page_title: Integrator
section_title: Practical integrator (lossy integrator)
hierarchical_section_title: Integrator / Practical integrator (lossy integrator)
caption_attribution_description: English: Frequency response of ideal and practical integrator using op amp
context_page_description: An integrator in measurement and control applications is an element whose output signal is the time integral of its input signal. It accumulates the input quantity over a defined time to produce a representative output.
  Integration is an important part of many engineering and scientific applications. Mechanical integrators are the oldest application, and are still used in such as metering of water flow or electric power. Electronic analogue integrators are the basis of analog computers and charge amplifiers. Integration is also performed by digital computing algorithms.
context_section_description: The gain of an integrator at low frequency can be limited to avoid the saturation problem, therefore to avoid saturation of the op amp the feedback capacitor is shunted by a resistor Rf. The parallel combination of Rf and C behaves like a practical capacitor which dissipates power, unlike an ideal capacitor. For this reason this circuit is also called a lossy integrator. The resistor Rf limits the low frequency gain to (-Rf/R), generally [Rf=10*R1] and thus provides DC stabilisation.
caption: Frequency response of ideal and practical integrator
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