High Pass Filtering & Tacho Signals 1

High Pass
Filtering
& Tacho
Signals
The perils and pitfalls of filtering your
tacho signal
by Dr Colin Mercer, Technical Director, Prosig Ltd.

I
t is sometimes necessary to pass
a signal through a high pass filter
to eliminate low frequency signals.
These may arise for instance from
whole body vibrations when perhaps
our interest is in higher frequency
components from a substructure such
as an engine or gearbox mounting. The
vibration levels are speed sensitive
and the usual scheme is to record a
once per revolution ‘tacho’ signal with
the vibration data. The tacho signal,
which ideally is a nice regular pulse
train, is processed to find rotational
speed and hence to select which part
of the vibration signal is to be frequency
analysed. The most common form of
analysis is a waterfall type such as
shown below.
Suppose now we need to eliminate the low
frequencies. This is quite simple as all we need to
do is to high pass filter the vibration data. Because

Prosig Signal Processing Tutorials www.prosig.com

 2 High Pass Filtering & Tacho Signals

normal filtering causes a

time delay then we must
also filter the tacho signal.
Conventional wisdom
is that if all signals are
filtered the same way then
the effects of time delays
may be ignored as they
are all the same relatively.
This, however, ignores the
time domain effect on the
signals, which is important
for tacho signals.

Processing a tacho signal

is essentially based on
determining the time interval
between successive rising
edges as illustrated for the
ideal tacho shown in Fig 1.

If each pulse represents

one revolution then the
Fig. 1 : A typical waterfall speed between the two
successive pulses is clearly
(1/T). A real tacho pulse is rarely as clean as this.
Fig 2 shows a typical tacho signal measurement. In
fact, as far as tachos go the example is quite a good
quality tacho.

Because of the effects of noise we need to choose

Fig. 2 : An ideal tacho signal

Fig. 3 : An typical tacho signal Fig. 4 : A tacho after filtering

Prosig Signal Processing Tutorials www.prosig.com

 High Pass Filtering & Tacho Signals
Fig. 5 : A tacho after filtering
Fig. 6 : A tacho after phaseless filtering
a threshold amplitude level as our trigger point to
determine the time interval between successive
pulses. If the tacho goes between Vmin and Vmax
then generally a suitable threshold level is (Vmax +
Vmin)/2.
Suppose now we need to high pass filter our data
to eliminate some low frequency characteristics.
Applying the same filter to the tacho may cause some
dramatic effects. The example below is the tacho
signal above filtered with a simple 4 pole high pass
Butterworth filter set at 5Hz. This is a well-behaved
non-aggressive filter but its effects on the tacho
waveform are quite significant.
Prosig Signal Processing Tutorials
3
This ignores the time
domain effect on the
signals, which is important
for tacho signals
Whilst we have the same average temporal delays
the detail effects are such that we may run into
serious difficulties in selecting a trigger point. It could
be as much as half a revolution in error if we used a
negative level on the positive slope port. As the high
pass filter is set to a higher cut off then the resultant
tacho becomes totally invalid. For example, using a
cut off of 35Hz on the original tacho gives a result,
which would indicate the engine was running at twice
the speed. As shown below the tacho is now almost
unrecognisable!
The solution is to use phaseless filtering. This gives
no time delay effects as there is zero phase. Applying
a phaseless 4 pole high pass Butterworth with a
35Hz cut off gives a signal which is almost identical
to the original. The dc level and other low frequency
components have been removed without the harmful
time delay distortions, the filter is no longer acting as
differentiator.
Dr Colin Mercer
Colin Mercer is the Technical
Director of Prosig and has prime
responsibility for signal processing
and its applications. He was formerly
at the Institute of Sound and Vibration
research (ISVR), Southampton
University where he founded the Data Analysis
Centre. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of
the British Computer Society.
Prosig provide data acquisition,
noise & vibration, acoustic,
health & condition monitoring and
refinement solutions for the scientific and engineering
communities and offer a number of standard hardware
and software products. Take a look at www.prosig.com to
discover why major automotive, military, aerospace, power
and industrial companies rely on Prosig for their complete
data acquisition, signal analysis and reporting software &
hardware.
www.prosig.com
Prosig Hardware & Software Used in This Tutorial
P8004 Data Acquisition System
DATS™ Professional software (01-55-622)
• Acquisition, analysis & reporting
• Wide range of analysis functions
• Automated processing through DATS
Scripts
• Built-in Report Generator (Intaglio)
• Comprehensive QA features

The DATS
Professional software
package contains all
of the essential parts
of the DATS software.
It includes the data
acquisition software
for controlling the
Prosig P5000/P8000
hardware and
capturing data. The Professional package also provides all
of the DATS analysis frameworks such as worksheets and
scripting language. The Intaglio report generation facility is
• Small, light, ultra portable also included in the package.
• 24-bit accuracy DATS software has an unparalleled depth of signal
• Sample at up to 400k processing functions. The standard package contains:
samples/second/channel • Data acquisition • Trigonometry
• 4 analog channels plus tacho input • Time domain analysis • Statistical counting
• 96dB dynamic range • Frequency domain analysis • Signal manipulation
• -120dB noise floor • Curve fitting • Import & export

• USB 2.0 • Filtering • Signal arithmetic

• Statistics • Math functions
The Prosig P8004 is an ultra portable, high quality, 24- • Calculus • Report generation
bit data acquisition system. It has 4 analog inputs plus a
dedicated tacho input. Input connection is via industry Beyond these standard functions are a growing number of special
add-on packages for specialist applications such as:
standard BNC connectors. Each input can be configured
for AC/DC or IEPE (ICP®) with programmable gain and • NVH Studies • Sound Mapping
anti-alias filter. • Rotating Machinery Analysis • Acoustics
• Structural Animation • Fatigue & Durability Testing
P8004 systems
• Sound Quality Audio Replay • Human Response Bio.
03-33-8004-B P8004 4-channel system. Includes
• Multi-plane Balancing • Noise Path Analysis
• 4 analog channels with tacho module & BNC
connectors • Hammer Impact Testing • Modal Analysis
• PC to P8004 USB 2.0 communications cable
(02-33-852)
• Mains power supply for P8004 (02-33-853) DATS Professional Software
• In-vehicle power cable for P8004 (02-33-846) 01-55-622 DATS Professional software. Includes Intaglio
reporting suite, Macro & Script support and
P5000/P8000 acquisition software.

Visit http://www.prosig.com/ for more details or to request a

full catalogue. Or email your queries to sales@prosig.com.