AC Amplitude Measurement
Earl Carlos C. Esguerra
Malayan Colleges Laguna
earl_ff@yahoo.com
1 ABSTRACT
AC (alternating current) signals have a time-
varying magnitude. Common AC signals in
electrical engineering are periodic oscillations
used for communications and electrical power
transmission. In such, AC signals vary with
time, engineers have developed a test
instrument called the oscilloscope that can
display AC signal measurements as a voltage
vs. time graph. Being able to use an
oscilloscope will help you make a DC voltage
measurement, and also to identify the properties
(amplitude, frequency, period and phase shift)
of AC waveforms.
2 KEYWORDS
ALTERNATING CURRENTFREQUENCY
OSCILLOSCOPE
PEAK
WAVEFORM
PEAK TO PEAK
3 INTRODUCTION
Signal generators are often designed to work
with certain load impedance. It is common for
signal generators to be programmable.
If the actual load differs from this nominal
value, the output voltage waveform would
differs from the one shown on the generator
display. Most often the difference would
be only in the amplitude of the voltage but it is
also possible to have distorted signal waveform.
Therefore, always rely on results of
measurements by a scope no matter what is
shown on the generator display. The signal
generator on the lab bench allows two settings
for the load impedance – a 50 ohms. For both
settings the generator internal impedance is the
same however in the first case the generator’s
open circuit voltage will be twice as large as the
value you set! The reason is that in order to
generate 1V on 50 Ω load with 50 Ω internal
impedance the generator must produce 2 V
internally. Once the actual load is much larger
than 50 Ω, the voltage across it would be 2 V
since generator would still be producing 2 V
internally. You can check
this argument yourself using simple circuit
composed of ideal voltage source and voltage
divider made of generator internal impedance
and actual load.
Figure 1. Block Diagram of a Basic Oscilloscope
4 RESULTS
In this experiment we explored the
characteristics of simple lowpass filters made
using one resistor and one capacitor. At low
frequencies, the capacitor will have sufficient
time to become charged with
one polarity as the current flows through the
circuit during one half cycle of the sinusoidal
input signal, and then discharged and recharged
in the opposite polarity during the next half
cycle. The output voltage
will therefore be about as large as the input
signal. But at very high frequencies, the period
of the input signal is so short that the capacitor
cannot charge or discharge before
the next cycle of the waveform. This means that
the output voltage amplitude is expected to
decrease as the input frequency increases.
Figure 2. Pulse where the Top and Bottom are Well
Defined
Peak-to-peak voltage of a waveform is either
one of these expressions of waveform
amplitude can be misleading when comparing
two different types of waves. For example, a
square wave peaking at 10 volts is obviously a
greater amount of voltage for a greater amount
of time than a triangle wave peaking at 10 volts.
The effects of these two AC voltages powering
a load would be quite different
Figure 2. Peak to Peak
Peak voltage of a waveform is another way is
to measure the total height between opposite
peaks. This is known as the peak-to-peak (P-P)
value of an AC waveform
Figure 3. Peak
5 CONCLUSION
Generally, the most important use of
oscilloscopes is in the observation of periodic
signals, repetitive waveforms can be viewed by
synchronizing the sweep generator with the
repetition rate of the input signal. This is
accomplished using a trigger generator which
starts the horizontal sweep when the input
signal exceeds an adjustable voltage threshold.
The trigger can be selected to occur for either a
positive or negative slope at the threshold
voltage. Thus, by adjusting the vertical gain,
trigger level, and the
sweep speed, time varying input signals can be
viewed directly as a voltage-vs.-time display.
6 REFERENCES
n.d. Retrieved from
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/text
book/alternating-current/chpt-
1/measurements-ac-magnitude/n.d.
Retrieved from
http://www.ece.sunysb.edu/~oe/Leon
/ESE211/Lab03.pdf
n.d. Retrieved from
http://www.montana.edu/rmaher/ee1
01/ecebot/fl07_notes/ee_101_lab03_
ac_F07.pdf