Radio Electronics

a term encompassing a wide range of areas in science and engineering that deal with the problems of transmission, reception, and processing of information by means of electromagnetic waves. The term came into use during the 1950’s and to a certain extent is conventional.

Radio electronics encompasses radio engineering and electronics, as well as a number of new areas that have emerged as a result of development and differentiation. Such areas include quantum electronics, optoelectronics, semiconductor electronics, microelectronics, infrared technology, cryoelectronics, acoustical electronics, and chemotronics. Radio electronics is closely associated with radio physics, solid-state physics, optics, and mechanics, as well as with electrical engineering, automation, and engineering cybernetics. Radio-electronic apparatus often serve as one of the parts in automatic control systems, such as guidance systems that govern the flight of rockets and spacecraft. Conversely, automatic control systems may be used in such apparatus, for example, in automatic frequency control or target tracking.

Radio electronics is also associated with computer engineering, since this branch of engineering uses electronic devices in the processing of information, as in noise suppression or reduction of data to a predetermined form. Frequency bands that are used in radio electronics overlap those used in electroacoustics. Mathematical studies are widely used in radio electronics for the analysis and synthesis (design) of radio-engineering circuits and devices and for the determination of optimum design and parameters.

Applications of radio electronics have now spread beyond the area of exact sciences and engineering and have entered such fields as medicine and economics.