BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 1

Project 4: PID Controller for a Resistive Heating Element
Objective: Develop a control system that uses feedback to maintain a target
temperature.
Background
Just as medicine involves both understanding a patients needs and acting on them,
a medical instrument is most useful when it can both read information and use that
information to establish some condition such as position, force, temperature, or
drug concentration.
Any piece of equipment that is intended to modify its environment ranging
from a hot plate to a computerized robot can be loosely divided into the part that
actually takes the action (the actuator) and the part that determines how hard the
actuator will work (the controller). The controller usually has two input signals, one
from a sensor that measures the condition of the system, and one from a user or
program that indicates the desired condition (the setpoint). Together, the
properties of the controller, the actuator, and the environment will determine how
the system will respond to a command from the user.
Control systems can be divided into two types.
Open loop systems supply an output in response to some user input but do not
monitor the result that the output is having on the system or environment. One
example is a burner on a typical stove. The user selects the power input to the
burner, but the actual temperature at the burner will depend on the burner
characteristics as well as the condition of the material that is being heated and
the temperature of the surrounding air. Effective openloop control requires
that the user understand how the input affects the system output.
Closed loop systems compare the user input to a value measured from the
system to determine the output to send to the actuator. One simple example is
an oven with a thermostatic switch. The user needs only to set the desired
temperature and the switch controls the average power input by turning the
heat on and off.
The use of feedback in a closedloop control system can accommodate a large
degree of ignorance of the system characteristics. However, in order to create a
control system that follows the desired output closely, we usually want to apply
some knowledge of how the system responds to actuation. In addition, high
performance control systems usually respond to the difference between the desired
and measured values (the error), not just to being over or under the setpoint.
Temperature control
For this weeks lab we will heat resistors by passing current through them. We
will assume that the resistors have a uniform temperature T
R
(t), so we can ignore
heat conduction and consider temperature only as a function of time. As you know
from BIOEN 325 and 327, the rate at which the temperature of an object rises is a
function of the heat capacity, mass, and applied power. Write the formula for rate of
change of temperature here, including units.
dT/dt = ?

BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 2
Prelab Exercises
Write three formulas for the power P dissipated in a resistor as a function of
voltage v, current I, and resistance R.
P = ?
These equations show that we can control how fast a resistor heats by controlling
the applied power, and hence the applied voltage or current.

Proportional control
For the following discussion, let us define the error E as the difference between
the desired and measured temperatures: E = T
SET
T
MEAS
. Each gain component is G
and the subscripts P, I and D, stand for proportional, integral and differential. The
gain can have whatever units you need to get the input and output to match up.
The simplest feedback control system is proportional, such that the controller
output equals G
P
E. For a thermal system we want the output to be power: the
farther the measured temperature is below the setpoint, the more power we want to
apply. On the other hand, if the measured temperature is above the setpoint, we
want to pull power out. This is very difficult (aka impossible) to do with a resistor.
*

Therefore, we will control the heating and let the room air cool off the resistor
passively. Specifically, if the resistor heats the air so it rises and carries away the
heat, we are using the process of _________________ __________________.
For this lab project you will set up an electrical circuit and write a control
program with LabView. Somehow the values that your control program produces
(numbers in a computer) need to be converted into actual power.
Lets start at the resistor and work backwards. Heating power is produced by
current passing through the resistor, so we are actually controlling the current. It
will be a lot more current than the computer can generate, and in addition, the
computers DAQ module supplies a voltage, not a current. What we really need is a
hefty voltagecontrolled current source. For this we will use a transistor and one of
our big power supplies, such that the DAQ output is connected to the base of the
transistor (or the gate of a MOSFET).
PID control
To improve system performance, integral and differential terms can be added,
such that

This type of system is known as a proportionalintegraldifferential (PID)
controller. The flow chart for every PID controller is the same, and the gains G
P,I,D

are adjusted to produce the desired system behavior.
Note that the gains G
P,I,D
are scalars, but the overall system gain V
SENS
/V
CMD
is
usually complex and is represented by a transfer function H(s), where s = + j.

*
There are a few ways to remove heat at a controllable rate. One is to control the speed of a fan or
cooling pump. Another is to use a Peltier cooler, which acts as a solidstate heat pump when a
voltage is applied.
dt
dE
G dt E G E G v
D I P out


BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 3
In today's lab exercise we will set up a heater circuit and start a process called
system identification, in which we model our system based on knowledge about its
physical construction, and on data that we have collected from it. Next week we will
use this model to design a controller and test it on our thermal system.
Nomenclature
E Error: difference between measured and desired sensor value
G
P
Proportional gain
G
I
Integral gain
G
D
Differential gain
NTC Negative temperature coefficient
V
SENS
Sensor voltage, hence the environmental value that the controller is trying to
control
V
CMD
Command voltage, the input from the user or program
T
SET

Temperature setpoint
T
MEAS

Measured or actual temperature

PID control theory assumes that we have a linear system. The implication here is
that if we double the value produced by our controller, we will double the power
into the resistor. However, this linearity assumption does not match our thermal
system in a few ways. First, the current through the transistor is not proportional
to the voltage at its base. Second, the power in the resistor is not proportional to the
current (or voltage). Of course, you could write a mathematical function in LabView
to adjust the DAQ output voltage, making the power proportional to the controller
output.
There is a more subtle problem, though. Unlike the resistor (for which V=IR), the
voltage across the transistor is almost independent of the current. In fact, the
voltage often goes down as the current goes up. Consider three cases in our heater
circuit.
1) The base voltage is low, the transistor current and resistor voltage are both
zero, and the voltage across the transistor is the supply voltage V
CC
. In this case, the
power dissipated in the transistor is P = IV = 0*Vpower = 0. Thats nice.
2) The base voltage is high, the transistor current and resistor voltage are both
high, and the voltage across the transistor is as low as it can get. In this case, the
power dissipated in the transistor is P = IV = high*low = not too bad.
3) The base voltage, transistor current, resistor voltage and transistor voltage are
all midrange. In this case, the power dissipated in the transistor is P = IV = mid
range*midrange >> 0. That means that a lot of the heat is dissipated in the
transistor, although we want it to heat up only the resistor. You can verify that
there is a maximum amount of power dissipated when V
R
= V
CC
/2.
We see that it is more efficient to operate with the transistor at zero or full
current. In order not to convert nice clean electricity into waste heat, we can use


BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 4
Pulse width modulation
For purposes of heating a resistor, it works just as well if we control the average
power rather than keeping the power exactly right all of the time. This power
averaging is the basis of a method of power control pulse width modulation (PWM).
PWM controllers provide an output that is either off or at full power, but with
timing that is determined by the error signal. Whereas an oven with a standard
on/off thermostat would be at full power all of the time as the temperature rose
from T
target
20 to T
target
1, an oven with a proportional thermostat using PWM
might be at full output 80% of the time when the temperature deficit is 20, but only
5% of the time when the temperature deficit is 1.
The fluctuations are typically rapid, cycling several times per second. The
resistor has some heat capacity and heat resistance, so it behaves like a lowpass
filter that damps out the thermal oscillations. At locations away from the actual
point of heat application (e.g. at the thermistor), it is impossible to tell that the heat
has been applied in pulses. We calculate average power = max power * ontime
fraction, where ontime fraction is pulse width / pulse period.
When we use PWM, we use LabView to calculate a percent ontime, also called
the duty cycle. Obviously the duty cycle must be between 0 and 100%. This
limitation does not seem so bad when we realize that the DAQ output is finite too,
ranging from 0 to 5 V. We use LabView to turn the the DAQ output on and off, where
off is usually 0 V and on is somewhere from 3 to 5 V, whatever is necessary to
permit maximum current through the transistor. Note that pulse width modulation
permits us to choose either the analog outputs or the digital outputs from our data
I/O device. The analog outputs can be varied in very fine increments over a wide
voltage range, but we dont need that here. The digital outputs are either 0 or 5 V, so
they are good for proportional control only with a PWM controller. Each digital
output is one bit of a binary number, so to use these outputs for thermal control we
simply turn the desired bit on or off at the appropriate rate.
*
In either case, the
current supplied by the data I/O device is small, so it is necessary to amplify the
current with a transistor before applying it to the heater.


*
The analog outputs from an Arduino microprocessor board are actually digital, operated in pulse
width mode.
BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 5
Lab Exercise
The goal of this lab project is to create a PID controller that regulates the
temperature of a resistorthermistor. This controller can then be the basis for the
thermal control system in an environmental control chamber. The major steps in
this project are:
Assemble a circuit that can be used to heat a resistor and measure its
temperature;
Acquire step response data and use it to create a Laplacedomain model of the
heater system;
Determine appropriate PID gains both analytically and by trial and error;
Create a feedback controller using Labview;
Test the behavior of the controlled system.
Equipment
Breadboard & connecting wire
TIP121 or TIP115 or 2N6292 or 2N6107 power transistor with heat sink
4.7, 5, or 10 resistor, rated for 1 W (2), called lowvalue resistor below
Thermistor: 135202FAGJ01, 135103LAGJ01, or similar
1 k resistor (2)
1 or 10 k trim pot for Wheatstone bridge [we will actually just use a voltage divider set
up]
Power supply
USB6009 data I/O device
Computer with LabView
Circuit setup
a) Prepare the lowvalue resistor and thermistor by sliding wire insulation over
the leads; this provides electrical isolation.
b) Join the resistor and thermistor with heatshrink tubing. [this may be modified
epoxy instead]
c) Create a Wheatstone bridge for the thermistor, using the 1 k resistors, the trim
pot, and the thermistor. The output from this bridge is the input to your data
I/O device. [we will actually just use a voltage divider]
d) Connect the lowvalue resistor(s) in series with the power transistor, i.e.
between the emitter and ground. The input to the transistor's base will be the
voltage from one of the analog outputs from Labview.
e) Test the operation of the circuit with a power supply and multimeter, or power
supply, function generator, and oscilloscope. Test the output voltage from the
bridge as you vary the voltage at the base of the transistor. Dont burn yourself!
Software setup
a) Plug the USB6009 data I/O device into an available USB port on your computer.
Complete the installation steps if necessary.
b) Create a LabView VI that contains one data acquisition channel and a pulse
width modulation output for one analog output channel. Create the front panel
BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 6
controls necessary to set the output duty cycle manually. This VI can be built
around the VI that you created for the colorimeter, but you are going to need a
lot of help with the PWM part. We will give it to you, and will provide an
example.
System identification
Once the circuit and software are complete, our first goal is to estimate an impulse
response and a transfer function for the heater system.
a) Apply a step change to the duty cycle and measure both the input and output
voltages until an equilibrium voltage is reached. Estimate the time constant of
the transient response, e.g. by measuring the slope at t=0. This time constant
will probably be different for the cooling and heating cases; although you will
not control the cooling phase, it will be interesting to compare the two results.
Therefore, perform at least one experiment for each case. In each one, record
the command voltage V
CMD
(i.e. the voltage applied to the base of the transistor)
and the sensor voltage V
SENS
(i.e. the voltage from the bridge).
b) Use the input and output voltage signals with the VI that fits transfer functions
to response data. You will be shown how to do this in lab. Obtain three transfer
functions: 1) firstorder, 2) secondorder with no zeros, and 3) secondorder
with one zero. Choose one of the transfer functions with no zeros to proceed
with PID control development.
PID controller development
a) Plug your coefficients into the closedloop PID control simulation VI and
experiment with the PID gains. Your goal is to minimize the rise time and
settling time, and overshoot. The overshoot can be most important in a
biological control system, because excessive concentrations or temperatures
can kill.
b) Plug your coefficients into the general form for a transfer function in a PID
controlled system (assuming two poles and no zeros), and solve for PID
constants that produce a critically damped system. Test those constants in the
closedloop PID control simulation VI.
c) Add a PID control loop to your input/output VI. You may do these calculations
with mathematical icons, express (interactive) math functions, or by using a
MathScript node, which allows you to enter MATLAB script that operates on the
LabView variables. LabView also includes a variety of PID control functions that
do not require you to do your own mathematical programming, but they do not
tend to work any better and you might not learn as much if you rely solely on
LabView functions. Your VI will need to include a conversion from the voltage
produced by your PID controller into output duty cycle.
d) Set the gains determined previously and test the response of the system to a
step input.
BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 7

Lab write-up:
1. See separate document for guidelines for this lab writeup.

In conclusion
By the end of the project, you should have learned...
In any system that needs some input just to stay at a constant value, a
proportional control system will produce a steadystate error.
The integral gain in a PID controller can eliminate the steadystate error.
The differential part of a PID controller can reduce overshoot, allowing you to
use higher proportional and integral gains.
A feedback controlled system with only one energy storage element (e.g., the
heat capacity of the resistor+thermistor) can act like a secondorder system.

Additional information can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_system
BIOEN 337 Winter 2012

print date: 2/21/2012 8
NOT USED
[The original handout mentioned a linearity compensator and low pass filter. We
did not include these this year so you do not need to include them in the diagram.
The linearity compensator adjusts for the offset between the base and emitter
voltages at the transistor. A lowpass filter is needed if the data is noisy, because
voltage fluctuations cause rapid changes in the time derivative. Our signals looked
pretty smooth this year.]