Advances in the Analysis of Injection—Locked Oscillators

Abstract

This work reviews recent advances on the realistic analysis of injection-locked oscillators, for an efficient prediction of their complex multi-valued solution curves. The oscillator or its active core is modeled with a nonlinear admittance function extracted from harmonic balance, whereas other system elements are introduced at a second analysis stage. The analytical modeling of the external elements provides insight into their effect on the locking bands and other aspects of the behavior. In purely numerical simulations, the solution curves are traced through contour plots that make use of the nonlinear admittance function. The methods are illustrated with state-of-the-art applications, including compact transmitters and receivers, wireless-power transfer, and active sensing.