Laboratory Exercise 8 1
Laboratory #8: Low Pass RF Filter Design
I. OBJECTIVES
A. Design a third order (N = 3) low-pass Chebyshev filter with a cutoff frequency of 550 MHz
and 3 dB ripple with equal terminations of 50 Ω using:
(a) discrete components (pick reasonable values for the capacitors)
(b) What is the SWR of the filter in the passband (pick 200 MHz and 550 MHz)?
B. Design a third order high-pass Chebyshev filter with a cutoff frequency of 5500 MHz and 3
dB ripple with equal terminations of 50 Ω using:
(a) discrete components (pick reasonable values for the capacitors)
(b) What is the SWR of the filter in the passband (pick 200 MHz and 550 MHz)?
(c) What does the SWR do outside the passband?
II. INTRODUCTION
Signal filtering is often central to the design of many communication subsystems. The isolation
or elimination of information contained in frequency ranges is of critical importance. In simple
amplitude modulation (AM) radio receivers, for example, the user selects one radio station using
a bandpass filter techniques. Other radio stations occupying frequencies close to the selected
radio station are eliminated.
In electronic circuits, active filter concepts using OpAmps were introduced. One of the
advantages of using active filters included the addition of some gain. However, due to their
limited gain-bandwidth product, active filters using OpAmps see little use in communication
system design where the operational frequencies are orders of magnitude higher than the audio
frequency range.
The two types of frequency selective circuit configurations most commonly used in
communication systems are the passive LC filter (low, high, and bandpass responses) and the
tuned amplifier (bandpass response). LC ladder networks are commonly used as building blocks
for passive filters at RF. The values of the inductors and capacitors are varied depending on the
type of filter, frequency specifications, and terminations. In this laboratory, passive LC filters
at radio frequencies (RF) will be designed and tested.
Two common low-pass LC filter configurations are shown in Figures 1 (a) and (b). Each
"section" consists of an L-C pair, with each section corresponding to the order of the filter. Two
section (or second order) filters are shown in Figure 1. Note that the values of the capacitors and
inductors changes with varying input and output resistances. Tabulated "normalized" values for
the inductors and capacitors for varying termination ratios are available to the design engineer.
The component values in the tables are normalized with respect to the termination ratio and
cutoff frequency. Generic representations of the LC low-pass filter are shown in Figure 2.
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