aa er el TCELAk Ma 2:07 FD ries isa handy Bepacuction to te closed-loop contro! control a roportional system shortcomings. are ri comes the basic ole ‘of automatic control, including a simple al ‘lee system, common > eo Des arts ee gstee. wort Ja closed loop configuration (also called feedback or servo loop configuration), In this article series, I'll discuss some basic aspects of, automatic control also known as cybernetics. Robotics, flight controls, manufacturing processes, and many other applications couldn't exist without it. Books on automation have hundreds of pages, heavily loaded with mathematics, Consequently, this series will be an introduction to the fundamentals of automatic control while keeping the math to the minimum. FEEDBACK CONTROL Known for hundreds of years, feedback control originated with clocks. Clock pendulum suspensions, for example, were made of materials expanding and contracting with changing temperature to maintain accurate pendulum oscillations. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, precise feedback control became necessary for the new machines. The first truly proportional closed loop control system appeared in 1788 when James Watt invented the flyball governor to madify the amount of steam powering his engine. As early as 1850, the integrating term was introduced by Sir W. Siemens, and by 1894, the derivative term was discovered. In the absence of electronics, those systems were mechanical, hydraulic, or pneumatic, but even by our present-day standpoint they were engineering wonders. Electronics entered automation en mass fairly ate, simply because devices were too cumbersome with vacuum tubes. Thus, mechanical engineering terminology, such as "K” for gain instead of the "G” or “AY otherwise common in electronics is used. One should mention that a great deal of electronics, from oscillators through amplifiers to power supplies depend on feedback control. However, our current focus is on automation with electronics merely as the control element. Figure 1 is a typical block diagram of a simple closed-loop control system. A command the set point) is issued to an electronic controller. Let's say it is a desired speed in an automobile cruise control. A sensor feeds back the car's immediate speed whose value is subtracted from the command. The difference between the desired and the actual speed of the vehicle is speed error. The electronic controller pracesses the error signal according to a control law and the resulting correction signal drives the power converter, in our case 2 fuel control valve, to convert the relatively ‘weak electrical signal into the fuel flow to the engine. The engine, or the plant, as referred to in cybernetics, propels the car to a higher or lower speed in the direction of the command to reduce the speed error. Along the way, disturbances—such as varying resistance of the road due to slope, surface, load, wind. and so forth—also affect the speed. The speed sensor detects those variations and feeds them back to the controller which causes the power converter to modify the fuel flow and thus bring the speed error to zera,2 COMMON CONTROL LAWS ‘The common contral laws are proportional (), proportional-integrating (PI), and proportional-integrating-derivative | (PID). There are also sophisticated laws such as Fuzzy Logic, Predictive Algorithm, and others. The widely used P, PI, and PID laws have been around for centuries. Its unlikely they will be made obsolete any time soon The proportional control means that the error signal is amplifed to drive the power converter managing the fuel flow to the engine, Proportional Gain (K,) of a linear amplifier would then be equal to the Control Gain (Ke) of the system. Proportional systems suffer from two shortcomings—a steady state error and an overshoot. Let's say our cruise control maintains the speed on a flat road, but becomes sluggish, not completely reaching the commanded speed, when the car’s going uphill. Tis is called offset or a steady state error. Assuming the fuel flow is not already saturated and the engine can still deliver more power, you might increase the proportional gain Ky, but then your system will overshoot and might become unstable, The common fix of the steady state error is an addition of an integrating term K;. Tt integrates the error with time constant 1, adding it to the control gain Kc, which then becomes Ke = Kp + Kj. This increases the overall gain for the duration of the error. Having correct values of the two terms ky and K; is critical. Incorrect values may slow the system down or cause it to oscillate Power converters, plants, feedback sensors, and all parts of the contral loop react with finite speed, introducing a lag into the system, By the time the speed error has dropped to zero, the response of the power converter and/or the plant may stil continue to grow due to that lag. This will cause the ABOUT THE AUTHOR George Novacek is a professional ergineer with 2 degree in Cybernetics and Closed- Loop Control, Now retired, he was most recently president of a multinational manufacturer for embedded contrel systems for aerospace applications. George wrote 26 feature articles for Circuit Cellar between 1999 and 2004. Contact him at gnovacek@ nexicom.net with “Circuit Cellar*in the subject line speed to overshoot. The system will try to correct it, but, for the same reason, the speed will undershoot. In the end, the total response may be anything from a small single overshoot to ringing to sustained oscillations. This can be corrected by lowering the proportional gain ky, but then the accuracy and the speed of response may suffer. A derivative term is the solution The derivative term K calculates the rate of change of the errar signal with the derivative time constant Tj. When properly mixed with the proportional signal, it reduces the correction signal (i.e., the fuel flow in our example) by anticipating the vehicle speed response. The big overshoot no longer occurs. Unfortunately, the derivative term makes systems sensitive to noise and frequently needs to be followed by 2 low-pass filter which adds another unwelcome phase lag, For this reason, the derivative term Ky is in some systems omitted. The PI control law is probably the most popular one. PID CONTROL Control systems and each of their functional blacks are characterized by their transfer functions, which are the ratio of their ‘output to the input. The transfer function of Power Disturbance Command | Electronic Power Response t controller converter [Tt Plant as ' 1 Feedback |_| | t Controller rm ‘sensor ' : it Machine ‘ss ens ricuRe2 Doaeg versan of ID cartel ciecotelbnanmycemsteral RESOURCES 6. Ells, “Control System Design Guide," Fourth Edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2022. Dente Gain vt ButerSummer rT 4 Propertonal Gain x come a x 2 on Inept Gan 2 PID controller is mathematically expressed by equation: u(t) =K,e(t) +K, Jeton + = where e(t) ~command(t) — feedback (t) u(t) ¢(t) = control error correction signal To hardware engineers, the PID control canbe best explained’ by its analog implementation shown in Figure 2. A.common quad operational amplifier is all that’s needed to make a simple PID controller. UIA subtracts the feedback from the command signal to generate the error signal. This is processed by the three (.e., proportional) derivative and integrating amplifiers—UIC, U1B, and UID, respectively—and recombined into the correction signal driving the power converter. F Golnaraghi and B.C. Kuo, Automatic Contro! Systems, Wiley, 2009, 6. Novacek, *Electro-Hydraulic Servo Velves” Greult Cellar 253, 2011. Figure 2 shows a parallel configuration of a PID controller. However, the three terms can be put in series, thus forming 2 serial controller or some other series/ parallel combination, A control law generated by a microcontroller is typically a series configuration. Each configuration has its advantages and disadvantages, Many systems contain several servo loops embedded within each other. In Figure 2, each operational amplifier is actually a feedback controller in its own right. Nowadays a microcontroller is frequently used as the control element. Unlike nearly instantaneous response of analog circuits, digital circuits sample at 2 certain rate and, consequently, introduce processing delays, i.e. lags, which may lead to instability. In some cases, a very fast, expensive processor might be needed where an analog solution might be better and more economical. An example of the PID algorithm at constant sampling rate is shown in Listing 1. IMPLEMENTATION & ANALYSIS Implementation and analysis of transfer functions of electronic controllers is fairly straight forward, as long as the system ‘operates within its linear range and is time invariant (LTD). In reality, all parts of contral systems exhibit limited linearity and when saturated, introduce lags, and may cause instability of the system. Our cruise control, for example, is limited primarily by the power of the car's engine. Transfer functions of non- electronic components, if available at all from their manufacturers, are not always accurate. But they could be measured or estimated. Therefore, the system designer needs to plan for extensive testing and optimization./* Normally the integrating The correction signal must be lim of the power converter gains are declared constants. */ error = setPoint - feedla pTerm = Kp * error Proportiona sme 1 be limited to prevent roll-over d to stay within linear response , integrating and derivative “calculate correction 17 proportion Term += (Ki * error); 77 integral dTerm = Kd # (error - previoustrror); // derivative previousError = errors 77 venemoer for next Q correctionsignal = prerm + iTerm + dTerm; = That’ where digital controllers shine, as their programs (typically PSpice, UTSpice, and gains and limits can be modified on the fly Some digital controllers feature auto-tuning capability, which, while convenient, might be modifying the code upon every power up. Certificating authorities frown on and generally don’t permit self-modifying or dead code in safety-critical applications, Computer simulation programs (e.9., Simulink by MathWorks) are great tools, but, similar to the electronic circuits simulation others), their results are only as good as the mathematical models of the components. But they do get you pretty close to the goal. The designer of the electronics should always strive for a hefty design margin to satisfy LTT requirements. This has been an introduction to the automatic systems in general. Next month, ll take @ quick look at their analysis in frequency domain. dd With this digital subscription, you have access to all 1: ues of Circuit Cellar 2016 from any ‘computer or tablet at anytime, Readers can explore project ideas, bookmark pages, and make annotations throughout each issue. nels & Enclosures uring custom Pa + Manutact “pree CAD Soft ipping Free SPS gor Ro “No Mini “Tpuilt in 5 DAYS Cri SUC Cenc