INTRODUCTION TO CONTROL

SYSTEM ENGINEERING
EDDIE G. SANTILLAN, JR., ECE
Reference: Control System Engineering 6E Norman Nise

Definition

A control system consists of subsystems and processes

(or plants) assembled for the purpose of obtaining a
desired output with desired performance, given a
specified input.
A control system has an input, a process, and an output.

An elevator as a Control System

When

the fourth-floor button is pressed on the

first floor, the elevator rises to the fourth floor
with a speed and floor-leveling accuracy designed
for passenger comfort.

Two
1.
2.

major measures of performance are apparent:

the transient response
the steady-state error

An elevator as a Control System

Elevator response

Advantages of Control Systems

We build control systems for four primary
reasons:
1. Power amplification

For example, a radar antenna, positioned by the lowpower rotation of a knob at the input, requires a large
amount of power for its output rotation.

2. Remote control

For example, a remote-controlled robot arm can be

used to pick up material in a radioactive environment.

Advantages of Control Systems

3. Convenience of input form

For example, in a temperature control system, the

input is a position on a thermostat. The output is heat.
Thus, a convenient position input yields a desired
thermal output.

4. Compensation for disturbances

For example, a position-controlled antenna system is

displaced by wind forces (or due to noise or
interference) from its commanded position, the system
must be able to detect the disturbance and correct the
antenna's position commanded by the input.

A History of Control Systems

Liquid-Level Control

Ktesibios invented a water clock in 300 B.C.

operated by having water trickle into a
measuring container at a constant rate. The
level of water in the measuring container could
be used to tell time.
Soon after Ktesibios, the idea of liquid-level
control was applied to an oil lamp by Philon of
Byzantium.

A History of Control Systems

Steam Pressure and Temperature
Controls

Regulation of steam pressure began around

1681 with Denis Papin's invention of the safety
valve.
In the seventeenth century, Cornells Drebbel
in Holland invented a purely mechanical
temperature control system for hatching eggs.

A History of Control Systems

Speed Control

In 1745, speed control was applied to a windmill

by Edmund Lee. Increasing winds pitched the
blades farther back, so that less area was
available. As the wind decreased, more blade
area was available.
William Cubitt improved on the idea in 1809
by dividing the windmill sail into movable
louvers.
In the eighteenth century, James Watt invented
the flyball speed governor to control the speed
of steam engines.

A History of Control Systems

Stability, Stabilization, and Steering

In 1868, James Clerk Maxwell published the stability

criterion for a third-order system based on the
coefficients of the differential equation.
In 1874, Edward John Routh was able to extend the
stability criterion to fifth-order systems.
In 1877, Routh submitted a paper entitled A Treatise
on the Stability of a Given State of Motion which
contains the concept of Routh-Hurwitz criterion for
stability.
Alexandr Michailovich Lyapunov extended the work
of Routh to nonlinear systems in his 1892 doctoral
thesis, entitled The General Problem of Stability
of Motion.

A History of Control Systems

Twentieth-Century Developments

In 1922, the Sperry Gyroscope Company installed

an automatic steering system that used the elements
of compensation and adaptive control to improve
performance.
Nicholas Minorsky conceived the application of
proportional-plus-integral-plus-derivative (PID)
controllers to the automatic steering of ships.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, H. W. Bode and
H. Nyquist at Bell Telephone Laboratories developed
the analysis of feedback amplifiers which evolved into
sinusoidal frequency analysis and design techniques
currently used for feedback control system.

A History of Control Systems

Twentieth-Century Developments

In 1948, Walter R. Evans, working in the

aircraft industry, developed a graphical
technique called root locus used to plot the roots
of a characteristic equation of a feedback
system whose parameters changed over a
particular range of values.
This technique takes its place with the work of
Bode and Nyquist in forming the foundation of
linear control systems analysis and design
theory.

System Configurations
Two

major configurations of control

systems:
open loop

do not correct for disturbances and are simply

commanded by the input.

closed loop or feedback control system

compensates for disturbances by measuring the

output response, feeding that measurement back
through a feedback path, and comparing that
response to the input at the summing junction

Block Diagram of an Open Loop System

Functions of Each Component

It starts with a subsystem called an input
transducer, which converts the form of the input
to that used by the controller.
The controller drives a process or a plant.
The input is sometimes called the reference, while
the output can be called the controlled variable.
Other signals, such as disturbances, are shown
added to the controller and process outputs via
summing junctions, which yield the algebraic sum
of their input signals using associated signs.

Block Diagram of an Closed Loop System

Functions of Each Component

The input transducer converts the form of the
input to the form used by the controller.
An output transducer, or sensor, measures the
output response and converts it into the form
used by the controller. For example, if the
controller uses electrical signals to operate the
valves of a temperature control system, the input
position and the output temperature are
converted to electrical signals.

The input position can be converted to a voltage by a

potentiometer.
The output temperature can be converted to a
voltage by a thermistor, a device whose electrical
resistance changes with temperature.

 The

first summing junction algebraically adds

the signal from the input to the signal from the
output, which arrives via the feedback path, the
return path from the output to the summing
junction.
The output signal is subtracted from the input
signal.
The result is generally called the actuating
signal.
In systems where both the input and output
transducers have unity gain (that is, the
transducer amplifies its input by 1), the
actuating signal's value is equal to the actual
difference between the input and the output

Advantages and Trade-of

Closed-loop

systems have greater accuracy than

open-loop systems. They are less sensitive to noise,
disturbances, and changes in the environment.
Transient response and steady-state error can be
controlled conveniently and with greater flexibility
in closed-loop systems by simple adjustment of
gain (amplification) in the loop and sometimes by
redesigning the controller or compensating the
system and the resulting hardware as a
compensator.
Closed-loop systems are more complex and
expensive while open-loop systems are simple and
low cost.

Analysis and Design

Analysis

is the process by which a system's

performance is determined.

For example, we evaluate its transient response and

steady-state error to determine if they meet the
desired specifications.

Design

is the process by which a system's

performance is created or changed.

For example, if a system's transient response and

steady-state error are analyzed and found not to
meet the specifications, then we change parameters
or add additional components to meet the
specifications.

control system is dynamic: It responds to

an input by undergoing a transient response
before reaching a steady-state response that
generally resembles the input.
Three major objectives of systems analysis and
design:
producing the desired transient response
reducing steady-state error
achieving stability

Transient Response
Transient

response is important because it affects

the speed of the system and influences human
patience and comfort, not to mention mechanical
stress.
Steps in analysis and design of transient
response:
1. Establish quantitative definitions for transient
response.
2. Analyze the system for its existing transient
response.
3. Adjust parameters or design components to
yield a desired transient response.

Steady-State Response
Steady-state

response determines the accuracy of

the control system; it governs how closely the
output matches the desired response.
For example, this response may be an elevator
stopped near the fourth floor or the head of a
disk drive finally stopped at the correct track.
Steps in analysis and design of steady-state
errors:
1. Define steady-state errors quantitatively.
2. analyze a system's steady-state error.
3. Design corrective action to reduce the steadystate error.

Stability
The

total response of a system is the sum of the

natural response and the forced response.
Natural response describes the way the
system dissipates or acquires energy and is
dependent only on the system, not the input.
For

a control system to be useful, the natural

response must (1) eventually approach zero, thus
leaving only the forced response, or (2) oscillate.

The forced response is dependent on the input.

A stable control systems must have their natural
response decay to zero as time approaches infinity,
or oscillate.

Stability
If

the natural response grows without bound

rather than diminish to zero or oscillate and
becomes greater than the forced response in
which the system is no longer controlled leading
to destruction or damage of the system itself. This
condition is called instability.

the elevator would crash through the floor or exit

through the ceiling;
an aircraft would go into an uncontrollable roll;

An

unstable system would show a transient

response that grows without bound and without
any evidence of a steady-state response.

Other Considerations
Factors

affecting hardware selection

motor sizing to fulfill power requirements
choice of sensors for accuracy
Finances budget allocations and
competitive pricing must be considered
Robust design
The system will not be sensitive to parameter
changes when used in an actual environment.

The Design Process

Test waveforms used in control systems

Test waveforms used in control systems

Computer-Aided Design
MATLAB

and the MATLAB Control System Toolbox

an alternate method of solving control system
problems

NI

LabVIEW National Instruments Laboratory Virtual

Instrumentation for Electronic Workbench
This graphical programming tool produces front
panels of virtual instruments on your computer that
are pictorial reproductions of hardware instruments,
such as waveform generators or oscilloscopes.
Also includes blocks which contain underlying code
for the controls and indicators on the front panel.

Introduction to Position Control

Systems

A position control system

converts a position input
command to a position output
response with widespread
applications in antennas, robot
arms, and computer disk drives.
The radio telescope antenna is
one example of a system that
uses position control systems.
An antenna azimuth position
control system is used to position
a radio telescope antenna.

Step 1: Transform Requirements Into a

Physical System

Step 2: Draw a Functional Block Diagram

The Operation
The

input command is an angular displacement.

The potentiometer converts the angular
displacement into a voltage.
Similarly, the output angular displacement is
converted to a voltage by the potentiometer in
the feedback path.
The signal and power amplifiers boost the
difference between the input and output voltages.
This amplified actuating signal drives the plant.
The motor is driven only when the output and the
input do not match. The greater the difference
between the input and the output, the larger the
motor input voltage, and the faster the motor will
turn.

Step 3: Create a Schematic

Step 3: Create a Schematic (Detailed)

Step 4: Develop a Mathematical

Model (Block Diagram)

Step 5: Reduce the Block Diagram

(b) Pushing input potentiometer to the right past
the summing junction;

(c) showing equivalent

forward transfer function
(d) Final closed-loop
transfer function

Step 6: Analyze and Design

Response of a position control system, showing

effect of high and low controller gain on the
output response.

Analysis
If

we increase the gain of the signal amplifier, will

there be an increase in the steady-state value of
the output?
If the gain is increased, then for a given actuating
signal, the motor will be driven harder but will still
stop when the actuating signal reaches zero, that
is, when the output matches the input.

Transient Response
If

the motor is driven harder, it turns faster toward

its final position. Also, because of the increased
speed, increased momentum could cause the
motor to overshoot the final value and be forced
by the system to return to the commanded
position.
Thus, the possibility exists for a transient
response that consists of damped oscillations
(that is, a sinusoidal response whose amplitude
diminishes with time) about the steady-state
value if the gain is high.

Steady-State Response
Typically,

the steady-state error decreases with an

increase in gain and increases with a decrease in
gain.
The response shows zero error in the steady-state
response; that is, after the transients have
disappeared, the output position equals the
commanded input position.
In some systems, the steady-state error will not be
zero; for these systems, a simple gain adjustment
to regulate the transient response is either not
effective or leads to a trade-off between the
desired transient response and the desired
steady-state accuracy.

Stability
To

solve this problem, a controller with a dynamic

response, such as an electrical filter, is used along
with an amplifier. With this type of controller, it is
possible to design both the required transient
response and the required steady-state accuracy
without the trade-off required by a simple setting
of gain. However, the controller is now more
complex. The filter in this case is called a
compensator.
Many systems also use dynamic elements in the
feedback path along with the output transducer to
improve system performance.

Summary
The

design objectives and the system's

performance revolve around the transient
response, the steady-state error, and stability.
Gain adjustments can affect performance and
sometimes lead to trade-offs between the
performance criteria. Compensators can often be
designed to achieve performance specifications
without the need for trade-offs.

Assignment:

Review Laplace transform and Inver Laplace

transform for the next lecture.