Basic task and applications of Radio Engineering

1. Modem radio engineering is a powerful tool in speeding up the scientific and technical progress. Radio engineering has penetrated into the national economy, science, industry, our culture and everyday life.

2. One of the most important applications of radio engineering involves long-distance communication by means of electromagnetic waves. The development in various specialized branches of radio engineering is closely allied to the general use of radio for broadcasting and communication, while television covers steadily expanding regions in many parts of the globe. Radio engineering equipment provides for stable round-the-clock communication with marine vessels, aircraft, and spaceships. Radio engineering systems enable us to effect interplanetary communications and to control sophisticated apparatus of space probes. Such branches of radio engineering as radio location (or radar), radio navigation, radio telemetry, radio control, etc., which just a few years ago were regarded as new techniques are now in general use.

3. However, the above applications by no way exhaust all the possibilities of modern radio engineering. Radio methods have penetrated into well-known sciences and led to their qualitative change and development. New sciences have been born such as radio physics, radioastronomy, etc.

4. Radio techniques and methods are widely used in experimental physics including nuclear physics, in instruments and apparatus measuring transient processes and various non-electrical quantities (pressure, mechanical vibration, small displacements and so on), in studying physical phenomena of the ionosphere, and in time service.

5. The extensive use of radio methods for solving various problems not associated with radiation of electromagnetic waves has given rise to a novel science that embraces both radio engineering and electronics. This branch of science is commonly referred to as radio electronics.

6. Radio electronic equipment is widely used in medicine (for diagnostics) and in manufacture of artificial organs or devices that are employed to compensate for partially or completely lost functions of a human organism. The latest advances in radio electronics are most impressingly illustrated by the rapidly growing family of high-speed electronic computers comprising calculating, controlling and information-handling apparatus. Cybernetic systems based on radio electronics play a decisive part in automation and complete mechanization or production lines at industrial enterprises.

7. Radio electronics is therefore a universally employed branch of radio engineering and its role in the future progress of mankind can hardly be overestimated.

8. All the numerous branches of radio engineering are united by one characteristic feature residing in that in all cases radio engineering deals with transmission and reception of information by means of electric signals. This is a principal difference between radio engineering and electrical engineering since the latter deals with energy instead of information (e.g. long-distance transfer of electric power through a high-voltage line).

9. From the very date of invention of the first radio set by A. S. Popov in 1895 up to the present day the main task of radio engineering is the wireless transmission and reception of information over a distance by meaning of electric signals.

III. After-text exercises:

1. Give equivalents of the following words and expressions:

електромагнітні хвилі; проникати; радіотехнічне обладнання; можливості; радіофізика; вивчення; радіоелектроніка; галузь; кібернетичні системи; передавання та приймання інформації.

2. Match up the words which have a similar meaning:

a) century, to unit, to set up, to take place, to seem, speed, matter, to send, to build;

b) to happen, velocity, substance, to look like, to install, to transmit, to construct, to combine, age.

3. Say whether the following statements are true or false:

a) One of the most important applications of radio engineering involves long-distance communication.

b) Radio engineering systems enable to control sophisticated apparatus of space probes.

c) Radio techniques and methods are widely used in experimental physics.

d) Radio engineering doesn't deal with transmission and reception of information by means of electric signal.

e) Cybernetic systems play a decisive part in automation and mechanization of production lines.

4. Answer the following questions on paragraph 6:

a) How is radio electronic equipment used in medicine?

b) What are the latest advances in radio electronic illustrated by?

c) Where do cybernetic systems play a decisive part?

d) Radio electronics is a universally employed branch of radio engineering, isn't it?