Waveform Generation Tutorial
Attributes of AC Signals
The most common AC signal is a sine wave. In fact, any periodic signal can be represented as the sum of different sine
waves. The magnitude of a sine wave is usually specified by its peak, peak-to-peak, or root-mean- square (RMS) value.
All of these measures assume that the waveform has zero offset voltage.
A waveform's peak voltage is the maximum absolute value of all of its points. The peak-to-peak voltage is the difference
between the maximum and minimum. The RMS voltage equals the standard deviation of all waveform points; it also
represents the one-cycle average power in the signal, minus the power in any DC component of the signal. Crest factor
is the ratio of a signal’s peak value to its RMS value and varies according to waveshape. The table below shows several
common waveforms with their respective crest factors and RMS values.
146 Agilent 33500 Series Operating and Service Guide
To Next Page
Loading...
