TCE 5102: Process Dynamics and Control

Topic 1.0: Design of Feedback Controllers

Lecturer: Engr. Stanford Mudono: Office SD2
• 1.1 Introduction
• 1.2 Outline of Design Problems
• 1.3 Simple Performance Criteria
• 1.4 Time - Interval Performance Criteria
• 1.5 Type of Feedback Controller
• 1.6 Controller Tuning
• 1.7 Summary on Design of Feedback Controllers
1.1 Introduction
• Critical questions to be considered:
How do we select the type of the feedback controller, (i.e. P, PI
or PID)?
How do we adjust the parameters of the selected controller (i.e.
gain, Kc, reset time, τI, derivative time constant, τD)?
• Purpose is to achieve an "optimum" response for the
controlled process
• The answers to both questions lead to the synthesis of
the control system, and the analysis of closed-loop
behavior.
1.2 Outline of the Design Problems
• When the load or the set
point changes the controller
tries to bring the output
again close to the desired
set point.
• Figure1.1 shows the
response of the controlled
process to a unit step
change in the load, when
different types of controllers
have been used.

Fig1.1 Response of a system to unit step change in load with no

control and various types of feedback controllers
 Different controllers have
different effects on the response
of the controlled process, thus the
first design question arises:
Question 1: What type of feedback
controller should be used to control
a given process?
 If one decides somehow to use PI
control, one still needs to select
the value of the gain, Kc and the
reset time τ1.
 Figures 1.2a and 1.2b
demonstrate very clearly that
these two parameters have an
important effect on the response Fig 1.2 Effects of the gain and reset time
of the controlled process. parameters on response of controlled process.
• Thus, the second design question arises:
Question 2: How do we select the best values for the
adjustable parameters of a feedback controller?
• This is known as the controller tuning problem.
• To answer these two questions we need to have a
quantitative measure in order to compare the
alternatives and select the best type of controller and
best values of parameters.
• Thus the third design question arises:
Question 3: What performance criterion should we use for
the selection and tuning of the controller?
• There are a variety of performance criteria we could use,
e.g.:
keep the maximum deviation as small as possible,
Achieve short settling time
Minimize the integral of errors until the process has settled
to its desired set point, and so on.
• Thus different performance criteria lead to different control
designs.
1.3 Simple Performance Criteria
• Let’s consider two different feedback
control systems producing the two closed-
loop responses shown in Fig 1.3.
• Response A reached the desired level of
operation faster than response B.
• If the criterion for the design of the
controller had been;
Return to the desired level of operation
as soon as possible, then clearly would
select the controller which gives the
closed- loop response of type A.
• If the criterion had been;
Keep the maximum deviation as small as
possible or return to the desired level of
operation and stay close to it in the
shortest time, would select the controller Fig 1.3 Alternative closed- loop responses
yielding the close – loop response of type
B.
• The evaluation of the dynamic performance of a closed
loop system is based on two types of commonly used
criteria:
Criteria which use only a few points of the response.
They are simpler but only approximate.
Criteria which use the entire closed-loop response
from time t = 0 until t = very large.
• These are more precise but also more cumbersome to
use.
• The most often quoted are:
Overshoot,
Rise time, i.e. time needed for the response to reach
the desired value for the first time,
Settling time, i.e. time needed for the response to
settle within ±5% of the desired value,
Decay ratio,
Frequency of oscillation of the transient.
• The controller is designed in order to have a minimum
overshoot or minimum settling time, etc.
• From all performance criteria above, the decay ratio
has been the most popular by the practicing engineers
(C/A = ¼ )
• Where, C is the dumping effect and A is maximum
amount by which the response exceeds its ultimate
value.
1.4 Time-Integral Performance Criteria
• The shape of the complete closed- 1.4.1. Integral of the Square Error (ISE), where
loop response from time t = 0 until
steady state has been reached could
be used for the formulation of a
dynamic performance criterion. 1.4.2. Integral of the Absolute Value of the Error (IAE), where
• Unlike the simple criteria which use
only isolated characteristics (e.g.
decay ratio, settling time) of the
1.4 .3.Integral of the Time-Weighted Absolute Error (ITAE), where
dynamic response, the criteria of this
category are based on the entire
response of the process.
Where
• The most often used are:
• The problem of designing the "best" controller can now
be formulated as follows:
• Select the type of the controller and the values of its
adjusted parameters in such a way as to minimize the
ISE, IAE or ITAE of the system's response.
• The following are some general guidelines:
• If we want strongly to suppress large errors, ISE is
better than IAE because the errors are squared and
thus contribute more to the value of the integral.
• For the suppression of small errors, IAE is better than
ISE because when we square small numbers (smaller
than one) they become even smaller.
• To suppress errors which persist for long times, the ITAE
criterion will tune the controllers better because the
presence of large t amplifies the effect of even small
errors in the value of the integral.
• Figure 1.4 demonstrates in a
qualitative manner the
shape of the closed-loop
responses.
• When the controller
parameters have been tuned
using ISE, IAE and ITAE
performance criteria, two
points are very important to
emphasize:
Different criteria lead to
different controller designs.
For the same time integral
criterion, different input
changes, lead to different
designs
Fig 1.4 Performance criteria using ISE, IAE and
ITAE
1.5 Type of Feedback Controller
• Which one of the three popular feedback controllers should
be used to control a given process?
• The question can be answered in a very systematic manner as
follows:
Define an appropriate performance criterion, e.g. ISE, IAE or
ITAE.
Compute the value of the performance criterion using P or PI
or PID controller with the best settings for the adjusted
parameters Kc, τI, and τD.
• Select that controller which gives the "best" value for
the performance criterion.
• This procedure although mathematically rigorous has
several serious drawbacks like:
it is very tedious,
it relies on modes (transfer functions) for the process,
sensor and final control element, which may not be
known exactly,
it incorporates certain ambiguities as to which is the
most appropriate criterion and what input changes to
consider
• Fortunately, we can select the most appropriate type of a feedback controller
using only general qualitative considerations stemming from the analysis and
the conclusions are as follows:
1.5.1. Proportional Control
• Accelerates the response of a controlled process.
• Produces an offset, i.e. non-zero steady state error for all processes except
those with terms l/s (integrators) in their transfer function, like the liquid level
in a tank or the gas pressure in a vessel.
1.5.2. Integral Control
• Eliminates any offset.
• The elimination of the offset comes usually at the expense of high maximum
deviations.
• Produces sluggish, long oscillating responses.
• If we increase the gain Kc to produce faster response the system becomes more
oscillatory and may lead to instability.
1.5.3. Derivative Control
• Anticipates future errors and introduces appropriate action.
• Introduces a stabilizing effect on the closed-loop response of a
process.
• Figure 1.1 reflects in a very simple way all the above
characteristics which should be used in a general manner.
• It is clear from the above that a three-mode PID controller
should be the best.
• To balance the quality of the desired response against the
tuning difficulty we can adopt the following rules to select the
controller.
1. If possible use simple proportional controller.
• Simple proportional controller can be used if:
(a) We can achieve acceptable offset with moderate values of Kc
or
(b) The process has an integrating action, i.e. a term l/s in its
transfer function for which the P control does not exhibit offset.
• Therefore, for gas pressure or liquid level control we can use
only P controller.
2. If simple P controller is unacceptable use a PI.
• A PI controller should be used when proportional control
alone cannot provide sufficiently small steady state errors
(offsets).
• Therefore, PI will seldom be used in liquid level or gas
pressure control systems but very often (almost always) for
flow control.
• The response of a flow system is rather fast.
• Consequently, the speed of the closed loop system, despite
the slowdown caused by the integral control mode, remains
satisfactory.
3. Use PID controller to increase the speed of the closed-loop
response and retain robustness.
• The PI eliminates the offset but reduces the speed of the
closed-loop response.
• For a multicapacity process whose response is very sluggish,
the addition of a PI controller makes it even more sluggish.
In such cases the addition of the derivative control action with its
stabilizing effect allows the use of higher gains which produce
faster responses without excessive oscillations.
Derivative action is recommended for temperature and
composition control where we have sluggish multicapacity
processes.
1.6 Controller Tuning
• After the type of a feedback controller has been selected, we still
have the problem of deciding what values to use for its adjusted
parameters (controller tuning problem).
• There are three general approaches we can use for tuning a
controller:
1.6.1 Use one-quarter decay ratio, minimum settling time, minimum
largest error, etc.
• Such an approach is simple and easily implementable on an actual
process.
• Additional specifications on the closed-loop performance will then be
needed to break the multiplicity and select a single set of values for
the adjusted parameters.
1.6.2 Use time integral performance criteria like ISE, IAE or ITAE.
• This approach is rather cumbersome and relies heavily on the
mathematical model (transfer function) of the process.
1.6.3 Use semi-empirical rules which have been proven in
practice.
• In this section we will discuss the most popular of the
empirical tuning methods known as the Process Reaction
Curve Method which was developed by Cohen and Coon.
• Consider the control system of Figure
1.6 which has been "opened" by
disconnecting the controller from the
final control element.
• Introduce a step change of magnitude A
in the variable c which actuates the final
control element.
• In the case of a valve, c is the stem
position.
• The curve y (t) is called Process Reaction
Curve.
• Between ym and c we have the following
transfer function (see Figure 1.6)

Fig 1.6 Opened control loop

• Cohen and Coon observed that
the response of most processing
units to an input change had a
sigmoidal shape (see Figure 1.7a)
which can be adequately
approximated by the response of
a first-order system with dead
time (Figure 1.7b, i.e.

• Which has three parameters:

static gain K,
 dead time td and
 time constant τ
Fig 1.7 (a) Process reaction Curve; (b) its approximation
with a 1st order plus dead-time system
• From the response of Figure 1.7a it is easy to approximate the
values of the three parameters.
• Thus,

where S is the slope of the sigmoidal response at the point of

inflexion
td = time elapsed until the system responded
• Cohen and Coon used the approximate model of eqn. (5) and
estimated the values of the parameters K, td and τ as indicated above.
• Then, they derived theoretical expressions for the "best"
controller settings using load changes and various
performance criteria like:
one-quarter decay ratio,
minimum offset,
minimum integral square error (ISE), etc
Summary
• To design a feedback controller it means:
(a) Select the type of the controller (P, PI or PID)
(b) Choose the values of the adjusted parameters for the selected
controller.
• Two main classes of dynamic performance criteria used to evaluate
alternative controller designs are:
simple isolated dynamic characteristics of a system's response
(overshoot, decay ratio, rise time, settling time), while
time integrals of various functions of the errors (e.g. of the square of
the errors, or of the absolute errors, or of the product of time with the
absolute errors)
• Aspects of simple isolated of criteria:
are simpler to use,
can be used even with poorly known processes, but
can lead to multiple solutions and need additional specifications to produce a
single solution
• Aspects of time integral criteria:
rules used to select type of a feedback controller:
Use proportional are based on the mathematical model (transfer function) of a
process,
necessitate the solution of an optimization problem, and
lead to unique solutions
• General heuristic control only if small offsets can be tolerated, e.g. liquid level,
gas pressure control; open-loop system has satisfactory speed, e.g. flow control.
• Use PID controllers to speed up the response of sluggish,
multicapacity open-loop systems, while maintaining
satisfactory robustness.
• Most common methods employed for controller tuning:
• The one-quarter decay ratio rule, or
• Time integral criteria (ISE, IAE, ITAE)., or
• The Cohen and Coon settings based on the process reaction
curves