ECE 1010 ECE Problem Solving I

Differential
Equations and
Lumped Element
Circuits

Introduction
Chapter 8 of the text discusses the numerical solution of ordinary
differential equations. Differential equations and in particular linear constant coefficient differential equations (LCCDEs), are
very important to electrical engineers. Electrical engineering
(EE) majors take an entire semester of differential equations.
First semester EE majors have had little or no exposure to differential equations. To motivate the future study of differential
equations this short overview chapter will describe how LCCDEs
appear in the solution of lumped element circuits problems.

The Time Domain Response of RLC Circuits

A lumped element circuit is composed of an interconnection
of resistors, capacitors, and inductors

Chapter 8: Introduction

81

ECE 1010 ECE Problem Solving I

vR ( t )
+
-

v R ( t ) = Ri R ( t )
iR ( t )

Inductor

1
i R ( t ) = ---v R ( t )
R
di L ( t )
v L ( t ) = L ------------dt
1- t
-v ( ) d
iL ( t ) =
L L

Capacitor

Resistor

The voltagecurrent terminal relationships for these elements

are shown below

dv C ( t )
i C ( t ) = C ---------------dt
1- t
--vC ( t ) =
i ( ) d
C C

+ vL ( t ) iL ( t )

+ vC ( t ) iC ( t )

When an RLC electrical network is configured to have a single input and single output (SISO)

x( t)

RLC
Network

voltage
(current)

Chapter 8: The Time Domain Response of RLC Circuits

y(t)
voltage
(current)

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ECE 1010 ECE Problem Solving I

Assuming the network is composed of n reactive elements,

that is the number of inductors plus the number of capacitors
is n, it can be shown that the output y ( t ) and input x ( t ) are
related via an nthorder LCCDE
n

n1

d y( t)
d
y( t)
a n --------------- + a n 1 ---------------------- + + a 0 y ( t )
n
n1
dt
dt
n

(8.1)

n1

d x(t)
d
x(t)
= b n --------------- + b n 1 ---------------------- + + b 0 x ( t )
n
n1
dt
dt
Example: An RLC lowpass filter
R
vi ( t ) +
-

i(t)

vo ( t )

Using the terminal relationships defined above we can write

that
di ( t ) 1
v i ( t ) = Ri ( t ) + L ----------- + ---C
dt

i ( ) d

(8.2)

Note that
dv o ( t )
i ( t ) = C -------------dt

Chapter 8: The Time Domain Response of RLC Circuits

(8.3)

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ECE 1010 ECE Problem Solving I

Following substitution of (8.3)into (8.2) we obtain

2

d vo ( t )
dv o ( t )
- + LC ----------------- + vo ( t )
v i ( t ) = RC -------------2
dt
dt

(8.4)

LCv o'' ( t ) + RCv o' ( t ) + v o ( t ) = v i ( t )

(8.5)

or

To solve (8.5) numerically we can use the MATLAB function

lsim(SYS,U,T) (control system toolbox, also in student
edition)
LSIM(SYS,U,T) plots the time response of the LTI system
SYS to the input signal described by U and T. The time
vector T consists of regularly spaced time samples and U
is a matrix with as many columns as inputs and whose ith row specifies the input value at time T(i).
For instance,
t = 0:0.01:5;
u = sin(t);
lsim(sys,u,t)
simulates the response of SYS to u(t) = sin(t) during 5
seconds.

The input SYS is a system object that can be created to correspond to (8.5) using the MATLAB function tf(b,a) (control system toolbox, also in student edition)
The vectors a and b are of the form
a = [an an-1 an-2 ... a0];
b = [bn bn-1 bn-2 ... b0];

For the RLC circuit considered here

a = [LC RC 1];
b = [1];

Chapter 8: The Time Domain Response of RLC Circuits

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ECE 1010 ECE Problem Solving I

The waveform in vector U can be any time varying function

represented in sampled form
Test inputs can be generated using the MATLAB function
GENSIG (control system toolbox, also in student edition)
GENSIG Periodic signal generator for time response simulations with LSIM.
[U,T] = GENSIG(TYPE,TAU) generates a scalar signal U
of class TYPE and period TAU. The following classes are
supported:
TYPE = 'sin'
--sine wave
TYPE = 'square'
--square wave
TYPE = 'pulse'
--periodic pulse
GENSIG returns a vector T of time samples and the vector
U of signal values at these samples. All generated signals have unit amplitude.
[U,T] = GENSIG(TYPE,TAU,TF,TS) further specifies the
time duration TF of the signal and the spacing TS of the
time samples in T.

Consider the system response for R = 1 ohm, L = 5 henries, and C = 3 farads

We will apply a squarewave with a 200 second period for 500
seconds
[u,t] = gensig('square',200,500,1);
R=1; L=5; C=3; lsim(tf([1],[C*L C*R 1]),u,t)
% A labeled output plot is automatically generated

Chapter 8: The Time Domain Response of RLC Circuits

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ECE 1010 ECE Problem Solving I

Linear Simulation Results

1.4

R=1; L=5; C=3

vo ( t )

1.2

Amplitude

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2

-0.4

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

Time (sec.)

By increasing the resistance the overshoot can be reduced,

but the risetime is increased

Chapter 8: The Time Domain Response of RLC Circuits

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ECE 1010 ECE Problem Solving I

Linear Simulation Results

1.2

vo ( t )

R=2; L=5; C=3

Amplitude

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

Time (sec.)

Chapter 8: The Time Domain Response of RLC Circuits

87