EE 448

Control Systems, Sensors and

Actuators
Lecture 3. Control Techniques
Instructor : Hunh Vit Thng <thang143@gmail.com>
LA
: V Vn Thanh
1

Control techniques
Closed loop control is an essential topic for control
systems, bringing together actuators and sensors with
the control algorithm in software

Introduction
Problem: supplying the same analog voltage (or the same PWM
signal) to a motor does not guarantee that the motor will run at
the same speed under all circumstances!

Solution: Feedback is everything!

Introduction (cont.)

C: the controller; P: plant or process; F: sensor measurement

y(t): output of the system;
u(t): output of the controller
r(t): reference signal (input);
e(t): error signal

Introduction (cont.)
Assuming the process/plant P, the sensor F and the controller
C are LTI (Linear Time-Invariant) systems

Closed-loop
transfer function

Control techniques

On-off control
PID control
Adaptive control (LMS, NLMS, RLS algorithms)
Others:
Fuzzy control
Neural Networks based control

On-off control
The power to motor is either switched on or switched off

R(t): control signal (control voltage) over time

On-off control (cont.)

Behavior over time

Advantage: simplest control method; used in refridgerators,

heater, thermostat, etc.
Disadvantage: the motor control signal is only updated at
fixed time intervals (e.g., 10ms)
hysteresis (tr)
8

On-off control (cont.)

Use a hyteresis band with 2 desired signals to prevent a high
switching frequency

Step-response of an on-off controller

Not smooth
Can we improve this?
10

PID Control

11

PID Control (cont.)

The PID controller algorithm involves three separate constant
parameters, and is accordingly sometimes called three-term
control: the proportional, the integral and derivative values
PID = P + I + D
P = Proportional; I = Integral; D = Derivative
P depends on the present error,
I depends on the accumulation of past errors,
D is a prediction of future errors, based on current rate of
change
The weighted sum of these three actions is used to adjust the
process via a control element
12

Proportional Controller (P)

The control voltage is directly proportional to the error signal
(error function)

P controller is only slightly different from on-off controller

Varying the controller gain Kp will change the behavior of
the P controller
13

Proportional Controller (cont.)

Step response for P controller
Higher Kp
Faster response
Important: Too high Kp
leads to undesirable
oscillating system!
Require fast response
and stable system
(e.g., Kp = 0.45)

14

Proportional Controller (cont.)

P controllers equilibrium state is not at the desired velocity
due to control formula
Steady-state error is the difference between desired velocity
and equilibrium-states velocity
Can we reduce the
steady-state error?

Integral controller

15

Integral Controller (I)

The idea of the I controller is to reduce the steady-state error
of P controller
The I controller is commonly used with the P or PD controller

16

Integral Controller (cont.)

Define the error function : e(t) =
The formula for PI controller is
Rewrite for 2 independent additive terms for P and I

How can we compute the integral?

A naive way of implementing the I controller part is to
transform the integration into a sum of a fixed number (for
example 10) of previous error values. These 10 values would
then have to be stored in an array and added for every
iteration.
17

Integral Controller (cont.)

Proper Implementation:
replace the integral with a sum and use the trapezoidal rule

Use the term Rn-1 to remove the sum

Substitute KI for

18

Integral Controller (cont.)

proper implementation of PI control algorithm

We only need to store

the previous control value Rn-1
the previous error value en-1

to calculate the PI output

19

Derivative Controller (D)

The idea of using the D controller is to speed up the P
controllers response to a change of input
The D controller is commonly used with the P or PI controller
Recall:
P provides a better step response than on-off controller
I for reducing steady-state error of P
D for speeding up step response of P

How would the P, PD and PID controllers behave?

20

P, PD and PID

21

PID controller
The full formula for PID controller

Using the discretization (as for PI control)

Using the difference between 2 subsequent controller outputs

Finally, using the generic notations KP, KI and KD

22

PID controller
A complete PID formula

23

PID parameter tuning

Find parameters experimentally

24

Other control techniques

Adaptive control (LMS, NLMS, RLS)
Fuzzy control
Control using Neural Network

25