There are several ways to classify electromagnetic waveguides. Depending on their boundaries, they can be classified into waveguides with perfectly reflecting walls or finite impedance walls, as well as open waveguides. In terms of their applications, there are the low attenuation and low delay distortion waveguides for telecommunication, the low crosspolar field waveguides used as feeds for reflector antennas in frequency reuse schemes, as well as the leaky feeders in continuous access communication systems. There are also the natural waveguides such as tunnels and the earth-ionosphere waveguide.

The cross-section method is an analytical tool used in the design of components required for low-loss, highly efficient transmission of electromagnetic waves in nonuniform waveguides. When the waveguide dimensions are large compared with the wavelength, a fully three-dimensional analysis employing modern numerical methods based on finite element, finite difference, finite integration or transmission line matrix formalisms is practically impossible and the cross-section method is the only feasible analysis technique.

The Waveguide Handbook is an unabridged reprint of the book first published in 1951 by McGraw Hill as Volume 10 of the MIT Radiation Laboratory Series.