M.Sc. dissertation presented: Victor Preuss
A software package for the steady-state simulation of autonomous circuits using the harmonic balance method.
The main goal of this work is the development of an open-source software package for steady-state simulation of autonomous circuits using the Harmonic Balance method. Oscillators are autonomous circuits of great interest in radiofrequency applications and a main component of transceivers. The periodic steady-state response of an oscillator is very important to designers, to verify parameters such as oscillating frequency, output power and power consumption. Transient simulations are not efficient to evaluate the periodic steady-state of an oscillator, as a large amount of computation is wasted during the initial startup period. The alternative explored in this work is the usage of the Harmonic Balance method with the Auxiliary Generator Technique to solve directly for the steady-state response of oscillators. To achieve that, a full circuit simulation engine was implemented in the Python programming language, with support to DC, AC, transient and harmonic balance analysis. The circuit netlists are described in code using a simple API. Several device models are available for simulation, such as RLC elements, current and voltage sources, Diode, BJT and MOSFET. Multiple examples are presented and the simulation results are compared to commercial engines to validate the implementations. Advantages of simulating circuits inside a Python environment are presented, involving easiness of data-processing and integration with other libraries
