subject: What Is Cut Off Frequency? [print this page] What Is Cut Off Frequency? What Is Cut Off Frequency?
Cutoff Frequency is one of the most common terms used in physical and electrical engineering. The cutoff frequency is the frequency level at which the system stop to perform effectively and causes it to shut down of cut off. This occurs due to the reduction in the flow of energy through the device making the device components unable to response efficiently.
Cutoff frequency, sometimes also known as break frequency or corner frequency is a boundary level of frequency at which system unable to receive sufficient energy flow. Due to this lack of energy, the system stops working, as desired.
Applications of Cutoff Frequency
Cutoff frequency is a major characteristic of communication channels and filtering devices. Communication channels phenomenon is based on various frequencies that ranges from pre-set lower value to higher value. The frequency of send and receive signals, through the communication channel transmitter, should lies within this range. If the frequency does not lie in this range, the signals become weak and many times ineffectual.
Another common example of cutoff frequency that we usually observe is in our television. You must have observed many times that the picture of television is intermittent or there is a distortion in the quality. This happens when the transmission frequency of television goes beyond the bandwidth of cutoff frequency. Similar, is the case with audio frequencies in radio channels. In both cases, you adjust the frequency range for the antenna in order to minimize the cutoff frequency range and accommodating a wider bandwidth.
In case of filtering devices such as low-pass filter, high-pass filter and bandwidth filter, cutoff frequency comes into picture. A Low-pass filter allows all the frequencies that lie below the cutoff value and a high-pass filter allows all the frequencies that lie above the cutoff value. The bandwidth filter allows only that frequency that lies within the bandwidth range. This range defines the cutoff range for bandwidth filter.
There are certain devices where the cutoff frequency is that range at which the system will cease at all. Once that the system achieves that threshold value, even if the system is receiving power flow, it will not respond.
Improving Transmission Quality by Using National Standards
Well-developed countries across the world have defined National standards for transmission to minimize the issues. Defining standards has given a certain degree of uniformity for radio, TV and other communication and broadcasting devices.
