Microwaves and Its Applications

In this blog, we are going to explore the microwaves. The following things we going to learn from this blog, Let's start.

What is a microwave?

what are the silent features of microwaves?

what are the applications of microwaves?

1. What is a microwave?

Electromagnetic waves having frequencies between 1 and 300 GHz are called microwaves. Microwaves are unidirectional. When an antenna transmits microwave waves, they can be narrowly focused.

This means that the sending and the receiving antennas need to be aligned. The unidirectional property has an obvious advantage. A pair of antennas can be aligned without interfering with another pair of aligned antennas.

The following describes some characteristics of microwave propagation -

(i) Microwave propagation is line-of-sight. Since the towers with the mounted antennas need to be in direct sight of each other, towers that are far apart need to be very tall. The curvature of the earth as well as other blocking obstacles do not allow two short towers to communicate by using microwaves. Repeaters are often needed for long-distance communication.

(ii) Very high-frequency microwaves cannot penetrate walls. This characteristic can be a disadvantage if receivers are inside buildings.

(iii) The microwave band is relatively wide, almost 299 GHz. Therefore wider subbands can be assigned and a high data rate. is possible.

(iv) Use of certain portions of the band requires permission from authorities.

The microwave frequency range was never defined by the IEEE. It gave certain band designations to the frequencies that are employed for radar and microwave communications. In the table, these band designations are given.

 

S. no.	Band Name	Wavelength Range	Frequency Range
i	HF	100 - 10 M	3 -30 MHz
ii	VHF	10 - 1 M	30 - 300MHz
iii	UHF	100 - 30 cm	0.3 - 1 GHz
iv	L-BAND	30 - 15 cm	1 - 2 GHz
v	S-BAND	15 - 7.5 cm	2 - 4 GHz
vi	C-BAND	7.5 - 3.75 cm	4 - 8 GHz
vii	X-BAND	3.75 - 2.5 cm	8 - 12 GHz
viii	Ku-BAND	2.5 - 1.67 cm	12 - 18 GHz
ix	K-BAND	1.67 - 1.0 cm	18 - 26 GHz
x	Ka-BAND	10 - 7.5 mm	26 - 40 GHz
xi	MILLIMETER WAVES	7.5 - 1 mm	40 - 300 GHz
xii	SUB-MILLIMETER WAVES	< 0.1 cm	> 300GHz

 

2. what are the silent features of microwaves?

Some silent features of microwaves are given below -

(i) There is the possibility of smaller-sized systems. Because high gains are achieved with a given physical antenna size at microwave frequencies miniaturized communication systems become possible.

(ii) Larger antenna gains can be achieved. More antenna gain and more radar cross-section at microwave frequencies make these frequencies the preferred ones for radar systems.

(iii) There is the large bandwidths possible. More bandwidth means more information-carrying capacity.

(iv) Several molecular, atomic, and nuclear resonance phenomena take place at microwave frequencies providing an increase in uses in the areas of heating techniques, remote sensing, and medical diagnostics and treatment.

(v) There is the possibility of frequency reusability. Because wave signals travel by the line of sight, satellite and terrestrial communication links with high capacity are not impossible with frequency reuse at minimally distant locations.

 

3. what are the applications of microwaves?

Microwaves have a broad range of applications in modern technology. Broadly the applications can be in the areas listed below -

(i) Radar

(ii) Communication systems

(iii) Microwave heating

(iv) Broadcasting

(v) Moisture measurement

(vi) Energy transfer

(vii) Electronic warfare.

(i) Radar- During World War II, warring factions felt the necessity to develop radar systems that could detect enemy targets remotely. With this requirement of defense services, radar, and other systems that use microwaves were developed. Radar systems are used for detecting and locating air, ground, or sea-going targets.

Radars are also used for missile tracking, air traffic control, weather prediction, automobile collision avoidance, motion detectors, and a wide variety of remote sensing systems.

(ii) Communication Systems - A large fraction of the wireless communication systems is microwave communication systems which comprise long haul trunk telephone, data, and television transmissions. Global positioning satellite systems (GPS), direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television, and cellular video (CV) systems also employ microwave technology.

(iii) Microwave Heating - The rate of microwave power absorption in most materials is proportional to their water content. This property is used for microwave heating. Because the microwave signal, penetrates most non-conductors, microwave power provides the most efficient means of applying heat uniformly throughout a body.

Microwave heating is used in many process industries for heating, drying, and sterilizing.

(iv) Broadcasting- Usually radio broadcasting and TV use frequencies below the microwave range. However, increasing congestion of the radio inspection made reception difficult for some listeners. There are no frequencies available for an increase in broadcasting at radio frequencies.

Any further entry of ie broadcasting will be in the microwave region. Now 12 GHz frequency is being used in local or satellite TV broadcasting with special microwave receivers.

(v) Moisture Measurement - Microwave absorption by water also means that moisture content measurement by microwaves is possible. The kt attenuated microwave signal passed through the specimen is measured.

 

Conclusion -

In this blog, we learned the following things about microwaves -

What is a microwave?

What are the silent features of microwaves?

What are the applications of microwaves in real life?

Hope you all like this blog, let me know your thoughts and experience in the comments.

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