632 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 60, NO.

3, MARCH 2012

Letters
Comments on “Theoretical and Experimental Study
of a New Class of Reflectionless Filter”
S. C. Dutta Roy

Abstract—These comments are intended to supplement the work on the

new class of reflectionless filters, reported by Morgan and Boyd, by pro-
viding some additional results useful for the design of the new filter. Only
the case of a low-pass filter (LPF) is considered, as the other types can be
obtained by frequency transformation of the LPF. An alternative realiza-
tion of the basic LPF transfer function, which requires less than half the
number of components, is also presented. However, it does not have the
constant resistance feature; it will therefore be useful as the first stage in a Fig. 1. Basic reflectionless LPF. Each unmarked inductance is of value .
cascade in a situation where frequency response is of primary importance,
not matching.
Index Terms—Constant resistance filters, filter design, network syn-
thesis, reflectionless filters.

I. INTRODUCTION
These comments are intended to supplement the work of Morgan and
Boyd [1] on the new class of reflectionless filters (also known as con- Fig. 2. is the circuit of Fig. 1.
stant resistance filters in network theory literature [2]), by providing
some additional results, which will be useful for the design of such
filters. Only the low-pass filter (LPF) is considered here, as the other
imum of the magnitude of (1), henceforth denoted by , occurs at
types can be obtained by frequency transformation of the LPF. Also
and has a value of , which limits the stopband rejection
presented is a simple circuit for realizing the transfer function of the
to dB. Due to the constant resistance feature, in
basic LPF, which uses less than half the number of components as com-
Fig. 2 can be replaced by another terminated in , and the process
pared to that of [1]. However, this alternative circuit does not have the
can be repeated, without loading of the preceding section by the suc-
constant resistance feature. It can therefore be used as the first stage in
ceeding one.
a cascade in situations where frequency response is the primary con-
If such sections are cascaded, the stopband rejection is increased
cern, and not matching at the input and output.
to dB. In the process, however, the passband shrinks. The 3-dB
II. BASIC REFLECTIONLESS LPF bandwidth for an section cascade is obtained by solving for in the
equation
The basic reflectionless LPF is shown in Fig. 1 with the element
values [1]: and , where is the frequency (2)
at which the scattering parameter ( because of symmetry),
which, in network theory terminology, is the voltage transfer function From (1), we get
from port 1 to port 2 in Fig. 2, vanishes. The parameters
are identically zero, which in network theory terminology, (3)
means that the input and output impedances are both when the other
port is terminated in (hence the name, constant resistance filter). Using and , and simplifying the denominator
Using the normalized frequency , the parameter, or in (3), it can be shown that
equivalently, the voltage transfer function in Fig. 2, is given by
(4)
(1)
where

III. ADDITIONAL RESULTS (5)

All the additional results presented in this letter, leading to a design
procedure, are based on (1). As mentioned in [1], the stopband max- A critical examination of will reveal all the features of the
magnitude function. For example, the extrema of shall occur when
Manuscript received November 08, 2011; accepted November 28, 2011. Date , which gives, on simplification,
of publication January 16, 2012; date of current version March 02, 2012.
The authors was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Insti- (6)
tute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi 110 016, India. He resides in New
Delhi 110 016, India (e-mail: s.c.dutta.roy@gmail.com). Thus, the extrema points of are and , the corresponding
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2011.2180921 values being 1 (maximum at ); 0 (minimum at ), and

0018-9480/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE

ROY: COMMENTS ON “THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF A NEW CLASS OF REFLECTIONLESS FILTER” 633

(maximum at , as already mentioned in [1]). Also,

from (4) and (5), it is obvious that tends to zero as . It
is therefore concluded that the magnitude monotonically decreases in
the passband and has a maximum in the stopband, which limits the
stopband rejection.
From (4) and (5), it can be shown that the 3-dB bandwidth of the
section cascade, is given by the solution of the cubic
equation Fig. 3. Alternative realization of (1).

(7)

This equation has been solved by the method of [3] and the results for and
the first four values of are as follows:
(13)
(8)

The maximum stopband rejection, as stated earlier, is limited to so that

, equivalent to dB. For all values of , the stopband
starts at the same frequency , where , it can be shown, (14)
satisfies the equation , which, on simplification, gives
The network realization is now simple and is shown in Fig. 3. The
(9) actual network elements can be easily obtained by a standard denor-
malization procedure.
As already mentioned, corresponds to the maximum of in It must be noted that this two-port is not matched at either port.
the stopband. Hence, or, . However, if the frequency response is the primary concern, and not
the matching, then this network can be used as the first stage in a cas-
IV. DESIGN PROCEDURE cade and the load resistance can be replaced by a reflectionless filter of
The design procedure can now be simply formulated. If the min- [1] or a chain of them.
imum stopband rejection is specified as dB, then the number of sec-
tions required would be ; if this is not an integer, as is most
VI. CONCLUSION
likely to be the case, the integer closest to but greater than is
to be taken as the value of . Once is known, is determined from Some additional results are derived for reflectionless filters of [1],
the specified 3-dB bandwidth as . Given the impedance which should be useful for the design of such filters. Since the fre-
level , the values of and can then be determined. A weakness of quency response of these filters has some advantages over the compa-
this design is that there is no control over the edge of the stopband; it rable conventional Chebyshev and Butterworth filters [1], an alterna-
is fixed at . tive economic realization of the basic transfer function is given, which
can be used as the first section in a cascade when frequency response
V. ALTERNATIVE REALIZATION OF THE TRANSFER FUNCTION (1) is of primary concern, and not matching.
In the -domain, the transfer function (1) can be written as
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
(10)
The author thanks Dr. M. A. Morgan for helpful e-mail discussions
and Dr. S. D. Roy for his help in preparing this letter.
Referring to Fig. 2 and taking , one can write

(11) REFERENCES
[1] M. A. Morgan and T. A. Boyd, “Theoretical and experimental study of
where the -parameters refer to the two-port . Comparing (10) and a new class of reflectionless filter,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech.,
(11), standard network synthesis procedure dictates that vol. 59, no. 5, pp. 1214–1221, May 2011.
[2] F. F. Kuo, Network Analysis and Synthesis. New York: Wiley, 1966.
[3] S. C. D. Roy, “On the solution of quartic and cubic equations,” IETE
(12) J. Educ., vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 91–95, Apr.–Jun. 2006.