148

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 37. NO. I. MARCH 1988

Since in the power system the frequency is maintained to within k

1 percent of its nominal value this circuit is well suited for these
applications.

IV. CONCLUSION
A very simple frequency-deviation measuring instrument that
works on the principle of a two-arm bridge is described. The circuit
was fabricated and tested in the laboratory. The results indicate
good linearity between frequency deviation and voltage or pulse
count over the normal range of power system frequencies.
The same instrument along with a variable frequency supply can
also be used to measure a capacitance or a resistance.

Zero crossing
dercctor

REFERENCES
[ I ] 0. W. Hanson, C. J. Goodwin, and P. L. Dandeno, Influence of
excitation and speed control parameters in stabilizing intersystem oscillation, IEEE Trans. Power App. System, vol. PAS-87, pp. 1426-

0 (High)
I (Low)

1434; June 1968.

[2] R . M. Shier and A. L. Blythe, Field tests of dynamic stability using
a stabilizing signal and computer program verification, IEEE Trans.
Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-87, pp. 315-322; Feb. 1968.
[3] F. W. Keay and W. H.South, Design of a power system stabilizer
sensing frequency deviation, IEEE Trans. Power App. Sysr., vol PAS90, pp.707-712, Mar./Apr. 1971.
[4] H. E. Lokay and V. Burtnyk, Applicaton of underfrequency relays
for automatic load shedding, IEEE Trans. Power App. Sysr., vol.
PAS-87, Mar. 1968.
[5] S. H. Honrowitz, A. Politis, and A. F. Gabrielle, Frequency actuated
load shedding and restoration Part 11: Implementation, IEEE Trans.
Power App. Sysr., vol. PAS-90, pp. 1460-1468, JulylAug. 1971.
[6] T. Kasparis, N. C. Voulgaris, and C. C. Halkias, A method for the
precise measurement of the difference between two low frequencies,
IEEE Trans. Insrrum. Mens., vol. IM-34, pp. 95-96, Mar. 1985.

Fig. 1. The electronic bridge.

Linear Voltage Controlled Oscillator

SISIR K. SAHA

Time

LAKHMI C. JAIN

_.c

wulll

Time

IlUl

(A.8.C

Time

Abstract-This paper describes a new sinusoidal oscillator whose

frequency of oscillation can be controlled by a controlling voltage. The
circuit gives ultra-low distortion and stable output by virtue,of an automatic gain control (AGC) loop. The oscillator is useful for the VLF
(3-30 kHz) and LF (30 kHz-300 kHz) ranges of operation.

(X.6.C)

Fig. 2. Signal waveforms.

degrees (frequency < 50 Hz), the leading edge of X co_mes earlier

than B and flip-flop will indicate one. Therefore when X is one the
signal E is connected to the up terminal and D to the down terminal. The various waveforms are shown in Fig. 2.
If an analog output is required, the bridge circuit without highfrequency signal C c a n be used. The output D ( A . B ) and E ( A . B )
can be filtered using a low-pass filter and the difference voltage
amplified and measured.
The circuit as shown in Fig. 1 was fabricated in the laboratory.
The results showed a linear relationship between frequency deviation and pulse count in the frequency range of 45-55 Hz, for nominal frequency of 50 Hz. For high-frequency clock ( C ) of 1 MHz,
the relationship between the pulse count and the frequency deviation is given by f = 50 f C ( a PC * ) where C is the pulse count
andfthe actual frequency, a = 3.9 X
and = 2.38 X lo-.

AND

I. INTRODUCTION
Sinusoidal oscillators play a very important role in most of the
existing electronic systems. These oscillators are widely used in a
variety of fields, i.e., in instrumentation, control systems, etc.
There are many oscillator circuits reported in the literature [ 11-[5].
A simple bridge oscillator [5] uses one operational amplifier in conjunction with two capacitors, of which one is grounded. Although
these networks are simple, the approach can be troublesome if a
very large time period is needed.
This paper presents a novel oscillator circuit whose frequency
of oscillation is scaled by resistance ratios and a controlling voltage
V , such that the frequency of oscillation bears a linear relation with
Manuscript received August 13, 1986; revised September 14, 1987.
S. K. Saha is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, College of
Technology, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pant-

nagor, U.P., 263145, India.

L. C. Jain is with the School of Electronic Engineering, South Australian Institute of Technology, Adelaide, Australia.
IEEE Log Number 8718459.

0018-9456/88/0300-0148$01
.OO 0 1988 IEEE

149

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION A N D MEASUREMENT. VOL. 37, NO. I . MARCH 1988

11-4Fig. 1. Basic configuration.

Rd

m
Rc
W V

"i

Fig. 2. RC implementation of the basic configuration.

Vr The circuit uses all grounded capacitors. The grounded capacitors are suitable for large scale integration.
The Intersil 8038 integrated function generator is useful for realizing voltage controlled oscillators with sinewave output because
of its wide sweep capability; but, because of the limitations of the
8038's integrated current source, its frequency versus voltage characteristic is nonlinear over a considerable period of the sweep range.
VCO's based on field effect transistors also suffer from harmonic
distortion and nonlinearity in voltage-to-frequency conversion inherent in field effect transistors.
The circuit presented here is a linear voltage-to-frequency converter with sinewave output. The circuit is realized with operational amplifiers and four quadrant analog multipliers in conjunction with an RC network of which all capacitors are grounded. The
positive and negative feedback paths of the basic configuration are
carefully balanced to attain and sustain low distortion operation.
The balance is achieved by use of an automatic gain control (AGC)
arrangement. Here, the mechanism is an analog multiplier (AM)
which maintains desired gain to constrain the natural frequencies
of the circuit on the imaginary axis of the complex frequency plane
(s-plane).
The present approach is different from that reported by Saha [5]
where a scaled-resistance element is used to realize a condition for
the frequency of oscillation.

11. BASICCONFIGURATION
Consider the feedback configuration of Fig. 1 which yields the
following transfer function:
Vo(S)
- -

v:(s)

kl k2

S2TlT2- S [ m 1 T 2- m2T2]

+ klk2Q

'

(1)

For self-oscillation, it is required that

v,=o
ml
The frequency of oscillation is

m2.

$e.
7

wo =

(3)

The basic configuration is implemented as shown in Fig. 2 . Here,

k, =

OLI

VT( 1

k2 = a2VT(1

ml =

+ R;/Rl)
+ Ri/R2)

%VxRo(Rc + R f )
RC(&

+ Rb)

= Rf/Rd
m2 =

Rf/Rc

(4)

where a I , a2, and cq are the gain constants of A M I , AM2, and

AM,, respectively. Fig. 2 involves three operational amplifiers
O A l , OA2, and OA3, and three analog multipliers A M I , AM2,
and AM3. Thus,

(5)

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION A N D MEASUREMENT, VOL. 37, NO. I , MARCH 1988

150

k+
AiOA

u-q>?--flC

15v

Fig. 3. Oscillator with AGC loop.

TABLE I
PERFORMANCE
OF THE OSCILLATOR

V-(Volts)

0.5

1.0

2.0

2.5

31831

63662

7957%

0.0

0.0

Frequency HZ

15915

Amplitude
Variation ( d B )

-0.6

111. OSCILLATOR
WITHAGC LOOP

The oscillator with its AGC loop is shown in Fig. 3. As in other

sinewave oscillators, the positive and negative feedback paths must
be carefully balanced to attain and sustain low-distortion operation.
The balancing is achieved by use of an automatic gain control; in
this circuit the mechanism is an analog multiplier ( A M 3 ) .
The AGC circuit itself comprises an active loop that serves several important purposes. The integrator OA4 filters and smooths
the rectified output to provide a dc control voltage VI for the input
to A M 3 . Low ripple on the control voltage is necessary to prevent
intermodulation distortion on the output. The high dc gain of the
integrator automatically adjusts the loop to the required dc input
for AM3 in spite of parameter variations. The output voltage is
regulated to a value that causes the average current in R I 2to equal
that in R I 3 .Thus RI3 and - 15 V serve as reference. The AGC loop
tracks this reference to maintain the output peak voltage at about
10 V, and the distortion in the output is considerably less. A prototype of this circuit uses 741 operational amplifiers and XR2208
analog multipliers. Vr was varied and frequency was measured at
different values of VP The performance of the oscillator is shown
in Table I.

IV. CONCLUSION
This paper describes a sinusoidal oscillator whose frequency of
oscillation bears a linear relation with the controlling voltage VP
If the circuit is fabricated in IC technology, the frequency of os-

-Os5

cillation can be made stable over a wide temperature range. The

automatic gain (AGC) loop is incorporated in the basic configuration for amplitude stabilization. The circuit is suitable where good
amplitude stability is required. Its use of grounded capacitors makes
it suitable for IC implementation for frequencies in the VLF and
L F ranges.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful
comments.

REFERENCES
[I] W . G. Howard and D. 0. Pederson, Integrated voltage controlled
oscillators, in Proc. Nut. Electron. Cant. vol. 23, pp. 279-284,
1967.
[2] Y. Sun, Generation of sinusoidal voltage (current) controlled oscillator for integrated circuits, IEEE Trans. Circuit Theoql, vol. CT19, pp. 137-141, Mar. 1972.
[3] R. S. Sidorwisz, An abundance of sinusoidal RC oscillator, in Proc.
Inst. Elec. Eng., vol. 19, pp. 279-301, May 1972.
[4] S . K . Saha, Electronically tunable RC sinusoidal oscillator, IEEE
Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. IM-24, pp. 156-159, June 1975.
[5] J . D. Ryder, Electronic Fundamentals and Applications. India Prentice-Hall, 1976.
[6] S . K . Saha, Linear VCO with sine wave output, IEEE Trany. Instrum. Meas., vol. IM-35,no. 2, pp. 152-155. June 1986.