A powerful tool used for designing and testing electronic devices, the oscilloscope helps engineers determine which components of a system are malfunctioning and which are behaving correctly. It also helps engineers determine whether a newly designed component is functioning in a manner that it has been intended.
The oscilloscope’s main purpose is to display electronic signals. The signals displayed on the screen of the oscilloscope allow users to determine the electronic system’s behavior. In order that users can fully understand the oscilloscope, it is vital that they also know basic signal theory.
Electronic signals are pulses or waves. The wave’s basic properties include amplitude, phase shift, period and frequency.
In engineering applications, amplitude has two main definitions. The first is defined as the magnitude of a disturbance’s maximum displacement, and is also known as the peak amplitude. The second is referred as the root-mean-square (RMS) amplitude. To calculate the waveform’s RMS voltage, users should first square the waveform, then identify its average waveform and take the square root.
The RMS amplitude of a sine wave is equivalent to 0.707 times the peak amplitude.
Another basic property of the wave is phase shift, which is the amount of horizontal translation among two identical waves. It can be measured in radians or degrees. In a sine wave, a cycle is represented by 360 degrees. Thus, if two sine waves differ by half a cycle, then 180 degrees is their relative phase.
In addition, the wave’s period refers to the amount of time needed for a wave to repeat itself, and is measured in terms of units of seconds.
Each periodic wave has a frequency, which is the number of times a wave repeats itself per second. It is also the reciprocal of the period.
Meanwhile, waveform is the representation or shape of a wave. A waveform offers users a lot of information regarding the signal, such as the sudden changes in voltage – whether it varies linearly or remains constant.
There are various standard waveforms, including sine waves, square/rectangular waves, triangular/sawtooth waves, pulses and complex waves.
Usually associated with alternating current (AC) sources, sine waves do not have constant peak amplitude.
A square waveform jumps periodically between two values, such that the lengths of the low segments are equal to the lengths of the high segments, while the lengths of low and high segments are not equal in a rectangular waveform.
In a triangular wave, the edges are referred to as ramps and their voltage linearly changes with time. A sawtooth wave appears similar in that either the back or front edge features a linear voltage response with time, although its opposite edge comes with an almost immediate drop.
A pulse refers to a sudden single disturbance in a constant voltage, while a complex wave refers to a combination of waveforms.
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