In control loop analysis a phase detector for a PLL can be modelled as an integrator with gain; it has a pole frequency of zero Hz with some gain figure at DC. This characteristic is implicit in the conversion from frequency to phase.
As a negative feedback system, the PLL control loop has an implicit 180 degrees of phase inversion. The phase detector, being an integrator, therefore contributes an additional 90 degrees of phase shift, leaving the designer with 90 degrees of phase margin before having to consider the loop filter.
There are two basic approaches to the necessary loop filter of a PLL. The most basic is a single pole low pass filter. The pole frequency of the filter must be set sufficiently high so that its phase contribution cannot accumulate to the full 90 degrees prior to the unity loop gain intercept frequency of the closed control loop. If the pole frequency is set too low, the total phase shift around the loop will come too close to 360 degrees, making control loop oscillation inevitable.
It is for this reason the simple single pole filter generally offers poor performance. If the designer naively sets the pole frequency too low in the hope to adequately suppress the crap coming from his phase detector, he unwittingly uses up his available phase margin and winds up with an oscillating control loop.
The second most basic approach to loop filter design is a low pass with a zero. This is typically a basic RC filter with a resistor in series with the capacitor, thus providing the zero frequency. With this kind of filter, the pole frequency can be set much lower, affording better suppression of switching artefacts from the phase detector. In this design case the full 360 degrees of phase shift can be allowed to accumulate prior to the unity loop gain intercept frequency, so long as the zero frequency is set sufficiently low such that the total phase shift is throttled back a sufficient degree, yielding a satisfactory phase margin prior to the intercept. Such control loop dynamics are analogous to two-pole compensation in linear amplifier design.
Anyone who has done any serious control loop analysis and design for phase locked loops, and has juggled the above mentioned pole and zero parameters for the most optimal overall performance, will be painfully aware of the limitations imposed by that necessary zero.
No matter low much one tries to lower the pole frequency in a trade off between transient response and the suppression of phase detector artefacts, the resultant zero frequency that is necessary to return an acceptable phase margin delivers an intractable plateau to the ultimate attenuation afforded by the loop filter.
I have a PLL application where loop settling time isn’t particularly important, but sideband and spurious PLL artefact performance is. Tradition PLL techniques will not do.
My idea is eliminate the phase detector by using a proportional frequency detector. This will essentially be a frequency counter coupled to a high resolution DAC. The frequency detector will generate an output voltage that is directly proportional to the frequency difference between its two inputs (f ref and F vco). Just for crude example; -12mV DC if the frequency difference is -12Hz and +213mV DC if the frequency difference is +213Hz.
A “frequency detector” along these lines is insensitive to phase, and, unlike the traditional phase detector, does not have the implicit transfer characteristic of an integrator. This is the whole idea. It opens up a great deal of design freedom as the loop phase shift prior to applying the loop filter is just the implicit 180 degrees, rather than 270 degrees. With the need for a compensatory zero eliminated, this means that loop filter can just be either a single pole low pass filter or an integrator. The loop filter provides dominant pole compensation and the pole frequency can be set arbitrarily low, without limitation.
Switching artefacts from the frequency detectors DAC can therefore be reduced to virtually any arbitrarily low level; the only trade off to the degree of attenuation to control loop spurs being control loop settling time.
Such a system would not be “phase locked” but rather “frequency locked”, and more analogous in its fundamental operation to a basic servo control loop rather than a traditional PLL.
For my application this appears a fundamentally sound solution, but I can’t imagine that no one else has considered concept already. Can anyone cite any prior art, control theory analysis or real world applications?