Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2018, pp. 221~226

ISSN: 2502-4752, DOI: 10.11591/ijeecs.v9.i1.pp221-226  221

Ziegler-Nichols Based Proportional-Integral-Derivative

Controller for a Line Tracking Robot

Kim Seng Chia

Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Malaysia

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history: Line tracking robots have been widely implemented in various applications.
Among various control strategies, a proportional-integral-derivative (PID)
Received July 19, 2017 algorithm has been widely proposed to optimize the performance of a line
Revised Oct 20, 2017 tracking robot. However, the motivation of using a PID controller, instead of
Accepted Nov 7, 2017 a proportional (P) or a proportional-integral (PI) controller, in a line tracking
task has seldom been discussed. Particularly, the use of a systematic tuning
approach e.g. closed loop Ziegler Nichols rule to optimize the parameters of
Keywords: a PID controller has rarely been investigated. Thus, this paper investigates
the performance of P, PI, and PID controllers in a line tracking task, and the
Differential Wheeled Robot ability of Ziegler Nichols rule to optimize the parameters of the P, PI, and
Line Tracking PID controllers. First, the ultimate gain value, Ku and ultimate period of
Proportional-Integral- oscillation, Pu were estimated using a proposed approach. Second, the values
Derivative of KP, KI and KD were estimated using the Ziegler Nichols formulae. The
Ziegler Nichols performance of a differential wheeled robot in the line tracking task was
evaluated using three different speeds. Results indicate that the Ziegler
Nichols rule coupled with the proposed method is able to identify the
parameters of the P, PI, and PID controllers systematically in the line
tracking task. Findings indicate that the mobile robot coupled with a
proportional controller achieved the best performance compared to PI and
PID controllers in the line tracking process when the estimated initial
parameters were used.

Copyright © 2018 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science.

All rights reserved.

Corresponding Author:
Kim Seng Chia,
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Malaysia.
Email: kschia@uthm.edu.my

1. INTRODUCTION
Line follower or line tracking robots have been widely implemented in various applications e.g.
delivery services, transportation systems, blind assistive, and educational [1] applications. This could be due
to its simplicity and reliability in terms of its design and performance. A line follower robot is a self-
operating robot that is designed to work on a given line. Generally, the speed and direction of a line follower
robot can be controlled using a simple logic that based on the state of sensors [2, 3]. However, this might be
less flexible due to the limited states that are available for a combination of a few sensors.
A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is one of popular classical controllers in
numerous applications. One of the challenges for a PID controller is to obtain the optimal values of its
proportional, integral, and derivative parameters. Even though abundant strategies have been proposed to
automatically tune these parameters [4], e.g. Artificial Bee Colony [5]. However, these strategies are rarely to
be applied due to their complexity. Consequently, classical PID tuning methods, e.g. Ziegler Nichols rule, are
still widely applied in industries due to their robustness and simplicity [6, 7].

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222  ISSN:2502-4752

Among various control strategies, a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller has been

widely proposed to optimize the performance of a line tracking robot [8, 9]. However, the motivation of
using a PID controller, instead of a proportional (P) or proportional-integral (PI) controller, in a line tracking
task has seldom been discussed. Besides, the tuning process of PID parameters has not been fully understood.
This is because a trial-and-error practice has been used in most cases.
The closed loop Ziegler Nichols rule is a systematic tuning approach that has been widely used in
industries to optimize the parameters of a PID controller. In fact, Ziegler Nichols rule has been widely used
as a benchmark to tune PID parameters in numerous studies [10, 11]. This could be due to the fact that the
implementation of the closed loop Ziegler Nichols rule does not need the information of a model, and it is
likely to achieve satisfactory performance. Consequently, various GUI or simulator have been developed to
observe the effect of Ziegler Nichols tuning method [7, 12].
Despite the simplicity and robustness of Ziegler Nichols rule, the use of Ziegler-Nichols rule to find
the parameters of a PID controller in a line tracking robot has rarely been reported and investigated. One of
the challenges of applying the closed loop Ziegler-Nichols rule in a line tracking robot is to figure out the
ultimate gain, Ku and ultimate period of oscillation, P u. The ultimate gain, Ku and ultimate period of
oscillation, Pu are two crucial parameters that can only be computed when a system is performing a simple
harmonic oscillation. Thus, a strategy is needed to obtain the K u and Pu so that Ziegler Nichols rule can be
correctly implemented to estimate the parameters of a PID controller for a line tracking robot.
Thus, this paper aims to investigate the ability of the Ziegler Nichols rule to estimate the initial
parameters of the P, PI, and PID controllers, and to evaluate the performances of P, PI, and PID controllers in
controlling a mobile robot for a line tracking task when the estimated parameters are used.

2. RESEARCH METHOD
2.1. Differential Wheeled Robot
An Arduino-controllable tracked robot platform (Pololu Zumo Robot), also known as a differential
wheeled robot, was used in this study. This robot consists of a Zumo shield, an Arduino UNO R3
microcontroller, two high speed (30:1 high power micro metal gear) DC brushed motors, and a reflectance
sensor array (six pairs of reflectance sensors); and is powered by four AA rechargeable batteries.

2.2. Testing Field

A 50cm × 75cm white cardboard was used as the background of the testing field. A black masking
tape with a width of 2cm was used to construct a 164cm continuous tracking line as illustrated in Figure 1.
A continuous tracking line was used so that the performance of the line tracking robot can be observed
continuously in a limited space.

Figure 1. The mobile robot on the testing field

2.3. Line Tracking Algorithm

Matlab (R2013b) Simulink coupled with ZumoBotLib (adafruit) was used to tune the parameters of
P, PI, and PID controllers of the mobile robot. The signals of the reflectance sensor array were calibrated
with a value from zero to 5000. The reading would approach to zero, 2500, and 5000 when the black line was
on the left, the middle, and the right of the reflectance sensor array. In order to track a given line, the aim of
the robot is to maintain its desired position (i.e. the value of 2500) with a minimum deviation by adjusting the
speeds of its left and right DC motors according to the Equartion 1 and Equation 2.

Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci, Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2018 : 221 – 226
Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci ISSN: 2502-4752  223

VL = V – ωL/2 (1)

VR = V + ωL/2 (2)

Where, VL and VR are the speeds of the left and right motors, respectively; V denotes the desired
speed; L is the axial length of the robot; and ω is the output of the P, PI, or PID controller that is used to
adjust the speeds of the DC motors. A good controller should estimate a suitable ω continuously so that the
speed of both left and right motors can be adjusted properly in such ways that the robot can follow the given
line with a minimum deviation.

2.4. Ziegler Nichols

In this study, a closed-loop Ziegler Nichols rule was used to find the parameters of a P, PI, or PID
controller for the mobile robot in line tracking process. First, the reflectance sensor array was calibrated to
differentiate the black line and white background. Second, both integral, K I and derivative, KD parameters
were set to zero so that only the proportional parameter, K P was used to perform a proportional controller for
the line tracking process. Third, the speed of the mobile robot was set to 25 cm/s. Then, the value of K P was
gradually increased until the mobile robot was oscillating with an approximately consistent amplitude as
illustrated in Figure 2.

Pu

Figure 2. The position of the differential wheeled robot versus the time

After that, the movement of the mobile robot was captured using a video camera. From the captured
video, the time taken for the mobile robot to complete 20 stable oscillations continuously was recorded. After
that, the ultimate period, Pu can be approximated by dividing the time taken by 20. This strategy was used to
estimate the Pu because the time taken to complete an oscillation is less than two seconds. The ultimate gain
Kc, on the other hand, is the same as the Kp that caused the consistent oscillation. The above procedure was
repeated using two different speeds of 50 cm/s and 75 cm/s.
After completing the experiment with three different speeds, the estimated P u and Ku values were
used to estimate the initial parameters of P, PI, and PID controllers for each speed using the classical Ziegler
Nichols formulae as that tabulated in Table 1.

Table 1. The formulae used to estimate the values of Kp, KI and KD for P, PI, and PID controllers using Ku
and Pu
Controller KP KI KD
P Ku ÷ 2 0 0
PI Ku ÷ 2.2 1.2KP ÷ Pu 0
PID Ku ÷ 1.7 2KP ÷ Pu KPPu ÷ 8

Ziegler-Nichols Based Proportional-Integral-Derivative Controller… (Kim Seng Chia)

224  ISSN:2502-4752

3. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

3.1. Different Speeds
Table 2 tabulates the values of Ku and Pu for the mobile robot with different speeds. The ultimate
gain, Ku was increased when the speed of the mobile robot was increased. This suggests that the mobile robot
with a higher speed requires a higher Kp value to maintain a consistent oscillating movement.
Ultimate period, Pu, on the other hand, did not indicate a particular pattern as K u. For example, Pu
was the lowest when the speed of 50 cm/s was used; but higher P u was needed for either speed of 25 or 75
cm/s. This could be due to the fact that the consistent oscillating paths for each speed was different in terms
of total distance and amplitude. Consequently, different period was needed to complete one circle for a
combination of a different speed and a different ultimate gain.

Table 2. The values of Ku and Pu for the mobile robot with different speeds
Speed (cm/s) Ultimate gain, Ku Ultimate period, Pu
(second)
25 0.056 1.40
50 0.060 1.25
75 0.070 1.71

3.2. P, PI, and PID Controllers

Table 3 shows that P, PI, and PID controllers with different parameters were estimated because the
mobile robot with different speeds had different values of the ultimate gain and ultimate period. This should
be expected because different Kp and Pu were needed for the mobile robot to perform a stable oscillation
when the speed of the robot was different.

Table 3. The parameters of P, PI, and PID controllers for the mobile robot with different speeds
Speed (cm/s) Controller KP KI KD
P 0.028 0 0
0.1
25 PI 0.025 0
2
0.0 0.00
PID 0.033
46 6
P 0.030 0 0
1.1
PI 0.027 0
50 08
0.6 0.16
PID 0.035
65 6
P 0.035 0 0
1.4
PI 0.032 0
75 25
0.8 0.21
PID 0.041
55 4

Table 4 tabulates the performance of the mobile robot for completing a circle of the line tracking
application when different speeds and controllers were applied. By inspection, the mobile robot that used a
proportional controller achieved the best performance among other controllers for the three different speeds.
Interestingly, the mobile robot that used the initial estimated PID controller produced the worst performance
for the three different speeds. This suggests that the Ziegler Nichols rule has successfully estimated a good
value for proportional controller only for the application. Manual optimization based on a rule of thumb or a
heuristic approach is needed to optimize the performance for PI and PID controllers.
It is worth to highlight that an integral controller is commonly used to remove an existing offset.
However, an offset might not exist in this line tracking process. In other words, adding an integral controller
could be redundant, and consequently it could degrade the performance of the mobile robot. This is possible
because an integral controller tends to slow down the response of a controller. For example, the mobile robot
that used a PI controller is only able to achieve similar or worse performance compared to that used P
controller for the thre. However, only the mobile robot that applied P and PI controllers demonstrated this
expected performance. The mobile robot that used PID for a speed of 75 cm/s, in contrast, achieved the
worse performance than that applied PID for a speed of 50 cm/s. This is because the mobile robot with the

Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci, Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2018 : 221 – 226
Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci ISSN: 2502-4752  225

speed of 75cm/s had the higher rising time and significant damping oscillations when the robot turned 90
degrees. Consequently, more time was needed to complete the given task.

Table 4. The time taken for the mobile robot to complete a cycle in the testing field
Speed (cm/s) Controller Time taken (s)
P 9.33
25 PI 9.33
PID 11.00
P 5.00
50 PI 5.33
PID 6.67
P 4.33
75 PI 4.33
PID 8.00

The main challenge of a closed-loop Ziegler Nichols tuning rule is to accurately estimate the
ultimate period, Pu and the ultimate gain Kc. Recent study uses a visual inspection based on whether the
mobile robot performed a noticeable oscillation without wild ones during line tracking [13]. However, this
approach trends to be less reliable and subjective. On the other hand, the proposed approach by means of a
video camera that records the observation can eliminate the unwanted uncertainty in estimating the P u and Kc.
Consequently, the repeatability and reproducibility of a study can be improved.

4. CONCLUSION
Findings indicate that the Ziegler-Nichols rule is a systematic approach to estimate the parameters of
P, PI, and PID controllers for the line tracking process. This can be accomplished by using the approximated
ultimate gain, Ku and ultimate period of oscillation, P u to estimate these parameters based on the Ziegler-
Nichols’ formulae. In other words, a trial-and-error tuning method to estimate the parameters of the
controllers can be avoided. Nevertheless, background knowledge is needed to identify a suitable controller to
suit particular applications. The best controller for the line tracking process was the P controller among PI
and PID controllers.
The higher the speed of a mobile robot, the higher the Kp value was required to maintain a
consistent oscillating movement. The best performance was achieved by P controllers for the three different
speeds. Findings also show that the selection of the type of controllers is crucial to achieve the best
performance. Particularly, the use of a complex controller, i.e. PID controller, did not achieve the best
performance when the estimated parameters by means of the Ziegler-Nichols rule. Thus, the selection of a
suitable controller should be made according to the nature of a given system. Besides, a simple controller,
e.g. P controller, should be considered first before more complex controllers are implemented.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to acknowledge Research and Innovation Fund provided by the Office for
Research, Innovation, Commercialization and Consultancy Management (ORICC), RMC, Universiti Tun
Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) for providing financial support, and Faculty of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, UTHM for providing facilities for this study; and Mr Amir Yasser for acquiring the data needed
in this study.

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