L1-6. Throughout these notes references will be
made to the lecture slides, where here L1-4 designates, for example, slide 4 of Lecture 1.

Slide L1-6 illustrates three standard approaches to concentrating electromagnetic waves:

lenses, curved mirrors, and arrays. The upper illustration shows five microwave antennas
operating near 1-cm wavelength that use bulbous lenses to focus the radio waves in a 10º beam.
The middle illustration is of the National Radio Astronomy 300-ft paraboloic radiotelescope
(now dismantled) in Greenbank, West Virgina; its beamwidth was ~λ/D ≅ 0.2/100 radians, or ~7
arc minutes (the sun and moon have diameters of ~30 arc minutes). The bottom illustration is of
a multi-aperture optical interferometer that successfully measured the relative positions of two
orbiting stars to ~100 micro-arc-seconds through the terrestrial atmosphere (the Hubble space
telescope achieves ~100 milli-arc-seconds resolution).

The receiving properties of antennas are commonly characterized by their “effective

area” A(θ,φ) [m2]. We shall show later that there is, under most circumstances, a simple relation
between the gain and effective area of an antenna: they have the exact same shape such that
A(θ,φ) = G(θ,φ)λ2/4π. With this simple definition we can now evaluate wireless
communications links.

C. Cell-phone example

In L1-6 a cellular phone example is presented, where we assume the user’s phone
transmits 1 watt isotropically (which is a reasonable approximation), and that at a range of 10 km
we want an extra 40 dB at the receiver above the nominal threshold for detection. (Recall that 10
dB is a factor of ten [x=10], 20 dB a factor of 100, etc., where dB = 10 log10 x.) Therefore we
expect Pr [Wm-2] = 104/4πr2 = 8×10-14. This corresponds at the base station to a received power
Prec = A(θ,φ)Pr(θ,φ), where A = Gλ2/4π. We might guess that the base station antenna is
designed to throw radiation toward the horizon, but not upward into the sky nor particularly
downward (any user positioned downward is so nearby that leakage radiation suffices). A

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pattern like that illustrated in L1-6 is plausible, with G ≅ 10. If this is a 900 MHz system, then λ
= c/f2 = 33.3 cm, and we find A = 0.088 m2. It follows that Prec = APr = 0.088×8×10-14 = 7.1×10-
15
watts = MEb, where the data rate is M [bs-1] and we assume Eb = 4×10-20. Thus the received
power here is enough to support a data rate of 176 kbps! The link in the reverse direction passes
through the same two antennas and suffers the same 1/4πr2 “path loss”, and since the base station
transmitter can be much more powerful, this reverse link is traditionally stronger.

The reason we don’t have cell phones with such high data rates is that they would require
much greater bandwidths and spectrum utilization that is available at reasonable cost. The
required bandwidth is generally proportional to data rate for any given modulation scheme. To
maximize the number of users served within any bandwidth allocation, the bandwidth allocated
to each user is generally the minimum required to convey intelligible speech. Later we shall
discuss tricks to boost “frequency reuse” of cellular phones that might permit these higher data
rates.

The margin of 40 dB assumed in this example is arbitrary. Since it permits higher data
rates than frequency allocations and economics now allow, we can send the data at slower rates
consistent with speech (say 4.8-9.6 kbps) and obtain perhaps another 13 dB of margin (x =
176/9.6), or a total of ~53 dB margin. This extra margin provides power to reflect around
buildings, under bridges, and through windows and walls. The one-watt transmitter limit is
consistent with reasonable battery weights and lifetimes and with the desire not to injure the
user’s head. The power density of radio waves at the user’s head produced by a 1-watt
transmitter is on the same order as that from sunlight.

D. Circuit properties of antennas

Antennas must be connected to circuits and we therefore need to know their circuit
properties. Fortunately Maxwell’s equations are linear. Therefore antennas can be modeled by
Thevenin equivalent circuits consisting of a “radiation resistance” Rr, a reactance X, and a
Thevenin voltage source VTh. The radiation resistance corresponds to power “lost” by radiation
rather than by dissipation that heats the structure. The power radiated PR = <i2(t)>Rr watts,
where <•> signifies “time average”. The circuit illustrated in L1-7 shows how the Thevenin
voltage is divided across the radiation resistance and the load resistance, which is made equal to
maximize intercepted power. Note that the radiation resistance is generally the same whether the
antenna is receiving and transmitting antennas. It follows then that Prec = <(VTh/2)2>/Rr. Later
we shall see how to determine these equivalent circuit values.

Although we have now seen the basic equations necessary to compute communications
links for ideal cases, we have yet to learn exactly what an electromagnetic wave is, how it
propagates, how we launch and receive them and, in general, how we design wireless
communications systems using such waves. Next, we shall extend this discussion briefly to
optical communications links, which we shall also discuss at greater length later.

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