Can two signals of different frequencies be in phase?

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
Can two signals of different frequencies be in phase?

Hi there,

The actual answer to this depends HIGHLY on the application, in fact, very highly, because in some applications a particular set of two frequencies would be considered 'in phase' when in other applications those same two frequencies would be consider VERY out of phase.

You've already seen several examples of applications where two frequencies can be said to be 'in phase', like music, harmonics, etc. Harmonics are often given a phase relationship to the fundamental, and sometimes it happens to be zero degrees while other times it may be different but constant. This means a frequency 2 times the first frequency could be called in phase and be perfectly descriptive. i am not so sure that "in phase" is the best way to describe this though, i would say the "same phase" is a better way to put it, or just describe them as both being at 0 degrees or whatever. Saying "in phase" might imply that they are of the same frequency.

An application that does not follow this rule though is for example a phase locked loop, In a phase locked loop, if the reference frequency is half of the target feedback frequency, even if they have some zero crossings in sync, the second frequency would be called very out of phase. It's only when it is brought up (or down) to the correct frequency can it be really in phase and then the loop locks. If the reference frequency is half or two times the feedback frequency the loop never locks properly.

Of course another example where we need the same frequency is in a three phase power system, where if phase A is called zero degrees and phase B has every other zero crossing synced to phase A but is twice the frequency, you better have some fuses on hand :)

So to be accurate, you have to specify the application as well as the type of waves themselves.
 
Last edited:

BR-549

Joined Sep 22, 2013
4,928
As MrAL said, it depends on how you qualify phase. Can I and Q signals be considered in phase?

One signal always starts when another is 15 degrees ahead of it. Are they in phase?

Two signals....same frequency and both start at zero. One has amplitude of 5 and the other 10, are they in phase?

Is the second harmonic in phase, or in double phase?

And all cars travel at the same speed. They just have different wiper speeds.
 

AnalogKid

Joined Aug 1, 2013
10,987
As MrAL said, it depends on how you qualify phase. Can I and Q signals be considered in phase?
One signal always starts when another is 15 degrees ahead of it. Are they in phase?
In NTSC video, I and Q are the same frequency, 90 degrees apart. Q stands for quadrature.

ak
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,087
As MrAL said, it depends on how you qualify phase. Can I and Q signals be considered in phase?

One signal always starts when another is 15 degrees ahead of it. Are they in phase?
Two signals would be coherent if they have a constant relative phase but coherence means more than just phase for electromagnetic waves.
 

Thread Starter

SDSI

Joined Sep 16, 2016
10
Hi there,

The actual answer to this depends HIGHLY on the application, in fact, very highly, because in some applications a particular set of two frequencies would be considered 'in phase' when in other applications those same two frequencies would be consider VERY out of phase.

You've already seen several examples of applications where two frequencies can be said to be 'in phase', like music, harmonics, etc. Harmonics are often given a phase relationship to the fundamental, and sometimes it happens to be zero degrees while other times it may be different but constant. This means a frequency 2 times the first frequency could be called in phase and be perfectly descriptive. i am not so sure that "in phase" is the best way to describe this though, i would say the "same phase" is a better way to put it, or just describe them as both being at 0 degrees or whatever. Saying "in phase" might imply that they are of the same frequency.

An application that does not follow this rule though is for example a phase locked loop, In a phase locked loop, if the reference frequency is half of the target feedback frequency, even if they have some zero crossings in sync, the second frequency would be called very out of phase. It's only when it is brought up (or down) to the correct frequency can it be really in phase and then the loop locks. If the reference frequency is half or two times the feedback frequency the loop never locks properly.

Of course another example where we need the same frequency is in a three phase power system, where if phase A is called zero degrees and phase B has every other zero crossing synced to phase A but is twice the frequency, you better have some fuses on hand :)

So to be accurate, you have to specify the application as well as the type of waves themselves.
The application is a PLL
 

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,389
The application is a PLL
Hi,

Ok then the two waves have to be both the same frequency.

In a more specific case where we have a half wave rectified sine wave perfectly rectified with no filtering, we have the fundamental at 0 degrees of course, and we have the 2nd harmonic at -90 degrees. The 4th harmonic also has a -90 degree phase shift, as do others. That means we can say that the second and fourth harmonics have zero degree phase shift with respect to each other, but to say that they are "in phase" seems inappropriate. Not only do they never have the same zero crossing, they only have coincident phase at every other peak of the 2nd harmonic. Also interesting though is that we might also call them at zero degrees because they are multiplied by a cosine wave in the reconstruction while the fundamental is multiplied by a sine wave.
The reason for stating the phase shift is so we know the relation to the fundamental so if we wanted to reconstruct the time signal from the amplitude and phase information we can do it just knowing that the amplitude is a certain amount and the "phase" or "phase shift" is a certain amount. Knowing these quantities for each harmonic allows us to reconstruct the original signal. So we might see a listing like this:
1st, amplitude=1, phase=0
2nd, amplitude=2/3pi, phase=-90
4th, amplitude=2/15pi, phase=-90

It looks like the 2nd and 4th are in phase, but calling them in phase seems inappropriate.

PLL correct operation depends on both frequencies being the same. If they are not, it can not properly detect the phase in many typical phase locked loop circuits. This could cause the frequency to jump up and down repeatedly and wreck havoc on the rest of the system which is expecting a lock at some point.
 

SLK001

Joined Nov 29, 2011
1,549
Please explain.
To be "in phase", the angular velocity of the two signals must be the same. The only way to do that is to have both frequencies the same. Zero crossings have nothing to do with determining whether or not two signals are "in phase".

As MrAL said, it depends on how you qualify phase. Can I and Q signals be considered in phase?
Yes... I and Q are always in phase.

One signal always starts when another is 15 degrees ahead of it. Are they in phase?.
If they are the same frequency, then yes.

Two signals....same frequency and both start at zero. One has amplitude of 5 and the other 10, are they in phase?
Yes

Is the second harmonic in phase, or in double phase?
Not in phase (what is "double phase"?).

And all cars travel at the same speed. They just have different wiper speeds.
??? Very much non sequitur.
 
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