Steady-state sinusoidal analysis methods are important for several reasons:
• Sinusoidal inputs are an extremely important category of forcing functions. In electrical
engineering, for example, sinusoids are the dominant signal in the electrical power industry.
The alternating current (or AC) signals used in power transmission are, in fact, so pervasive
that any electrical engineers commonly refer to any sinusoidal signal as “AC”. Carrier signals
used in communications systems are also sinusoidal in nature.
• The simplification associated with the analysis of steady state sinusoidal analysis is often so
desirable that system responses to non-sinusoidal inputs are interpreted in terms of their
sinusoidal steady-state response. This approach will be developed when we study Fourier
series.
• System design requirements are often specified in terms of the desired steady-state sinusoidal
response of the system.
In this module, we introduce the basic concepts relative to sinusoidal steady state analyses before
addressing the mathematical details associated with the method. All concepts presented in this
module will be revisited in more detail and with full mathematical rigor in later modules.