Principles of

Advanced Automatic Control

Systems
 Week 6:
Concept of Stability
DEFINITIONS CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• The response of a system to a stimulus has two components:

 Steady state terms which are directly related to the input.
 Transient terms which are either exponential or oscillatory with an
envelope of exponential form.
• If the exponential terms decay as time increases then the system is said to be
stable.

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

DEFINITIONS CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• The response of a system to a stimulus has two component:

 Steady state terms which are directly related to the input.
 Transient terms which are either exponential or oscillatory with an
envelope of exponential form.
• If the exponential terms decays as time increases then the system is said to
be stable.

• Stability may also be defined as the ability of a system to restore its

equilibrium position when disturbed or a system which has a bounded
response for a bounded input.

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

DEFINITIONS CONCEPT OF STABILITY

x0  A  et sin(t   )

x0  A  et sin(t   )

x0  A  e t x0  A  et

(a) and (c) are stable! (b) and (d) are unstable!

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROOTS OF CHARACTERISTIC POLYNOMIAL

• Consider a second order system:

ax(t )  bx (t )  cx(t )  kxi (t )

(as 2  bs  c) X ( s )  kX i ( s )
X (s) k
G (s)   2
X i ( s ) as  bs  c

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROOTS OF CHARACTERISTIC POLYNOMIAL

• Consider a second order system:

ax(t )  bx (t )  cx(t )  kxi (t )

(as 2  bs  c) X ( s )  kX i ( s )
X (s) k
G (s)   2
X i ( s ) as  bs  c
• Transient response of a system is independent of the input. Thus, in transient
response analysis, the input can be considered as zero:

(as 2  bs  c) X (s)  0
IF X (s)  0  as 2  bs  c  0 Charecteristic polynomial

 b  b 2  4ac
s1, 2  Roots of charecteristic
2a polynomial

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROOTS OF CHARACTERISTIC POLYNOMIAL

 b  b 2  4ac
s1, 2 
2a

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

POLES AND ZEROS

x( s) bm s m  bm1s m1  ........  b1s  b0

G(s)  
xi ( s) an s n  an1s n 1  ........  a1s  a0

x( s) bm ( s  z1 ).(s  z2 ).........( s  zm ) zi : zeros

G( s)   .
xi ( s) an ( s  p1 ).(s  p2 )........( s  pn ) pi : poles

x(t )  L1x(s)  c1e p1t  c2e p2t  ...  cn e pnt

• From above result, it can be said that poles of the sytem gives some
information about the stability.

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

STABILITY IN S DOMAIN CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• The stability of a linear closed-loop system can be determined from the

location of the closed-loop poles in the s-plane.
• If any of these poles lie in the Right-Half of the s-plane(RHS), then with
increasing time, they give rise to the dominant mode, and the transient
response increases monotonically or oscillates with increasing amplitude.
• For such a system, as soon as the power is turned on, the output may
increase with time. If no saturation takes place in the system and no
mechanical stop is provided, then the system may eventually be damaged
and fail, since the response of a real physical system cannot increase
indefinitely.

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

STABILITY IN S DOMAIN CONCEPT OF STABILITY

 In order a system to be stable:  Re pi   0

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROUTH-HURWITZ
STABILITY CRITERION CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion gives information about unstable roots, but

not their value.
• Consider the characteristic equation:

an s n  an1s n1  ..........  a1s1  a0  0

• Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion states:
 The necassary, but not sufficient condition for the stable roots is that all
the coefficients in characteristic equation have the same sign and
different than zero.
 (sufficient condition) – either all the Hurwitz determinants of the
polinomial are positive or;
 all the cofficients of the first column of the Routh’s array have the same
sign.

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROUTH-HURWITZ
STABILITY CRITERION CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• Hurwitz Determinants:

an s n  an1s n1  ..........  a1s1  a0  0

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROUTH-HURWITZ
STABILITY CRITERION CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• Routh’s array:

an s n  an1s n1  ..........  a1s1  a0  0

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROUTH-HURWITZ
STABILITY CRITERION CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• Examples!

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROUTH-HURWITZ
STABILITY CRITERION CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• Special Cases of the Routh Array: (Case 1 – a zero in the first coloumn)

Dr. Özgün BAŞER 24.06.2014

ROUTH-HURWITZ
STABILITY CRITERION CONCEPT OF STABILITY

• Special Cases of the Routh Array: (Case 1 – all elements in a row are zero)