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Lecture

Comparator Circuits

In course

ME-412: Experimental methods in engineering mechanics

This course gives an advanced treatment of experimental methods in the context of mechanics by way of example. Students will construct significant components of experimental apparatus, use their apparatus to collect data, interpret the resulting data, and ...

Description

This lecture delves into the behavior of comparator circuits, exploring the emergence of noise in the output and the introduction of hysteresis to mitigate issues. It also covers the construction of oscillators using state-switching techniques and the design of a Wien Bridge circuit for sinusoidal oscillations.

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Instructor

John Martin Kolinski

Dr. Kolinski studied Applied Mathematics (Sc.M.) and Applied Physics (Ph.D.) at Harvard University, completing a PhD under the supervision of L. Mahadevan and Shmuel Rubinstein on the role of air in droplet impact. John did his post-doc at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel supported by the Fulbright post-doctoral fellowship. At HUJI, he worked on interfacial instabilities in soft matter in the labs of Eran Sharon and Jay Fineberg. John continues his research into interfacial mechanics at EPFL in EMSI, his newly founded laboratory for the study of Engineering Mechanics of Soft Interfaces.

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Related concepts (32)

Feedback

Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems: Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument.

Positive feedback

Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in the magnitude of the perturbation. That is, A produces more of B which in turn produces more of A. In contrast, a system in which the results of a change act to reduce or counteract it has negative feedback. Both concepts play an important role in science and engineering, including biology, chemistry, and cybernetics.

Relaxation oscillator

In electronics a relaxation oscillator is a nonlinear electronic oscillator circuit that produces a nonsinusoidal repetitive output signal, such as a triangle wave or square wave. The circuit consists of a feedback loop containing a switching device such as a transistor, comparator, relay, op amp, or a negative resistance device like a tunnel diode, that repetitively charges a capacitor or inductor through a resistance until it reaches a threshold level, then discharges it again.

Schmitt trigger

In electronics, a Schmitt trigger is a comparator circuit with hysteresis implemented by applying positive feedback to the noninverting input of a comparator or differential amplifier. It is an active circuit which converts an analog input signal to a digital output signal. The circuit is named a trigger because the output retains its value until the input changes sufficiently to trigger a change. In the non-inverting configuration, when the input is higher than a chosen threshold, the output is high.

Oscillation

Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum and alternating current. Oscillations can be used in physics to approximate complex interactions, such as those between atoms.

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