20.

309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement Laboratory Fall 2006

Homework #1 SOLUTIONS

Problem 1

Figure 1: Wheatstone bridge.

(a) Assuming R3 is set such that the bridge is balanced (i.e. Vab = 0), derive an analytical expression for
Rx in terms of R1 , R2 and R3 .
Since Vab = 0, Va and Vb must be equal. Using voltage divider relations gives:
µ ¶ µ ¶
R3 Rx
Va = Vin and Vb = Vin
R1 + R3 R2 + Rx
Setting these equal to each other and simplifying, we get
R1 R2 R2 R3
= , or Rx = .
R3 Rx R1
(b) . . . suppose that Rx varies in a way that makes Vab nonzero. Derive an expression for the dependence
of Vab on Rx .
µ ¶ · ¸
Rx R3 R1 Rx − R2 R3
Vab = Vb −Va = Vin − or, if you prefer: Vab = Vin
R2 + Rx R1 + R3 (R1 + R3 )(R2 + Rx )

Problem 2
In what range should the values of R1 , R2 and R3 be to make a sensitive measurement? Explain your
reasoning.
The aim here is to choose values for the Rs that will give the largest change in Vab for a small change in
Rx . Another way to say this is that if we plot the value of Vab as a function of Rx (the output characteristic),
we’d like that function to have a slope as steep as possible.
If we only consider the right-hand branch of the Bridge, ignoring the left, we have a voltage divider.
Several output curves for it are shown in Figure 2.
It turns out that not only is sensitivity (the line’s slope) an issue, but linearity is as well (“flatness” of
the output curve). It’s clear from the plot that there’s a trade-off between sensitivity and linearity. Higher
values of R2 give the most nearly constant slope, while greater sensitivity is available at lower values of R2 ,
but only for a small range of Rx values.
If we take the left branch of the bridge into account again (with R1 and R3 ) the node Va simply provides
a reference voltage to compare with Vb . Matching the two branches to one another is good practice, but if
this isn’t possible for some reason (e.g. if higher current is desired in one branch), then R3 must at least
have sufficient range to enable balancing the bridge for typical values of Rx .
Another consideration is the output and input resistance of the Wheatstone branches. E.g. the total
equivalent resistance of the Wheatstone network affects how much current drawn, and the power dissipated
by it. Also, if the signal voltages Va and Vb are to be fed into another signal processing stage, their equivalent
output impedance (R1 k R3 and R2 k Rx ) shouldn’t be too high.

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20.309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement Laboratory Fall 2006

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6
Vb/Vin (ratio)

0.5

0.4

0.3
R2=1kΩ
0.2 R2=2kΩ
R2=4kΩ
0.1 R2=7kΩ
R2=10kΩ
0
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Rx value (ohms)

Figure 2: A family of output characteristics, showing the dependence of Vb on Rx at several values of R2 .

In sum, to select good resistor values, it’s photodiode i−v characteristics

critical to know the full expected travel range 0.5
of Rx , as well as the full context in which the
circuit will be used. 0.4

Problem 3 0.3
current (amperes)

Figure 3 shows approximately what you 0.2

should have found, having taken current and
voltage measurements of a photodiode at sev- 0.1
eral different light levels. The topmost curve
(with a reverse current of nearly zero) shows 0
the diode with no light reaching it, and the
three curves below it show its behavior with −0.1
increasing light. Its salient behavior is that
in reverse bias, current is approximately in- −0.2
−5 −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1
dependent of voltage, and light produces in- diode voltage V (volts)
creased reverse current in proportion to inci- D

dent light power. If you’d like to understand

the physical origin of this behavior, take a Figure 3: Diode i − v curves (idealized sketches, not actual
look at the American Journal of Physics ar- data).
ticle referenced on the diode tutorial page of
the 20.309 site, or ask your lab instructor.

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20.309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement Laboratory Fall 2006

Problem 4
The plots and fit functions to all four unknown boxes are shown in Fig. 4. The only unusual one is box
“B”, having a double-pole low-pass filter (essentially two low-pass filters cascaded). Note its steeper rolloff
(40 dB/decade) than box “C”, the single-pole low-pass, with the normal 20 dB/decade roll-off.

box A (high−pass) box B (double−pole low−pass)

0 0
10 10
transfer function (Vout/Vin)

/V )
in
out
−1 −1

transfer function (V
10 10

−2 −2
10 10

−3 −3
10 10
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
freq (Hz) freq (Hz)

box C (low−pass) box D (band−pass)

0 0
10 10
transfer function (Vout/Vin)

/V )
in
out

−1 −1
transfer function (V

10 10

−2 −2
10 10

−3 −3
10 10
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
freq (Hz) freq (Hz)

Figure 4: The transfer functions, and corresponding fits of the four “black boxes”.

A typical function to fit to this data appears as follows:

function output = hpfilter(RCs, x)
cap = RCs(1);
res = RCs(2);
output = 1./((x.*cap.*res).^2+1).^(.5);
This is invoked by using
Fit = lsqcurvefit(@hpfilter, [10e-6 100], freq, outputNorm);
where 10−6 and 100 are initial guesses for the capacitor and resistor values, respectively, freq is the vector of
frequency values, and outputNorm is the vector of amplitude values. Note that the fit will not return unique
values of R and C for these circuits, since this problem is actually under-constrained, and many different
R and C combinations can produce the correct corner frequencies for each plot (the correct values can’t be
determined without additional information).

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20.309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement Laboratory Fall 2006

Problem 5

What value of RL (in terms of R1 and R2 ) will result in the maximum power being dissipated in the load?
We know from Thevenin’s theorem, that we can represent the circuit above as a simpler one:

In this circuit, the voltage passed to the load is Vout = VT RL /(RT + RL ) – yet another simple divider
2
relation. Power through the load resistor is given by p = Vout /RL , so we get

RL
p = VT2 · .
(RT + RL )2

Now it’s just a classic local maximum problem from basic calculus – we differentiate (quotient rule!) and
set the result equal to zero:

dp (RT + RL )2 − 2RL (RT + RL )

= VT2 · =0.
dRL (RT + RL )4

A little simplifying yields RL = RT .

The value of RT is just the parallel combination of R1 and R2 from the original circuit, so maximum
power transfer happens when the load resistance is equal to the equivalent output resistance
of the source:
R1 R2
RL = .
R1 + R2
(Note that when dealing with instrument signals, we’re almost never interested in maximum power
transfer, but rather maximum voltage transfer, which is why it’s rarely the case that load and source
resistances are matched.)

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20.309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement Laboratory Fall 2006

Problem 6
(a) Determine an expression for the output voltage of the circuit with respect to a DC current input.
Express your answer in Vout /iin .
We can start by labeling the currents through the three resistors i1 , i2 , and i3 , and labeling as x the
node to which all three resistors connect, with voltage Vx (see Fig. 5).

Figure 5: The circuit for Problem 6(a) with currents labelled.

We now apply the “golden rules” of op-amps, and a few simple circuit laws to write down some
expressions:

• Since the voltages at the op-amp’s inputs will be kept equal, its (–) input is at ground potential,
because the (+) is grounded. Also, because the op-amp inputs draw no current, all of iin passes
through R1 , and is therefore equal to i1 .
• By Ohm’s Law, Vx = −i1 R1 (the negative sign reflects the direction of the arrow we drew, relative
to the label Vx ). Likewise, by Ohm’s Law, Vx = i2 R2 and Vx − Vout = i3 R3 .
• For the three currents into/out of node x, Kirchhoff’s Current Law (KCL) requires that i1 − i2 −
i3 = 0 (i1 is positive, since it’s going into the node, as drawn in Fig. 5, and i2 and i3 both flow
out of the node, so they are negative), and substituting for the currents, we have

Vx (Vx − Vout )
iin − − =0.
R2 R3

Then, substituting for Vx , we get

iin R1 (Vout + iin R1 )

iin + + =0,
R2 R3

and a little more algebra yields

µ ¶
Vout R1 R3
= − R1 + R3 + .
iin R2

A few things to note: (1) This is an inverting configuration, meaning that the output signal is the
negative of the input. (2) The purpose of this circuit is to enable a very high transimpedance gain
without using unreasonably large resistors – to do this, we would choose large values for R1 and R3 ,
and a small value for R2 (e.g. R1 = R3 = 100 kΩ, and R2 = 100 Ω giving a gain of ≈ 108 V/A). In
fact, if the resistors are chosen this way, the first two terms are much smaller than the third and can
be neglected, giving simply

Vout R1 R3
=− .
iin R2

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20.309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement Laboratory Fall 2006

(b) Since this is such a high-gain circuit, it can be quite noisy, if the input current iin experiences high-
frequency fluctuations. You can insert a capacitor across one of the resistors to reduce the noise (i.e.
make a low-pass filter to eliminate high-frequency content). Where would you insert it, and how would
you choose its size?
Our aim here is to achieve a low-pass filter configuration. This turns out to be a non-trivial problem,
so we will deal with approximate approaches first:

• One way to think about this is to simply insert the R k C combination for any of the three resistors
in the simplified expression for Vout /iin above, and examine the resulting function (as part (c)
of this question suggests). The impedance of the R k C combination is ZRC = R/(1 + jωRC),
which gives a low-pass-type function only when substituted for R1 or R3 , but not R2 .
In the case of R1 we get

Vout R1 R3
=− ,
iin R2 + jωR1 R2 C

whereas in the case of R2 , the result is

Vout R1 R3 + jωR1 R2 R3 C
=− .
iin R2

Thus, one possible capacitor placement is shown in Figure 6, with the capacitor across R1 .

Figure 6: One possible capacitor placement.

• Another approach is to ask - where can we insert a capacitor in the circuit such that at high-
frequency, when it behaves as a short-circuit, it “shorts” the output to ground? The best con-
figuration is shown in Figure 7, with the capacitor across R1 and R3 . We analyze this in detail
below.

Figure 7: Best capacitor placement.

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20.309: Biological Instrumentation and Measurement Laboratory Fall 2006

(c) Now write down the expression for this new circuit’s output with respect to the current input for AC
signals (Hint: in the expression from part (a), substitute the parallel combination Rx k C for the
resistor Rx that you chose).
We have already seen the simple case, if we do not consider the full Vout /iin expression. You were
not expected to do more than this for your homework. For completeness, let’s examine the two cases
shown in Figures 6 and 7 above.

• For Figure 6, KCL at the op-amp (–) input node gives us iin = iC + i1 and KCL at node x gives
iC + i1 = i2 + i3 . Using the impedance model, we write iC = −Vx /ZC = −Vx jωC and we already
know that i1 = −Vx /R1 , i2 = Vx /R2 , and i3 = (Vx − Vout )/R3 .
Substituting these various currents into the node x KCL equation, we get
Vx Vx Vx − Vout
− − Vx jωC = +
R1 R2 R3

Then, combining the expressions for iC and i1 and the (–) node KCL expression, we can write

iin R1
Vx = − .
1 + jωR1 C

Finally, inserting Vx into the previous equation, and crunching through the rearrangements, we
get

Vout R1 R3 + R2 R3 + R1 R2 + jωR1 R2 R3 C
=−
iin R2 (1 + jωR1 C)

This rather unattractive result has one good feature, which is that at DC (ω → 0) we recover the
result from part (a). At high frequency (ω → ∞), however, the gain simply becomes equal to R3
– a reduction from R1 R3 /R2 , but hardly a good low-pass filter.
• For Figure 7, we again have KCL at the (–) input node of the op-amp giving iin = iC + i1 , and
KCL at node x providing i1 = i2 + i3 . As before, we write the various expressions for branch
currents: iC = −Vout jωC, i1 = −Vx /R1 , i2 = Vx /R2 , and i3 = (Vx − Vout )/R3 .
Combining i1 and iC , and solving for Vx , we get Vx = −iin R1 − Vout jωR1 C. Again substituting
the currents, as well as the Vx expression into our KCL equation for node x, then doing some
rearrangement, we finally obtain:

Vout R1 R3 + R2 R3 + R1 R2
=−
iin R2 + jωC(R1 R2 + R1 R3 + R2 R3 )

This expression does have the usual low-pass filter form, and has the behavior we’re looking for.
At DC, the same expression from part (a) is recovered, and at high ω, the gain goes to 0.
Choosing the appropriate corner frequency for this circuit is quite tricky analytically, so we will
limit ourselves to saying that we’d like to cut out noise at 60 Hz, so choosing a sufficiently large
capacitor to place the corner frequency below this should not be difficult (especially given the
large resistors used).