PID Controller Tuning

Difference between Compensator & Controller

Compensator:
• Modifies original dynamics of the plant.
• Improves the characteristics of the open loop plant.
• Improves stability
Example : Lag , Lead, Lag-Lead compensator
Controller:
• Aim of controller design is to reduce the error between the reference and the
output signal
Example : PI, PD , PID controllers
Continued…
• Both controller &
compensator can be used in
some applications to achieve
required steady state
requirements.
• Block diagram one such
example is shown in the
figure.
Controllers - Introduction
• A controller is a mechanism that minimizes the difference between the actual
value of a system (i.e. the process variable) and the desired value of the system
(i.e. the setpoint).

• The variable (e) represents the error between desired output (r) & actual output
(c).
• The control variable u is given to the plant.
Important uses of Controllers
1.Controllers improve the steady-state accuracy by decreasing the steady state error.
2.As the steady-state accuracy improves, the stability also improves.
3.Controllers also help in reducing the unwanted offsets produced by the system.
4.Controllers can control the maximum overshoot of the system.
5.Controllers can help to speed up the slow response of an overdamped system.
Example1 – Industrial PID Controllers

Manual Control of the Temperature

Example1 – Industrial PID Controllers

Automatic Control of the Temperature

Example2 –PID Control in Robot Arm

• Robot arm has 4 joints – Wrist, Forearm,

Bicep, Turntable.
• Each joint has a DC servo motor.
• Robotic arm consists of four PID controller
(one per joint).
Example3 –PID Control in Robotic Car

Car Track
Robotic Car

Robotic Car
PID Controller
• The controller may have different structures like , PI (proportional & integral)
controller, PD(proportional & derivative) controllers, PID (proportional integral &
derivative) controllers
• Most popular among them is Proportional-Integral-derivative (PID) type
controller.
• The output of the PID controller u(t) can be expressed in terms of error input e(t)

• The transfer function of the controller is given by

PID Controller
Continued…
• 
The terms of the controller

• This error signal is fed to the PID

controller, it computes both the derivative
& integral of this error with respect to the
time.
• The control signal (u) is proportional to
error plus the integral of the error and
derivative of the error.
Continued…
•  The overall control function of PID controller can also be expressed as ,

Where ,
PID components
Proportional Response:
• The proportional component depends only on the difference between the desired output and the
output value.
• For example, an airplane is approaching an airport located at sea level. At different altitudes, the
plane descends at various speeds.
Integral Response:
• The integral component sums the error term over time.
• The integral response will continually increase over time unless the error is zero, so the effect is to
drive the Steady-State error to zero.
Continued…
Example :Consider an altimeter that takes a reading every t seconds. If the sum of all the errors adds
up to zero, then integral control would not correct it. Now, let us look at a second situation where
every time a reading is taken, the altitude is two feet. Then the integral control would integrate over
the magnitude of the readings times the numbers of time it was read and apply a correction to two
feet. Integral takes into account the time of the error before applying a correction.

Derivative Response
• Derivative control takes into account how fast the error is changing. The faster the error is
increasing, the more correction that is applied. The slower the error is increasing; the less
correction is applied.
Proportional Control
• For
  the sake of simplicity, we consider the transfer function of the plant as a
simple first order system as:
Proportional Control

Figure: Step Response of Proportional

control Action
 Proportional Control
Conclusions:
• The time response improves by a factor

• But the proportional control action introduces the offset (steady state error).

• This offset can be reduced by increasing the proportional gain; but that may also
cause increase oscillations for higher order systems.
Proportional Control Action
Integral Control
• If we consider the integral action of the controller only, the closed loop system for
the same process is represented by the block diagram
 Integral Control
• From the first observation, it can be seen that with integral controller, the order
of the closed loop system increases by one.
• Increase in order may cause instability of the closed loop system, if the process is
of higher order dynamics.
• For step input
Integral Control
• Major advantage of integral control action is that the steady state error due to step
input reduces to zero.
• But simultaneously, the system response is generally slow, oscillatory and unless
properly designed, sometimes even unstable.

Figure: Step Response of Integral control Action

Proportional Plus Integral (P-I) Control

• P-I action provides the dual advantages of fast response due to P-action and the
zero steady state error due to I-action.
• Closed loop transfer function is,
Continued…
• The error function for step input is ,

• we can conclude that the steady state error would be zero for P-I action.
• From closed loop characteristics equation of PI control,

• We obtain the damping ratio as,

Continued…
•• By
  varying the term , the damping constant can be increased.
• So we can conclude that by using P-I control, the steady state error can be brought down to zero,
and simultaneously, the transient response can be improved.

Figure: Comparison among transient responses with P, I and PI controller

Proportional Plus Derivative (P-D) Control

• For analysis of PD controller let us consider a second order plant, because for first
order plant it does not reduce steady state error to zero.
• The closed loop transfer function,
Continued…

• With P controller the closed loop transfer function with second order plant is ,
Continued…
• There is an improvement in the transient
response with PD controller for higher order
systems than compared to P controller action
with higher order systems.
• With derivative control, the control signal can
become large if the error begins sloping
upward, even while the magnitude of the error
is still relatively small.
• This anticipation tends to add damping to the
system, thereby decreasing overshoot &
improves stability
PID Controller
• PID controller involves all the three controllers P, I & D connected in parallel.
• The transfer function of a P-I-D controller is given by:

The characteristics of PID controller:

• The proportional controller will have the effect of reducing the rise time & will reduce ,
but never eliminates the steady state error.
• An integral controller will have the effect of eliminating the steady state error , but it
makes transient response slow.
• A derivative controller increases the stability of the system , reducing the overshoot &
improving the transient response.
PID Tuning
• PID tuning is the process of finding the values of proportional, integral, and
derivative gains of a PID controller to achieve desired performance and meet
design requirements.
• PID controller tuning appears easy, but finding the set of gains that ensures the best
performance of your control system is a complex task
How do PID parameters affect system
dynamics??
•  The effects of increasing each of the controller parameters cab be summarized

• NT – No definite trend , Minor change

How to find a good set of initial parameters
of PID??
•Typical
  steps for designing a PID controller are
1. Determine what characteristics of the system needs to be improved.
2. Use to decrease the rise time.
3. Use to reduce the overshoot & settling time.
4. Use to eliminate the steady state error
This may work in many cases , but what would be the good starting set of values?
Ziegler-Nichols Tuning
• The process of experimentation for obtaining the optimum values of the controller parameters with
respect to a particular process is known as controller tuning.
• Controller tuning is very much process dependent and any improper selection of the controller
settings may lead to instability, or deterioration of the performance of the closed loop system.
• In 1942 two practicing engineers, J.G. Ziegler and N.B. Nichols, after carrying out extensive
experiments with different types of processes proposed certain tuning rules.
• Over six decades of research on PID controllers several methods are available for tuning, but most
of them are model based.
• Strength of the ZN method is that it does not require a mathematical model, but controller
parameters can simply be chosen by experimentation.
• Resulting system may exhibit large overshoots, which can be further tuned by series of fine
tunings.
Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – First Method
• This method applies to the plant with neither integrators nor dominant complex
conjugate poles, whose unit step response resemble a S- shaped curve with no
overshoot.
• We experimentally obtain the unit step response of the plant.
• This type of response is typical of a first order system with transportation delay,
such as that induced by fluid flow from a tank along a pipe line.
• This S-shaped curve is called reaction curve.

Figure: Unit step response of the plant

Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – First Method

L = Delay Time
T = Time constant

Figure: S shaped response curve

• The S-shaped reaction curve can be characterized by two constants , delay time L
& time constant T , which can determined by drawing a tangent line at the
inflection point of the curve & finding the intersections of the tangent line with
the time axis & steady state level line
Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – First Method
• Transfer
  function of the plant is approximated by a first order system with
transport lag ,

• Ziegler and Nichols suggested to set the values of and according to the formula
shown in Table
Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – First Method
• Notice that the PID controller tuned by the first method of Ziegler–Nichols rules
gives

• Thus, the PID controller has a pole at the origin and double zeros at s= –1/L.
 Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – Second Method
• The
  steps for tuning a PID controller via the 2nd method is as follows:
• Reduce the integrator and derivative gains to 0. Set and .
• Using the proportional control action only increase from 0 to a critical value at
which the output first exhibits sustained oscillations.
• Note the value and the corresponding period of sustained oscillation,

Figure
 
Sustained oscillation
with period
Figure
Closed-loop system
with a proportional
controller.
Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – Second Method
• Ziegler
  and Nichols second method suggests to set the values of the parameters ,
and according to the formula shown in Table

 Table Ziegler–Nichols Tuning Rule Based on Critical Gain

and Critical Period (Second Method)
Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – Second Method
• Notice
  that the PID controller tuned by the second method of Ziegler–Nichols rules
gives

• Thus, the PID controller has a pole at the origin and double zeros at
Ziegler-Nichols Tuning – Second Method
• Note
  :If the system has a known mathematical model (such as the transfer
function), then we can use the root-locus method to find the critical gain and the
frequency of the sustained oscillations , where .
• These values can be found from the crossing points of the root-locus branches
with the axis. (Obviously, if the root-locus branches do not cross the axis, this
method does not apply.)
Example 1
•• Consider
  a process with transfer function that is to be placed under PID control.
• We can determine the limiting gain for stability (before oscillations) by use of the Routh-Hurwitz
condition
• The characteristic equation, p(s), with Proportional control is:
Example 1
•  From this we see that the range of K for stability is
• Therefore , when we have imaginary roots since the row is 0.
• The corresponding auxiliary equation is,
• The frequency of sustained oscillations will be 4.8rad/sec.
• .
• From PID tuning table of second method we obtain

•
Example 1

Figure 5: Step Response for System Tuned via the Second Method