EE 221-Lab 5
EE 221-Lab 5
EE 221-Lab 5
Experiment #5
RC Circuit Frequency and Time Response
Table of Contents
Purpose ...........................................................................................................................................3
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3-5
Equipment .......................................................................................................................................5
Pre-lab (Frequency Domain Response) ...................................................................................... 6-7
Pre-lab (Time Domain Response) ............................................................................................... 7-8
Laboratory Simulation............................................................................................................... 9-13
Frequency Domain Response...................................................................................................9-10
Time Domain Response.......................................................................................................... 11-13
Laboratory Measurements...................................................................................................... 14-16
Frequency Domain Response.................................................................................................14-15
Time Domain Response...............................................................................................................16
Post Lab ................................................................................................................................... 16-21
Frequency Domain Response.................................................................................................16-17
Time Domain Response......................................................................................................... 18-21
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................21
References ....................................................................................................................................22
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Purpose
The purpose of this experiment is to be introduced to simple elementary concepts of circuit
Introduction
The frequency and time response of circuits in an extremely important concept in filter design,
feedback, communications etc. In this lab, simple RC series circuits and their behaviors are
observed while they are excited by an AC signal. However, this time, it is the gain of the circuit
throughout various elements which is studied and compared, accordingly. For the simple RC
circuit, the effects of alterations in different elements of the circuit such as frequency, input
amplitude, resistor value and capacitor value are looked at. Additionally, gains across the
capacitor or the resistor are observed and given the voltage division across different elements,
Two RC circuits were used in this experiment. They contain almost the same construction and
components, Just the output is measured across a different component each time.
For the low pass filter, the resistor and capacitor is connected in series, the input is a AC signal
generated by the signal generator. The output voltage will be measured across the capacitor.
Then the second circuit which is called a high pass filter, is also contained with a resistor (Same
value as low pass filter) and capacitor (same value as the low pass filter) which are connected in
series. The input is as always an AC signal generated by signal generator. This time the output
Also, a band pass filter was developed later on. A band pass filter passes a range of frequencies
from low to high. The band pass filter can be implemented by connecting together a high pass
The circuit was constructed using a pair of resistors and a pair of capacitors. The input was an
AC signal as before.
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Equipment
• Power supply
• DMM (Digital Multi Meter)
• Resistors (1.5k, 1.5k, 3.3k, 3.3k)
• Capacitor (0.1µF, 0.001µF)
• MATLAB
• LabVIEW
• Multisim
• Protoboard
• Signal Generator
• Oscilloscope
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In this section, for the low-pass and high-pass filter circuits two equations were constructed.
These two equations give the magnitude of gain for the respective set-up.
1
𝐺𝑎ⅈ𝑛 =
√(2𝜋𝑅𝑓𝑐 )2 + 1
2𝜋𝑓𝑐𝑅
𝐺𝑎ⅈ𝑛 =
√(2𝜋𝑅𝑓𝑐 )2 + 1
Then using MATLAB, the magnitude of the gain vs frequency for both circuits was plotted on
the same graph. The ‘loglog’ feature was used to generate the graph.
Figure 5: Gain vs frequency graph for low and high pass filter
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The ‘X’ axis contains frequency, and the ‘Y’ axis contains the magnitude of the gain.
This time, two different equations were constructed/given to calculate the output for both low-
Now, these two equations were plotted into MATLAB to a 1-volt step input on the same plot.
The ‘X’ axis will contain the time (t = 0 to t = 6RC) and the ‘Y’ axis will contain the output
voltage.
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Figure 6: Output of low pass and high pass filter circuits to a step input
In the graph, the figure-1 refers to low pass filter circuit and figure-2 refers to high pass filter
circuit.
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Laboratory Simulation
Using Multisim, the band-pass filter circuit was constructed. Then an AC analysis was performed
Figure 8: Multisim simulation for the gain and phase of the band-pass filter circuit.
Now the Multisim simulation data was saved into an ASCII file and it was plotted on a loglog
From the graph, a clear picture of what a band-pass filter does is portrayed. It combines the
features of a high and low pass filter to create a “band” pass filter that allows the gain of the
circuit to be near 1 for a certain “band” of frequencies. For our circuit, those frequencies lie
Now using Multisim a transient analysis was applied to both high-pass and low-pass filters.
The analysis was applied to both circuits under some conditions. The circuit had a input signal
with specific pulse period.
Figure 12: Multisim output for low pass filter transient analysis (pulse period 12RC)
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Figure 13: Multisim output for low pass filter transient analysis (pulse period 4RC)
The same steps were repeated for the high-pas filter circuit.
Figure 15: Multisim output for high pass filter transient analysis (pulse period 12RC)
Figure 16: Multisim output for high-pass filter transient analysis-pulse period (2/3)RC
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Laboratory Measurements
1. The RC low-pass filter circuit was constructed on the protoboard. The function generator
was set to 10Vp-p sinusoidal waveform with variable frequency. The Vin was measured in
2. Then the gain was measured with some sample frequencies just to verify the correctness
of the setup.
3. Then the function generator was swept over the range 50 < f < 2 Meg on a scale of 40 pts
by using the custom VI, “Frequency Response”. The VI records the gain directly using
4. The high-pass circuit was also constructed and the above steps were repeated for it as
well.
5. The bandpass circuit was also constructed, and the above steps were repeated.
The following steps were followed for both low-pass and high-pass filter circuits.
1. The function generator was set to give a square pulse train such that V L = 0V, VH = 1V.
2. The LabVIEW VI “Save Oscilloscope Data: time, ch1, ch2” was used to save both the
Post Lab
At this stage we were asked to create multiple graphs using the data collected during the
calculation (pre-lab), simulation and laboratory phases. The first graph includes the measured
and calculated values of the gain for the low pass filter. The figure below shows this graph.
Figure 20: Gain comparison for low pass filter(Measured and calculated)
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Figure 21: Gain comparison for high pass filter(Measured and calculated)
Figure 22: Gain comparison for band pass filter(Measured and simulated)
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Then the next step is to compare all of the measured, calculated, and simulated data for the
low and high-pass filters. For convenience, all of them have been graphed on the same plot in
different subplots.
Figure 23: Measured Output and Simulated Output for Low Pass Filter (Settings: Pulse
Figure 24: Measured Output and Simulated Output for Low Pass Filter (Settings: Pulse
Figure 25: Measured Output and Simulated Output for High Pass Filter (Settings: Pulse
Figure 26: Measured Output and Simulated Output for High Pass Filter (Settings: Pulse
a. For every single one of these graphs, it is seen that they are nearly identical for both
measured and calculated. The only real difference seen is in the last graph where the
Pulse Period was set to 2RC/3. Here, the simulated output starts at 1V but rests at just
above 0.5V later on. However, for the measured values, we they rest at just above 0.5V
all throughout. This is because the simulated output is measuring from time = 0 where the
voltage is read as the total voltage input. Since the circuit doesn’t have enough time to
totally charge or discharge, there is a cutoff voltage that the circuit cannot surpass in
b. In terms of the rise and fall times of the circuits, from our measured values it is obvious
that from a max of 1V to a min of 0V, a time of just about 2.4*10 -7 s is given, an
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extremely small amount of time for the input parameter to make such a jump. This does,
however, give a pretty good reading for the output when graphed.
RC = -t / ln(Vout / Vin)
= 1.4643 * 10-4 s
Conclusion
What we could gather from this lab is for the most part, the analysis of time domain
responses and frequency domain responses of different circuits. Whether it was through
Multisim or LabVIEW, our values came very close to each other with errors that were very
small (many of them being less than 1%). As it is apparent from the analysis section, the
measured values within the experiment, for the most part, coincide with the calculated ones,
most especially when there were dealings with time domain responses.
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References