In electrical engineering and control theory, a Bode plot ˈboʊdi is a graph of the frequency response of a system. It is usually a combination of a Bode magnitude plot, expressing the magnitude (usually in decibels) of the frequency response, and a Bode phase plot, expressing the phase shift.
As originally conceived by Hendrik Wade Bode in the 1930s, the plot is an asymptotic approximation of the frequency response, using straight line segments.
Among his several important contributions to circuit theory and control theory, engineer Hendrik Wade Bode, while working at Bell Labs in the 1930s, devised a simple but accurate method for graphing gain and phase-shift plots. These bear his name, Bode gain plot and Bode phase plot. "Bode" is often pronounced ˈboʊdi although the Dutch pronunciation is Bo-duh. (ˈboːdə).
Bode was faced with the problem of designing stable amplifiers with feedback for use in telephone networks. He developed the graphical design technique of the Bode plots to show the gain margin and phase margin required to maintain stability under variations in circuit characteristics caused during manufacture or during operation. The principles developed were applied to design problems of servomechanisms and other feedback control systems. The Bode plot is an example of analysis in the frequency domain.
The Bode plot for a linear, time-invariant system with transfer function ( being the complex frequency in the Laplace domain) consists of a magnitude plot and a phase plot.
The Bode magnitude plot is the graph of the function of frequency (with being the imaginary unit). The -axis of the magnitude plot is logarithmic and the magnitude is given in decibels, i.e., a value for the magnitude is plotted on the axis at .
The Bode phase plot is the graph of the phase, commonly expressed in degrees, of the transfer function as a function of . The phase is plotted on the same logarithmic -axis as the magnitude plot, but the value for the phase is plotted on a linear vertical axis.