Active Filter and its Application

General Overviews

What is filter?

What does the filter do?

Passive and Active filters

The most commonly used filters are:

¾ Low-pass filter
ƒ First order Design
¾ High-pass filter
ƒ First order design
¾ Band-pass filter
¾ Band-reject filter
¾ All-pass filter

Commonly used practical filters:-

™ Butterworth filter

™ Chebychev filter

™ Bessel filter

™ Elliptic filter

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What is filter?
A filter is a device that passes electric signals at certain
frequencies or frequencies ranges while preventing the passage
of others_____________webster

What does the filter do?

9 Alters the amplitude and /or phase characteristics of

signal with respect to frequency
9 It will change the relative amplitudes of the various
frequencies components or their phase relationship
9 Often to emphasize signal in certain frequency ranges
and reject signal in other frequencies ranges

Characteristics of filters are illustrated by-

™ Gain vs. frequency
™ Phase vs. frequency

Gain at each frequency allow us to determine how well filter

can distinguish between signals at different frequencies-----
called amplitude response

Similarly phase response gives the amount of phase shift

introduced in sinusoidal signal as a function of frequency

Frequency domain behavior is described by transfer

function (TF)

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Passive and Active filter:

o Built from passive components; resistors, capacitors and

inductors
o Filters also use resistors and capacitors but inductors are
replaced by active devices like Operational Amplifier
producing power gain

Why is Active filter?

Because of inductor imposing practical difficulties and with the
invent of electronic amplifiers, it was discovered that resistor,
capacitors and amplifier –RC active filter is capable of
producing TF equivalent to LCR ladders

Applications:
¾ In field of telecommunication, bandpass filters are used in
audio-frequency range (0-20KHz) for modem and speech
processing
¾ Data acquisition system requires anti-aliasing low pass
filter
¾ System power supplies use band rejection filters to
suppress 60Hz and high frequency transient
¾ Filters which do not filter any frequencies but just add
linear phase shift to each frequency component,
contributing a time delay called All-pass filters
Low-pass filter
Passes only low frequency signal and rejects signal at higher
frequency which is above the cut off frequency

General TF:

for first order filter, the co-efficient bi is zero

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First and second order filter stages are the building blocks for
the higher filters as shown below:

Cascading of filters stage upto sixth order

Filter with an even order consists of second–order stage

only
Odd-order number includes additional first order stage at
the frequency at the beginning

Application:

Used whenever high components must be removed from the

signal
Example: light sensing instrument using photodiode

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First order low-pass filter

TF of circuit is:

Co-efficient comparison

To dimension the ckt, specify corner frequency (fc), dc gain

(Ao) and capacitor c1, then solve for R1 and R2

High pass filter

ƒ Filter which rejects signal below its cut-off frequencies
ƒ Used in applications requiring the rejection of low frequency
signals
ƒ Application
In high fidelity loud speaker system

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 ƒ It is created by replacing the resistors of low pass with
capacitors and its capacitors with resistors

TF of high pass filter:

TF of single stage:

TF of first order simplifies to

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First order high pass filter

TF of ckt:

Co-efficient comparison

To dimension the ckt, specify corner frequency (fc), dc gain

and capacitor (c1) and then solve for R1 & R2

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Band pass filter
To separate the signal at one frequency or within the
band of frequencies from signal at other frequencies
Characteristics is generated by replacing the S term
with the transformation

Simplest design is the connection of high pass filter and

low pass filter in series which is common in wide band
filter application

Band rejection filter /notch:

Used to suppress a certain frequency rather than a range of
frequency
To generate TF of second order, replace the S term of filter
order low pass with transformation

which gives

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Application:- removes an unwanted frequency from signal
used in audio program, contaminated by 60Hz can remove
hum also

All-pass filter

™ Function is to change phase of the signal without affecting

its amplitude----------------called Phase filter
™ Application:- Used in phase compensation and signal
delay circuit
The general TF of all pass filter is

with ai and bi being the partial co-efficient of filter

Practical filters

A. Butterworth:

9 key char. is that it has flat passband as well as a

stopband

9 Sometimes called flat-flat filter

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 Amplitude response curve for Butterworth filter of various
order

This char. can be obtained by arranging the poles of low

order filter with equal spacing around semicircular locus

Pole-zero diagram of fourth order of Butterworth low pass

filter

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 B. Chebychev filter
-Has ripple passband and flat stopband

Amplitude response
Application:-

• Often use in filter bank where frequency content of

signal s of more important than a constant
amplification
• By bringing poles closer to the jw axis, frequency cut-
off is steeper than that of Butterworth but it gives a
variation in amplitude known as ripple in passband

Pole-Zero diagram of Chebychev filter

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 • can derive the Chebychev filter from Butterworth by
moving poles closer to the jw axis in same proportion, so
the pole lie on a ellipse
• In this respect, Butterworth whose passband ripple has
been set to zero is a special case of Chebychev

Bessel filter

o Exhibits phase shifts that varies with frequency

o If the response shifts is not directly proportional to
frequency, the overall effect is to distort non-sinusoidal
wave shapes as shown below

o Response of 4th-order Butterworth low pass to square

wave curve, “ringing” is response.

o When avoidance of this phenomenon is important, Bessel

or Thomson filter is useful

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Response of 4th order Butterworth low pass to square wave
input
Note the lacking of ringing in the response

o Amplitude response of the Bessel filter is monotonic and

smooth but its cut-off is quite gradual compared to
Butterworth and chebychev
o Represents trade off in the opposite direction from the jw
axis

o If the poles are closer to jw axis as in case of Butterworth,

Chebychev filter, Q increases which degrades the filter’s
transient response

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 o Overshoot or even ringing at the response edges can
result

Elliptic filter

¾ Amplitude response has ripple in both passband and

stopband
¾ Elliptic function gives a sharp cut-off by adding the
notches in the stopband

¾ The problem can be corrected by providing zeros at the

bottom of the stopband

¾ Additional zeros must be spaced along the stopband to

ensure that filter response remains below the desired level
of stopband attenuation

¾ Elliptic filter space the zeros along the jw axis

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¾ In case of Butterworth, Chebychev and Bessel, are on top
of each other at infinity because there no zeros on
numerator side

Tashi delay

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