GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL of ELECTRICAL and COMPUTER ENGINEERING

ECE 3084
Summer 2014
Problem Set #6
Assigned: 4-July-14
Due Date: 11-July-14

Your homework is due at 3:00 PM on Friday, July 11, to Prof. Lanterman in his Van Leer 431
office. If he is not there, you may simply slide your homework under his office door.
Refrain from looking at backfiles of homework and exam solutions i.e., word in
Georgia Tech parlance from previous versions of ECE2025, ECE2026, or ECE3084,
beyond your own materials assembled while taking those classes and any old material
we explicitly provide to you.
Try posting questions on piazza.

PROBLEM 6.1:
Consider a lowpass filter specified by the system function
H(s) =

s2

n2
,
+ 2n s + n2

(1)

where n = 2 10000 radians per second, but for the moment, were not telling you what is.
(a) The unit step response of this lowpass filter is given by
y(t) = 1

n
exp(n t) sin(d t + )u(t),
d

where
p
= arctan
and d = n

1 2

1 2 is the damped frequency. Find a formula for in terms of d and n .

(b) Figure 1 shows the step response of this lowpass filter (notice that the horizontal scale is in
milliseconds, not seconds.) Estimate d by measuring the time between the first and third
crossing of the y = 1 line, which correspond to zero crossings of the underlying sinusoid. To
help with this, Figure 2 shows a zoomed-in version of the plot.1 Then use your answer
from part (a) to estimate .

Notice that a peak-to-peak measurement, while useful, would be an approximation; because of the decay, the
distance between the peaks changes slightly from period to period.

Figure 1: Step response for Problem 1.

Figure 2: Zoomed-in step response for Problem 1.

PROBLEM 6.2:
It is quite useful to estimate the transfer function of a system from its frequency response. Here we
consider doing that for a second-order low pass filter that has a resonant peak. This is done by first
measuring the magnitude and location of the peak (Apk and r ) as well as A0 , the magnitude at
D.C. ( = 0). Since we dont know the overall gain of each system, the unknown transfer function
is of the form
C
H(s) = 2
.
s + 2n s + n2
(a) Using the observation in the sentence just after Equation 12.8 as well as Equations 12.13 and
12.18 in the typeset class notes, derive equations for C, and n in terms of A0 , Apk , and
r .
(b) Estimate H(s) for the frequency response shown below on the left using your result from
part (a) and measurements of A0 , Apk , and r .
(c) How would this procedure be different for a high pass filter?

PROBLEM 6.3:
Since a bandpass filter always has a peak at n and its magnitude is zero at both = 0 and ,
a different method must be used to estimate the transfer function, which is of the form,
H(s) =

s2

Cs
.
+ 2n s + n2

The location of the peak can be used to estimate n , but not . It must be estimated from the
bandwidth of the frequency response. Referring to Section 12.3 of Chapter 12 of the typeset class
notes, we define bandwidth as the
width of the peak at the half-power points; that is, BW = U L
where |H(jU )| = |H(jL )| = 1/ 2. The text of Chapter 12 indicates that n /BW = Q, which is
the same as BW = 2n .
(a) Derive an equation for C in terms of n , , and the measured peak amplitude.
(b) Now estimate H(s) for the frequency response shown below on the right using measurements
of n , BW and Apk .
Bandpass Filter Problem 6.3(c)

Lowpass Filter Problem 6.2(b)

4.5

5
3.5

|H(j)|

|H(j)|

3
2.5
2
1.5

1
0.5
0
0

500

1000
rad/s

1500

0
0

0.5

1.5
rad/s

2.5

PROBLEM 6.4:
To prepare for this problem, review Section 13.2.1 of the typeset class notes. A third-order, lowpass Butterworth filter with cutoff c has three s-plane poles, consisting of one conjugate pair at
c exp(j2/3) and a single real pole at c . Suppose c = 2fc , where fc = 3 kHz.
The transfer function of the continuous-time filter is
H(s) =

c3
.
(s p1 )(s p2 )(s p3 )

Perform every part of this problem using MATLAB, Mathematica, Maple, or a similar tool;
theres really nothing that you want to do by hand. Turn in your well-commented code in addition
to the requested graphs and answers.
(a) Plot the magnitude of the frequency response of this continuous time filter, |H(j)| =
|H(j2f )|, for 0 f 20 kHz. Verify that |H(jc )| is approximately 0.707.
(b) Using the pole-zero mapping method discussed in class, namely zp = exp(sp Ts ), where
Ts is the sampling period, find the three z-plane poles of the discrete-time filter that
approximates this Butterworth filter for a sample rate of fs = 40 kHz.
(c) We will define the transfer function of the discrete-time pole-zero mapped system as
Hpzm (z) =
=

(1 zp1

z 1 )(1

C
zp2 z 1 )(1 zp3 z 1 )

Cz 3
.
(z zp1 )(z zp2 )(z zp3 )

The first version is the most convenient for multiplying out and turning into a difference
equation to actually implement the filter. The second form is probably the most convenient
for plotting frequency responses, as were doing in this assignment.
The constant C is a factor that usually gets stuck there in practice to force the frequency
response of the continuous-time system being approximated and the discrete-time implementation to match up at some desired frequency. You can take ECE4270 to learn all sort of
principled ways of choosing C. Or, you can do what people really do in practice, which is
to hack it.
Find the C that makes Hpzm (ej0 ) = Hpzm (1) equal 1; i.e., well set up our discrete-time
approximation to have unity gain at D.C., just as the original continuous-time system does.
(d) Plot |Hpzm (ej )|, the magnitude of the discrete-time frequency response of the filter found
in parts (b) and (c), for
.
(e) Plot the magnitude of the frequency response of the original continuous-time filter, |H(j2f )|
for f ranging from 0 to 20 kHz. On the same graph, also plot |Heff (j2f )| = |Hpzm (ej2f /fs )|,
which is the magnitude of the frequency response of the discrete-time approximation consisting of a cascade of a continuous-to-discrete converter, the IIR (infinite impulse response) filter
found in parts (b) and (c), and a discrete-to-continuous converter. (Remember that because
of aliasing, the expression for |Heff (j2f )| is not meaningful for f larger than half the sample
rate of fs = 40 kHz.) Comment on how well the two systems match.
(f) Repeat part (e), except change the cutoff frequency to fc = 12 kHz. (If you set up your
code well, you should be able to do this by just changing one line. You need not repeat the
code; you can just show the graph). Comment on how well the two systems match now.
What do you conclude about the quality of the match as fc approaches half the sampling
frequency?