# Can a phase margin become bigger than 180° and is this bad?

I have a wrong mental model about phase margin in control theory.

I see that a phase of -180° is bad. If my input is a sine wave and I have negative feedback, which has a -180° phase shift, the feedback will become positive --> oscillation.

But why is positive phase margin good? Would a phase shift of +180° degree not be equally bad? I assume the best would be it is 0 every where. But I don't see why +45° is better then -45°.

When I am thinking about this I always try to imagine a sinusoidal signal, since one can not know how the input signal will actually look like. This is the reason I am treating positive and negative phase margins equally.

EDIT:

I just found one big mistake I have made. @Chu also pointed this out. The phase margin is 180° minus the phase at unity gain. Therefor all negativ phase margins mean an actual phase of smaller then -180°

This means my questions is almost obsolete. The actual questions should be now: Is a positive phase margin bigger than 180° bad and possible to achieve?

• By definition, phase margin is (180 + phase angle) when the open loop gain is unity (= 0 dB). Positive phase margin thus indicates a stable closed loop.
– Chu
Jun 6 '19 at 9:11