Active Filters

This is not in the lab manual

While the circuit that will be used is
very similar to the one described in
the lab manual, the steps in the lab
procedure are significantly different.
Please follow the laboratory procedure
posted in the Week 9 module.

Passive Bandpass Filter

Cascading a
RC (or RL)
low pass
filter with a
RC (or RL)
high pass
filter

LC filter

Active Bandpass Filter

While an active bandpass filter can be
constructed by cascading an active
low pass filter with an active high
pass filter, there are designs that use
only one op amp.

Active vs. Passive Filters

The maximum magnitude of the voltage
transfer function of a passive filter is at best
equal to 1.
Parasitic resistances and capacitances in RL can
make this value considerably lower.

Active filters incorporate amplifiers with the

filter elements so that the filter has gain.
Maximum of the voltage transfer function can be
greater than 1.
fo limited by frequency of the operational amplifier

The transfer function for the active bandpass filter is

where

Goal of Experiment
Use active filter to remove specified
Fourier components from a square
wave voltage source.
1
2 2n 1 t
Vsquare (t )
sin

n1 2n 1
T

T is the period of the square wave

Summation of Fourier
Components

Bandwidth
The difference between the
frequencies (in Hz) where the power
is of the maximum output power
Maximum power to output occurs at fo

Order of the Filter

The magnitude of a voltage transfer
function of filter will decreases at a
rate of -20dB per decade times n,
where n is the order of the filter.

PSpice
There is a DB
macro or you
can put in an
equation into
the Trace
Expression
to calculate
-20 log
(Vo/Vin)

MATLAB
Note that you need to specify the
frequency range for the bode plot.
The default is radians/s for the bode plot
Help on bode plots explains how to
define the frequency range over which
the plot is performed.

Velleman Spectrum
Analyzer

Voltage/Frequency
Measurement