Si~ulation& ~o

Farid Najm, Editor

Simulink Simulation of Transmission Line

-3-

oftware that is dedicated to one particular application such as control systems,

circuit analysis, and magnetic field calculations is usually confined to the field where
it originated, and its global applications usually remain unexplored. One of these programs, but with the capability to expand, is
MATLAB [I], a product of The MathWorks, Inc. MATLAB can manipulate and
invert large matrices and can be used in
many numerical applications. MATLABs
capabilities can be extended with a recent
addition called SimulinkTM,a program
which is normally used in the analysis and
synthesis of modern control systems.
Simulink, now incorporated into MATLAB, can also be used to analyze distributed
transmission lines. Hence, it can be directly

Karl E. Lonngren and Er-Wei Bai

used in the analysis and design of microwave, electric power, and VLSI networks.
In addition to demonstrating its wider applicability, we include several examples that
are normally described in books or papers
directed to the study of pulse propagation
along transmission lines [Z].

Transmission Line Mode!

Consider the standard model of a transmission line (Fig. 1). Both the voltages and the
currents can be separately analyzed using
Kirchhoffs laws and put in terms that can
be analyzed using Simulink. Lets analyze
the model, writing all time-based variables
in the transmission line in terms of the
Laplace transform variable, s. The spatial
variation of the transmission line will be

incorporated into the discrete section

numbe:.
For the simulation of the voltage response of the transmission line, the voltage
Vi aross the capacitor in the first loop
(which includes the voltage source in Fig.
la) can be written in terms of the voltage
source, Vs, and the voltage in the second
loop V2 as
SL

v,= s 3 L2 C+S2LCZS+S2L+ZS v,
SL + zs
+ s3L2C-tS2LCZS + s2L + z,v2

(1)
where Z, is the source impedance. In the
transmission line, the elements L and C are
the inductance per unit length, and the capacitance per unit length, respectively. The
voltage across the capacitor in an intermediate loop, n, can be wntten in terms of the
similar voltage V,.i in the previous loop
(n-l), and the voltage Vn+i in the following
loop @+I).

A load impedance, ZL,is in parallel with

the capacitor in the final loop, k. The load
impedance can be linear or nonlinear.
We define the current in the load impedance at the end node, k , via the relation

1. Distributed transmission lines. The signal generator V shas an internal impedance Zs.The load
impedance is ZL. The units of the series inductances L, and shunt capacitances C, are Henrieshnit
length, and faradshnit length, respectively. (a) Voltage response of the transmission line. (b) Current response of the transmission line.

10

ik = m , )
(3)
where g( v) is an arbitrary nonlinear function
that has to be specified by the sirgulator. In
the linear case, g(V) is equal to a constant
multiplied by V(Fig. 2). FromFig. 2, we find
the voltage v k to be

Circuits & Devices

Equations 5-7 detennine the elements of a

=
E
&
v
k
transmission line.
second

(4)
For purposes of simulating the current
response of the transmission line, the current
ii in the first loop (which includes the voltage source in Fig. 1b) can be written in terms
of the voltage source V, and the current in
the second loop i2.
sc

i,= s LC+sCZ,+1

v,

1
+ S2LC+SCZS
+ l z2

(5)

The current in an intermediate loop, n,

can be written in terms of the current in the
previous loop (n-I) and the following loop
(n+l):

In Fig, 2, the critical SimuEnk elements

are shown for the elements specified with
Eqs. 1-4. A dialog menu with Simulink allows all parameters of the polynomial to be
specified. We specify the voltage source, Vs,
as a half sine wave generator, which acts as
a pulse generator in the simulation. The amplitude and width were controllable parameters. In our application, fifteen identical
intermediate elements were used. Although
we will use only a Limited number of sections in our transmission line model, it can
be generalized to include as many as desired.
In addition, the user can specify numerical
values for the circuit elements L, C, Z,, and
ZL.For clarity of presentation, we include a
sequentially increasing dc offset to each
section. Both linear [iEg(Vk) = constant*
V k ] and nonlinear [ik=g(Vk)] load impedances are described with this model.

Applications

For the case of linear load impedance, i =

VEL,the load impedance ZL is in parallel
with the capacitor in the final loop, k. The
current in this loop is written in terms of the
current in the previous loop (k-1) as
(7)

1+ SCZ,
ik=
s LC2Z, +S2LC+2SCZ, +ILk-

In order to demonstrate the features of the

Simulink transmission line simulator, we
now analyze several well known examples.
These include wave propagation and velocity dependence upon the numerical values of
the elements. In addition, we will discuss
reflection at a linear terminating impedance.
Dispersion of a pulse will be shown. Finally,
we address reflection at a nonlinear terminating impedance.

2. Simulink simulation of the voltage response of the transmission line. The dotted lines indicate connections to the next section. The dashed lines indicate connections between a node and the oicilloscope.

12

The characteristic impedance, Zc, of a

transmission line an the velocity of propagation c of a wave are respective1given by

Initially, the impedances that terminate

the line will be set equal to the characteristic
impedance of the transmission line. This
means that ZL = Z, and Z, = Z,, where Z, is
a real number. Because the source impedance is matched to the characteristic impedance of the transmission line, the amplitude
of the propagating wave will only be equal
to one-half of the signal generator voltage
Vs. The result of this matching of the
transmission line implies that there will be
no reflected wave. Figure 3a illustrates the
propagating wave with L,= C = 0.2 and the
wave being detected at each section. In this
case 2,= 1. The propagation is readily observed. The simulation was repeated with
the values L= C= 0.4 with all other elements
remaining the same. As noted from Eq. 7 ,
only the velocity of propagation c should
decrease by a factor of two and the characteristic impedance remains at Zc = 1. The
results of this simulation are shown in Fig.
3b, where the decreased velocity is readily
noted.
The effect of changing the value of the
load impedance ZL is now examined in order
to demonstrate that waves can propagate in
both directions using this technique. We use
the values L = C = 0.4 with ZL=O [short
circuit] and Zt=lOO [open circuit]. The results shown in Figs. 4a and 4b clearly show
the expected behavior for the voltage waves.
In addition, the reflection of the current
waves using the circuit determined by Eqs.
5-7 for the same load impedances are shown
in Figs. 4c and 4d.
The effect of joining two transmission
lines of different characteristic impedances
together is shown in Figure 5. For this example, we increased the number of sections
to twenty in order to make the transmitted
and the reflected signals readily apparent;
The values L = C = 0.4 for j 513. The
propagation for the values L = 0.4 and C =
0.1 [Zc=2]for j > 13 is shown in Fig. 5a. The
propagation for the values L = 0.1 and C =
0.4 [Zc= 0.51 forj >13 is shown in Fig. 5b.
The load impedance, ZL, differs in the two
cases in order to match the lines f6r j > 13.
Both the reflected and transmitted waves at
the interface located at j = 13 can be folCircuits & Devices

3. Sirnulation of the propagation of a voltage pulse. (a)L = C = 0.2. (b)L = C = 0.4.

4. Simulation of reflection of incident pulses from a load impedance. The transmission line has the values L = C = 0.4. (a) Voltage pulse, ZL = 0. (b)
Voltage pulse, ZL = 100. (e) Current pulse, ZL = 0 (d) Current pulse, ZL = 100.

May 1996

13

5. Simulation of the reflection and transmission of an incident voltage pulse*om a transmission line of one impedance joined to another. The line is
twenty sections long. (a)Z, [ j C l 3 ] = I and ZC[j>I3]= 2. (b)Zc [ j s I 3 ] = I and& &-I31 = ID.

6. Simulation of the dispersion of a narrow voltage pulse.

lowed. Hence the reflection and t r a n s m i s sion coefficients can be computed. The velocities of propagation on either side of the
transition at j = 13 are different as can be
computed from Eq. 8.
In the data shown in Figs. 3 and 4, there
is a hint of higher frequency oscillations that
trail behind the main pulse. This suggests
that dispersion may be present determined
by wavelengths of the propagating wave
being of the same size as the section size. In
order to confirm the interpretation of dispersion, a very narrow pulse was used since the
14

7. Simulation of reflection of incidentpulses from a nonlinear load impedance. The transmission line has the values L = C = 0.2.

response of the transmission line that we are

examining to such a stimulus can be written
in terms of Airy functions [3]. High frequency oscillations trail behind a low frequency pulse in the Airy function. The
simulation that confirms this interpretation
is shown in Fig. 6.
As an example for a nonlinear load conductance, we chose
i = O.Oltanh(V)
(9)
The results of the Simulink simulation
are shown in Fig. 7. Other choices would, of
course, yield different results. In addition,

the source impedance could also be made

nonlinear.

Conclusion
Using the Simulink opbon of MATLAB, we
have demonstrated that transmssion lines
can be easily simulated The lines can be
made to be of any length, inhomogeneities
can be easily studied, and different linear or
nonlinear terminating elements can be examined. Effects of coupling between this
transmission line and other lines can also be
incorporated into the simulation. We believe
Circuits & Devices

that it has many design, research, and educational applications.

with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineenng, The University of Iowa

References
Ackno wledgrnent
This work was supported in part by the
National Science Foundation Grant #ECS
90-06921

Karl E Lonngren and Er-Wei Bai are

1 e g , R H Bishop,Modern Control Systems

Analysis and Design using MATLAB, AddisonWesley, Reading, Mass (1993)
e ,
Liboff
Dalman,

and K E Lonngren, A Transmission Line Simulator for High Speed Interconnects,IEEE Trans
actions on Circuits an Systems-II Analog and
Digital Signal Processing, Vol 39, 1992, pp
201-21
e g ICE
Hsuan,
Landt, et a1 , Properties of Plasma Waves Definedby the Dispersion Relation ,IEEE Trans-

m l ~ ~ lines,
i ~ nWaveguides, a& smith Charts,

On

P1asma Science, vO1 pS-2, 1974, PP

93-108
MacMillan, New York (1985), pp 25-66, S
Chowdhury,J S Barkatullah,D Zhou,E W B ~ I ,

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