Tuning PI controllers for stable processes with specifications on gain and phase margins

In industrial practice, controller designs are performed based on an approximate model of the actual process. It is essential to design a control system which will exhibit a robust performance because the physical systems can vary with operating conditions and time. Gain and phase margins are well known parameters for evaluating the robustness of a control system. This paper presents a tuning algorithm to design and tune PI controllers for stable processes with a small dead time while meeting specified gain and phase margins. Simulation examples are given to demonstrate that the proposed design method can result, in a closed-loop system, in better performances than existing design methods which are also based on user-specified gain and phase margins.     

New results on the robust stability of PID controllers with gain and phase margins for UFOPTD processes

This paper considers the problem of determining all the robust PID (proportional–integral–derivative) controllers in terms of the gain and phase margins (GPM) for open-loop unstable first order plus time delay (UFOPTD) processes. It is the first time that the feasible ranges of the GPM specifications provided by a PID controller are given for UFOPTD processes. A gain and phase margin tester is used to modify the original model, and the ranges of the margin specifications are derived such that the modified model can be stabilized by a stabilizing PID controller based on Hermite–Biehlers Theorem. Furthermore, we obtain all the controllers satisfying a given margin specification. Simulation studies show how to use the results to design a robust PID controller.     

An analytical method for PID controller tuning with specified gain and phase margins for integral plus time delay processes

In this paper, an analytical method is proposed for proportional-integral/proportional-derivative/proportional-integral-derivative (PI/PD/PID) controller tuning with specified gain and phase margins (GPMs) for integral plus time delay (IPTD) processes. Explicit formulas are also obtained for estimating the GPMs resulting from given PI/PD/PID controllers. The proposed method indicates a general form of the PID parameters and unifies a large number of existing rules as PI/PD/PID controller tuning with various GPM specifications. The GPMs realized by existing PID tuning rules are computed and documented as a reference for control engineers to tune the PID controllers.     

Robust stabilizing first-order controllers for a class of time delay systems

In this paper, stabilizing regions of a first-order controller for an all poles system with time delay are computed via parametric methods. First, the admissible ranges of one of the controller’s parameters are obtained. Then, for a fixed value of this parameter, stabilizing regions in the remaining two parameters are determined using the D-decomposition method. Phase and gain margin specifications are then included in the design. Finally, robust stabilizing first-order controllers are determined for uncertain plants with an interval type uncertainty in the coefficients. Examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Enhanced disturbance rejection for open-loop unstable process with time delay

The present study suggests a disturbance estimator design method for application to a recently published, two-degree-of-freedom, control scheme for open-loop, unstable processes with time delay. A simple PID controller cascaded with a lead-lag filter replaces the high-order disturbance estimator for enhanced performance. A new analytical method on the basis of the IMC design principle, featuring only one user-defined tuning parameter, is developed for the design of the disturbance estimator. Several illustrative examples taken from previous works are included to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed disturbance estimator. The results confirm the superior performance of the proposed disturbance estimator in both nominal and robust cases. The proposed method also offers several important advantages for industrial process engineers: it covers several classes of unstable process with time delay in a unified manner, and is simple and easy to design and tune.     

Decentralized PI/PID controllers based on gain and phase margin specifications for TITO processes

In this paper, a decentralized PI/PID controller design method based on gain and phase margin specifications for two-input-two-output (TITO) interactive processes is proposed. The decouplers are designed for systems to minimize the interaction between the loops, and the first order plus dead time (FOPDT) model is achieved for each decoupled subsystem based on the frequency response fitting. An independent PI/PID controller is designed for each reduced order decoupled subsystem to obtain the desired gain and phase margins, and the performance is verified on the original interactive system to show the effectiveness of the proposed design method for the general class of TITO systems. Simulation examples are incorporated to validate the usefulness of the presented algorithm. An experimentation is performed on the Level-Temperature reactor process to show the practical applicability of the proposed method for the interactive system.     

H(infinity) PID controller design for runaway processes with time delay

This paper presents an efficient method for designing proportional-integra-derivative (PID) controllers for runaway processes with time delay. The method is developed based on the H(infinity) control theory in frequency domain. The constraints imposed by the internal stability and asymptotic properties of the closed-loop system are first investigated, a new procedure is then developed for analytically designing the controller, and simple design formulas are obtained. It is shown that the new controller can be designed to meet specified time domain performances. Typical design examples are provided to illustrate the proposed method.     

An optimal PID controller via LQR for standard second order plus time delay systems

An improved tuning methodology of PID controller for standard second order plus time delay systems (SOPTD) is developed using the approach of Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and pole placement technique to obtain the desired performance measures. The pole placement method together with LQR is ingeniously used for SOPTD systems where the time delay part is handled in the controller output equation instead of characteristic equation. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology has been demonstrated via simulation of stable open loop oscillatory, over damped, critical damped and unstable open loop systems. Results show improved closed loop time response over the existing LQR based PI/PID tuning methods with less control effort. The effect of non-dominant pole on the stability and robustness of the controller has also been discussed.     

Discrete-time domain two-degree-of-freedom control design for integrating and unstable processes with time delay

A discrete-time domain two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) design method is proposed for integrating and unstable processes with time delay. Based on a 2DOF control structure recently developed, a controller is analytically designed in terms of the H₂ optimal control performance specification for the set-point tracking, and another controller is derived by proposing the desired closed-loop transfer function for load disturbance rejection. Both controllers can be tuned relatively independent to realize control optimization. Analytical expression of the set-point response is given for quantitatively tuning the single adjustable parameter in the set-point tracking controller. At the meantime, sufficient and necessary conditions for holding robust stability of the closed-loop control system are established for tuning another adjustable parameter in the disturbance rejection controller, along with numerical tuning guidelines. Illustrative examples from the literature are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Nominal and robust stability regions of optimization-based PID controllers

In recent decades, several optimization-based methods have been developed for the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller design, and the common feature of these methods is that the controller has only one adjustable parameter. To keep the closed-loop systems stable is an essential requirement for the optimization-based PID controllers. In almost all these methods, however, no exact stability region for the single adjustable parameter was sketched. In this paper, using the proposed analytical procedure based on the dual-locus diagram technique, explicit stability regions of the optimization-based PID controllers are derived for stable, integrating, and unstable processes with time delay in the nominal and perturbed cases, respectively. It is revealed that the proposed analytical procedure is effective for the determination of the nominal and robust stability regions and it offers simplicity and ease of mathematical calculations over other available stability analysis methods. The results in this paper provide some insight into the tuning of the optimization-based PID controllers.     

大滞后过程的模糊免疫自整定PID控制

目前大滞后过程的控制问题仍然是控制理论研究的重要课题,本文研究提出了一种模糊免疫PID控制器,针对一阶大时滞模型进行数字仿真。仿真结果证明了该方案在一定的时滞范围内具有很好的动静态响应特性和较强的鲁棒性,为解决大滞后过程的控制问题提供了一种可行的方法。     

Design of PI controllers for achieving time and frequency domain specifications simultaneously

This paper deals with the design of PI controllers which achieve the desired frequency and time domain specifications simultaneously. A systematic method, which is effective and simple to apply, is proposed. The required values of the frequency domain performance measures namely the gain and phase margins and the time domain performance measures such as settling time and overshoot are defined prior to the design. Then, to meet these desired performance values, a method which presents a graphical relation between the required performance values and the parameters of the PI controller is given. Thus, a set of PI controllers which attain desired performances can be found using the graphical relations. Illustrative examples are given to demonstrate the benefits of the method presented.     

Improved automatic tuning of PID controller for stable processes

This paper presents an improved automatic tuning method for stable processes using a modified relay in the presence of static load disturbances and measurement noise. The modified relay consists of a standard relay in series with a PI controller of unity proportional gain. The integral time constant of the PI controller of the modified relay is chosen so as to ensure a minimum loop phase margin of 30. A limit cycle is then obtained using the modified relay. Hereafter, the PID controller is designed using the limit cycle output data. The derivative time constant is obtained by maintaining the above mentioned loop phase margin. Minimizing the distance of Nyquist curve of the loop transfer function from the imaginary axis of the complex plane gives the proportional gain. The integral time constant of the PID controller is set equal to the integral time constant of the PI controller of the modified relay. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is verified by simulation results.     

Stabilization and PID tuning algorithms for second-order unstable processes with time-delays

Open-loop unstable systems with time-delays are often encountered in process industry, which are often more difficult to control than stable processes. In this paper, the stabilization by PID controller of second-order unstable processes, which can be represented as second-order deadtime with an unstable pole (SODUP) and second-order deadtime with two unstable poles (SODTUP), is performed via the necessary and sufficient criteria of Routh-Hurwitz stability analysis. The stability analysis provides improved understanding on the existence of a stabilizing range of each PID parameter. Three simple PID tuning algorithms are proposed to provide desired closed-loop performance-robustness within the stable regions of controller parameters obtained via the stability analysis. The proposed PID controllers show improved performance over those derived via some existing methods.     

Computation of stabilizing PI and PID controllers for processes with time delay

In this paper, a new method for the computation of all stabilizing PI controllers for processes with time delay is given. The proposed method is based on plotting the stability boundary locus in the (kp, ki) plane and then computing the stabilizing values of the parameters of a PI controller for a given time delay system. The technique presented does not need to use Pade approximation and does not require sweeping over the parameters and also does not use linear programming to solve a set of inequalities. Thus it offers several important advantages over existing results obtained in this direction. Beyond stabilization, the method is used to compute stabilizing PI controllers which achieve user specified gain and phase margins. The proposed method is also used to design PID controllers for control systems with time delay. The limiting values of a PID controller which stabilize a given system with time delay are obtained in the (kp, ki) plane, (kp, kd) plane, and (ki, kd) plane. Examples are given to show the benefits of the method presented.     

Robust controller synthesis for high order unstable processes with time delay using mirror mapping technique

In this note, a general scheme is proposed for the high order unstable delay process with one or more positive poles, using the mirror mapping technique. The Nyquist criteria is employed to establish a systematic methodology to tune the parameter. The stabilizing parameter region could guarantee the prespecified robustness specification. In the scheme, a control law is designed based on the all-pole Padé approximated model. The unstable process was first mapped into a minimum-phase system, and the actual control is obtained by the closed-loop gain shaping algorithm (CGSA). The advantages are that one has a concise design procedure and can achieve good performance such as disturbance rejection and robustness. Finally, three highly cited examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Analytical design of modified Smith predictor in a two-degrees-of-freedom control scheme for second order unstable processes with time delay

A modified form of Smith predictor is designed for controlling unstable second order plus time delay (USOPTD) processes, with/without a zero. USOPTD process transfer functions arise in modeling of many chemical and biological systems, such as isothermal continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTR) carrying out autocatalytic reactions, crystallizers and non-isothermal CSTRs. The modified Smith predictor scheme requires the design of three controllers. Synthesis method is used for the design of the three controllers, and analytical formulas are given for these controllers. The method has two tuning parameters, and guidelines are provided for selecting the tuning parameters. Robust disturbance rejection performances are achieved. Different examples are considered, and simulation studies are given, to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. A significant improvement is obtained, when compared with recently reported methods.     

A comparison of traditional and adaptive control strategies for systems with time delay

A recently developed tuning method is compared to an adaptive Smith Predictor control strategy. The robustness of each method is considered for time-varying plant parameters. Examples with simulations are provided to compare the methods and present conclusions on the advantages and disadvantages of each.     

Tuning of an optimal fuzzy PID controller with stochastic algorithms for networked control systems with random time delay

An optimal PID and an optimal fuzzy PID have been tuned by minimizing the Integral of Time multiplied Absolute Error (ITAE) and squared controller output for a networked control system (NCS). The tuning is attempted for a higher order and a time delay system using two stochastic algorithms viz. the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and two variants of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and the closed loop performances are compared. The paper shows that random variation in network delay can be handled efficiently with fuzzy logic based PID controllers over conventional PID controllers.     

Set point weighted modified Smith predictor for integrating and double integrating processes with time delay

A simple method of designing the controllers for a modified form of Smith predictor is proposed for integrating and double integrating processes with time delay. The modified Smith predictor has two controllers, namely, a set point tracking controller and a load disturbance rejection controller for obtaining good set point tracking and load disturbance rejection, respectively. The set point tracking controller is designed using the classical direct synthesis method based on the process model without considering the time delay. The disturbance rejection controller is considered as a proportional-derivative (PD) controller and is designed using optimal gain and phase margin approaches. Set point weighting is considered for reducing undesirable overshoots and settling times in the modified Smith predictor. Guidelines are provided for selection of the desired closed loop tuning parameter in the direct synthesis method and the set point weighting parameter. The method gives significant load disturbance rejection performances. Illustrative examples are considered to show the performances of the proposed method. A significant improvement in control performance is obtained when compared to recently reported methods.