Course Details
Antenna Theory for EW Professionals: A Quick But Thorough “Crash Course” | Pre-Convention Course
Course Dates: Monday, December 8, 2025 | 8 AM – 12 PM
Course Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center
Course Length: 4 hours total delivered across one session
Description: While most antenna engineering focuses on communications and radar signals with known power and frequency requirements, High Power Electromagnetic (HPEM) systems present a design challenge with non-cooperative targets and starkly different criteria for "success". Therefore, the optimal design space presents with substantial differences relative to conventional antenna engineering and merits attention to specific details and solutions. This talk will provide a survey level overview of how HPEM antenna requirements differ from those of more conventional communications or radar systems and how the current state of the art attempts to address these issues.
Who Should Attend: Anyone with an interest in understanding “how” and “why” antennas actually work and why they are essential to EW, with a focus on the physical hardware that still drives what the software code will have to work with.
Questions you may be asking that indicate you should attend:
- What is an antenna, why do they matter as critical hardware, and what do we still use them for?
- What drives using different sizes and shapes of antenna?
- What are defense technology considerations for antennas, to include special cases like HPM?
- What information can I learn about a system just from looking at its antenna?
- How are antennas designed and fabricated, from simple “ham radio” implementations that can be made “in-field” to complex and specialized fabrication?
Technical knowledge is helpful but not required: while there will be some mathematics discussed, it will be approached slowly and with explanation such that attendees will come away with an understanding/appreciation for the concepts expressed, even if unable to directly work with the math.
This workshop will be held before AOC 2025 at the Gaylord National.
Registration
Course Pricing
AOC Members - $550
Non-Members - $700
Not a member? Join now and save! AOC Members receive discounts on all courses, free access to all webinars and much more.
Instructor
Major Timothy Wolfe, PhD., graduated from Boston University in 2011 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and commissioned into the U.S. Air Force through AFROTC Detachment 355. He completed his M.S. in Electrical Engineer at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 2015. His career outside of academic research has included a variety of assignments ranging from technical intelligence analysis to program management. He has served as Principal Investigator, Pulsed Power Modeling Simulation for the Numerical Simulations Program and Deputy Program Manager, Aero Effects and Beam Control Program at the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland AFB, NM. In 2018, he was accepted into the Purdue Military Research Initiative on an AFIT scholarship, graduating with a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2021. He has since served as an assistant professor of electrical engineering at AFIT, with teaching and research covering solid state microelectronics, RF antennas and propagation, and statistical analysis. He is now also serving as the division chief of electrical engineering in charge of curriculum and personnel management within the department.
