Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

www.elsevier.com/locate/jprocont

On-line relay identication, assessment and tuning of PID controller

K.K. Tan *, T.H. Lee, X. Jiang
Department of Electrical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260, Singapore
Accepted 7 February 2000

Abstract
In this paper, we present an approach using relay feedback for automatic identication of the PID conguration and parameters
in existing and operational closed-loop systems. During the duration of the same experiment, the control performance may be
evaluated, providing an assessment of whether the current control parameter set is adequate and if re-tuning is necessary. Systematic and on-line automatic PID tuning rules are further developed and provided for common congurations of PID control.
Simulation examples and a real-time experiment are provided to illustrate the practical appeal of the proposed method. # 2001
Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: PID control; PID structure; Relay feedback; Performance assessment; PID autotuning

1. Introduction
The PID controller has remained, by far, as the most
commonly used controller in practically all industrial
control applications. Estimated production gure currently stands at a heftyseveral hundred thousands per
year and this gure is still healthily on the uptrend [1,2].
PID controllers come in various structures, depending
on the manufacturer. Among them, the two largest
classes of PID structure are the parallel (non-interacting) and the series (interacting) conguration [2]. The
main reason for the non-standard structure is due to the
historical transition of the controller from pneumaticbased analog implementation to micro-processor-based
digital implementation of the present age, and the corresponding change in the structural requirements.
Although functionally, the parallel conguration of PID
controller is the more general version of the two, the
series conguration has been relatively more rmly
rooted in the pneumatic analog version of PID control
as it requires fewer ampliers which were very expensive
just a few decades ago. Many manufacturers also retain
their conventional and trademark structures, in spite of
the widespread proliferation of digital controllers, due
to the large base of users already familiar with them.
The dierent structures of PID controller have direct
implications on controller tuning and the resultant
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +65-874-211; fax: +65-779-1103.
E-mail address: eletankk@nus.edu.sg (K.K. Tan).

performance. If thecontrollers are tuned by trial and

error approaches, the implications are less signicant.
The rules of thumb for the adjustment of PID parameters, pertaining to speed and stability, are usually
valid for all designs. However, they are certainly directly
relevant and signicant for systematic tuning of a PID
controller based on structural assumptions such as
classical ZieglerNichols and Cohen Coon rules, their
variants, and various more advanced model-based tuning methods [39]. Before a PID controller may be systematically and automatically tuned, its structure must
be known exactly for the tuning to be meaningful and
useful. Structural dierence also becomes important
when one product line is replaced with another. The old
controller gains cannot be directly ported over to the
new controllers [2].
In recent years, there has been much advances made
in areas related to the automatic tuning of PID controllers which greatly alleviates the need for skilled
operators in control tuning. Especially, in large process
plants where the number of control loops is tremendous, the economic benets associated with controllers incorporating automatic tuning are both
abundant and self-evident. However, the automatic
tuning facility provided by a manufacturer is usually
customized to the PID controller of the same manufacturer, and therefore inapplicable when applied to
other makes of PID controllers. One obvious reason is
due to the non-standard industrial PID structure discussed earlier. Furthermore, most automatic tuning

0959-1524/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0959-1524(00)00012-3

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K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

methods used in the industry to-date are mainly of the

o-line type. The well-known relay feedback automatic
tuning method is of no exception. It essentially also uses
an o-line tuning approach since the controller is
detached from the system during tuning, even though
the tuning occurs with relay feedback in the closed-loop.
There are important disadvantages of an o-line
method compared to an on-line one [3,5,6,10,11].
In this paper, we consider for the rst time the application of relay feedback to identication of the PID
conguration and parameters, thus seeking to expand
the application domain of current autotuning approaches to general and non-standard PID congurations.
The paper is focused on the two classes of PID conguration, the pure parallel and the series type. These two
classes are selected for illustration of the proposed
principle as they form the basis of any other variants of
PID structures (derivative lter, set-point weighting,
etc.), and they are usually adopted in most literature. It
should be noted that the proposed approach will be
equally applicable to such sub-classes if the user chooses
to include them in the identication experiment. In the
proposed identication approach, a relay is applied to
an inner loop consisting of a controller-stabilized process in the usual manner. Thus, while the identication
experiment is being conducted, the process is still under
closed-loop control, resulting in a higher degree of
robustness of the identication process to external disturbances and process perturbations. Apart from identifying the control structure, the approach developed
also seeks to identify the PID parameters, if they are not
already known, or if they need to be veried especially
for the analog versions of PID controllers where due to
wear and tear, the actual settings can be signicantly
dierent from the dial settings. From the information
obtained in the same experiment, the control performance can be assessed and evaluated for its adequacy
and the need for re-tuning. This evaluation is based on
the comparison of suitable measures relating to speed
and stability of the controller-stabilized process. On-line
PID tuning rules are also provided for both classes of
PID controllers considered, which are based on the
same information available from the identication
experiment and no further experimentation is necessary.

Schei [5] has also proposed a method for online tuning

of PID controllers.
Simulations and a real-time experiment on an industrial process emulator are provided to illustrate the
applicability of the proposed approach under realistic
practical conditions.
2. Structures of the PID controller a review
This section serves to review the main structures of
the PID controllers of today the parallel and the
series type.
2.1. Parallel type
The parallel type of the PID controller uses the following control law:



1
det
ut Kcp et
etdt Tdp
:
Tip
dt
In many literature, this is also known as the ideal
type. For the sake of simplicity, the paper will only
focus on this basic structure without considering other
minor structural modications for derivative ltering,
set-point weighting, etc.
The parallel type can be shown diagrammatically as in
Fig. 1. It is the one normally described in text books and
the more general one functionally, compared to the series type of PID controller. The main characteristic for
the parallel type is that the P, I and D parts are separated and connected in parallel. This type is less commonly seen in industrial process controllers until more
recent years. The reason for this is that this conguration was dicult to design using pneumatic controllers
due to the requirement for more analog ampliers
which were very expensive at that time. Traditionally,
this type has not been adopted, even though it is just as
easy to implement as the other designs in the modernmicrocomputer based controllers. However, this type is
becoming more and more commonly used in modern
control systems.
2.2. Series type
The series type is still the most common type in
industrial process controllers. It is given by the
equations:
e1 t et Tds


Fig. 1. Structure of parallel.

ut Kcs

det
dt

1
e1 t
Tis


e1 tdt :

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

This structure can be described diagrammatically as

in Fig. 2. In the series type, the I and D parts are not
independent as in the parallel type, but the I part works
on both the error and the derivative part. The controller
may be regarded as a series connection of a PI and a PD
controller.
The series and parallel types of controller are therefore often also known as interacting and non-interacting
types, respectively. By using the interacting form, a
three-term controller can be made with only one amplier. Thus, pneumatic controllers and early electronic
controllers often used the interacting form to save on
ampliers which were expensive at the time. Some
manufacturers deliberately use the interacting form in
their digital algorithms in order to keep tuning similar
to the tuning of electronic and pneumatic analog
controllers.
Other PID controller structures have been proposed
in the literature, each suitable for a specic requirement.
For interests, the readers may refer to [1216].
3. Proposed on-line identication of the PID controller
In this section, the new proposed on-line PID controller identication method will be systematically
described in details.
3.1. Conguration
The conguration of the proposed on-line identication method is given in Fig. 3. Essentially, in this conguration, the relay is applied to an inner control loop
comprising of the controller and the process, where the
transfer function of the inner loop is given by
Gc sGp s
Gyr s
;
1 Gc sGp s


Gcp s Kcp


1
Tdp s ;
1
Tip s



1
Gcs s Kcs 1
1 Tds s:
Tis s

485

2
3

This conguration has been applied in the development of a robust on-line relay automatic tuning method
for general control applications. The developed on-line
tuning method has been eective against many constraints of the basic relay autotuning method (as
explained in [11]), and it retains the simplicity of the
original method. A rich set of examples, where the online tuning method is more eective than the o-line
one, is documented in [11] (including the performance
under dierent kinds of disturbances). The parallel type
PID controller considered in [11] may be designed based
on a direct or an indirect approach. In the direct
approach, the control gains are tuned directly based on
frequency response information obtained from the
experiment so that the actual closed-loop behaviour
approaches the desired one. In the indirect approach,
the process is approximated by a model and the parameters of the model are obtained from the signals
resulting from the proposed conguration. The controller is subsequently designed based on the process
model. In Section 5 of this paper, the corresponding
tuning rules for the series type will be provided for both
approaches.
In this section, the application of the conguration of
Fig. 3 for PID control structure and parameter identication will be elaborated. To this end, we consider the
following two cases.
3.2. Case I: PID structure unknown; PID parameters
known

where Gc s denotes the PID controller during the tuning process, and depending on its structure, may be
described by the following transfer functions (2) or (3).

If the system settles in a steady-state limit cycle oscillation at frequency !u , Gc j!u can be obtained from
amplitude and phase response considerations in the
usual manner. It then follows that multiple points of the

Fig. 2. Structure of series type.

Fig. 3. Conguration of proposed identication method.

486

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

frequency response of Gc s may be obtained from the

oscillating signals from relay tuning. Since the oscillations are periodic, Fourier or spectral analysis may be
eciently applied to whole cycles of the periodic signals
e2 and u2 to yield good estimates of Gc j! at odd multiples of the fundamental frequency, i.e. at ! k!u ,
k 1; 3; 5; . . ..
Tu

u2 te

jk!u t

e2 te

jk!u dt

Gc jk!u 0Tu
0

dt

; k 1; 3; 5; . . . ;

where Tu !2u is the period of the stationary oscillations. If there are 2n samples, where n is an integer, the
Fourier transforms can be eciently computed using
the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm [17] as
Gc jk!u

FFTu2
:
FFTe2

Since the signals concerned here are periodic at steady

state, the empirical transfer function estimates thus
obtained will exhibit good statistical properties, and
they will be robust to noise if suciently large number
of samples are used relative to the signal-noise-ratio
(SNR). This is the main appeal of FFT which has
resulted in it being one of the most practically useful
tools in control system analysis and design.
The approach here to identify PID structure is to
compute the PID parameters corresponding to the different structures considered. The correct structure is
then identied by comparing the computed parameters
with the known parameters. The parameter estimation
formulas are given below for the two congurations
under consideration.
3.2.1. Parallel type
Assuming the PID controller is of the parallel type.
From (2), we obtain the frequency response of the controller at these points as

G~ c jk!u Kcp 1


1
jTdp k!u ;
jTip k!u

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1;

where Kcp , Tip and Tdp are the control parameters to be

determined. This may be re-written as:

G~ c jk!u Kcp j Kcp Tdp k!u
k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n


Kcp
;
Tip k!u
7

Dene, !, a measure of the mismatch between

Gc j! and G~ c j! as

G~ c j!:

! Gc j!

A suitable loss function is then given by:

X

k!u 2 ; k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n 1:
J

A direct way of determining the unknown structure of

the controller will be to compute the loss functions Jp
and Js corresponding to the parallel and series structure
with the known parameters. The structure yielding the
smaller J will be identied as the correct structure. An
alternative method proposed here would be to compute
the PID parameters for both structures and compare
these parameters with the known values. The latter
method is useful when the known PID parameters are
inaccurate, especially for analog PID controllers. This
method yields the structure as well as the actual PID
parameters in force.
The PID parameter set will be computed so that !
is a minimum in the least squares sense. Minimising
Re j! and Im j!, respectively, we obtain
P
ReGc jk!u
k
Kcp
; k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n 1:
10
n
and
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4

!
..
.

1
!

k!
..
.
2n 1!
2

1
k!

..
.
..
.

1
2n 1!

7
7
7"
#
7 Kcp Tdp
7
7
Kcp
7
Tip
7
7
5

3
ImGc j!
7
6
..
7
6
.
7
6
7
6
7;
6
Im
G

jk!

c
7
6
7
6
..
7
6
.
5
4
ImGc j2n 1!

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

11

Eq. (7) has been posed in the linear regression form.

Least squares solutions for the remaining two parameters may be computed non-iteratively as:
Kcp
Tip P
k

P
2

k2 !u


P
k

k2 !2u

P
k


1
k2 !2u

1
k!u ImGc jk!u n

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

P
k

k!u ImGc jk!u

12

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

and

where
P

Tdp

1
k2 !2u

P
k

P
k!u ImGc jk!u n k!1 u ImGc jk!u
k


;
P 2 2P 1
2
k !u k2 !2 n
Kcp
k

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

14

This may be re-written as


 
Tds
~
Gc jk!u Kcs 1
j Kcs Tds k!u
Tis
k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n


Kcs
;
Tis k!u

15

Following the same computations as for the parallel

type of PID control, the various control parameters are
computed as follows:
2

q
22 41
2
Kcs

Tis P
k

k2 !2u

P
k

16


P
k

P
2

k2 !u


1
k2 !2u

n2

1
k!u ImGc jk!u n

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

k!u ImGc jk!u

17

X
X
k2 !2u ImGc jk!u
k


X
n k!u ImGc jk!u
k

X

13

3.2.2. Series type

The frequency response of a series type PID controller
at odd multiples of !u is given by:


1
~
1 jTds k!u ;
Gc jk!u Kcs 1
jTis k!u

1

n Represents the number of frequencies estimated of

the controller frequency response. While a large n
means more data points available for the least squares
estimation of the control, it also implies correspondingly a larger amount of computational eort. Furthermore, in practice, most systems are low-pass in nature,
so the amplitude of high frequency signals may be attenuated signicantly and the signalnoise ratio (SNR)
become lower. It is recommended tox an upper bound
for k at empirically k 5, i.e. n 3.

Kcs

487

1
k2 !2u

X
k

P
k

1
k!u

k!u ImGc jk!u

 P
P
ImGc jk!u =
k2 !2u k21!2
k

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

P
2

2
n2 ;

1:

ReGc jk!u
n

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

20

3.3. Case II: both PID parameters and structure

unknown
In certain scenarios, both parameters and structure of
the PID controller may be unknown which makes the
identication more dicult. For analog version of PID
controllers, even if the parameters are known, they
often become largely inaccurate with time due to aging
and wear of components. In these cases, it is still necessary to rst identify the parameters before the structure.
After the structure and parameters are identied, the
control dials/knobs can then be calibrated to reect the
actual control parameters.
In this section, a systematic method is developed to
obtain both the parameters and structure of controller
in two phases of the experiment. In the initial phase, the
derivative part is disabled, and the other two parameters
are identied in the usual way. The remaining unknown
D parameter and the controller structure are subsequently obtained in the second phase of the experiment.
3.3.1. Phase I: identication of Kc and Ti
With the D part disabled (Td 0), both parallel and
series types are similar in structure. We refer to this
common structure as:


1
Gc s Kc 1
Ti s

21

and
P
Tds

1
k2 !2u

P
k

P
k!u ImGc jk!u n k!1 u ImGc jk!u
k


;
P 2 2P 1
k !u k2 !2 n2
Kcs
k

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

We obtain Kc and Ti in the same way as described in

Section 3.2 as
P

18

Kc

ReGc jk!u
n

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

22

488

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

Kc
P

Ti

1
k!u

P
k

1
k2 !2u

ImGc jk!u

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:
23

3.3.2. Phase II: identication of Td and control structure

After Kc and Ti are identied, the D part is reconnected and the experiment repeated. We further divide
this phase into two parts.
3.3.2.1. Computation of Td. The main idea here is based
on the observation that the frequency response of both
the parallel and series types of PID share the same
imaginary portion [see (7) and (14)]. Using the same
denition of ! Gc j!G c j!, Td may thus be computed such that Im! is a minimum in the least
squares sense. It may be directly shown that Td can be
estimated as
P
Td


k!u


Kc
ImGc jk!u
Ti k!u
P 2 2
;
Kc k !u
k

k 1; 3; 5; . . . ; 2n

1:

depend on the type of disturbance present. The robustness of the controller is also related to the demand for
speed. Robustness means the sensitivity to variations in
the process dynamics. Controllers which are tuned to
give fast control are usually more sensitive to variations
in the process than controllers which are more conservative in their settings.
In some cases, it is important to tune the controller
such that there is no overshoot; in some cases, a slow
and smooth response is desired; some cases warrant fast
response and signicant oscillations are no problem.
The point is, the denition of good control depends on
specic requirements.
4.2. Benchmark against frequency response prototype
If a desired frequency response prototype [i.e. G yr j!]
is available, assessment of control performance in terms
of speed and stability can be made with reference to this
specication.
A suitable stability measure is


Gyr j!u 
:
 
25

G yr j!u 

24

3.3.2.2. Identification of structure. At this point of

experimentation, Kc , Ti and Td of the PID controller are
all known. We can construct the controller in parallel
and series form with these parameters. Using the measure of the total residual errors as in (9), we may compute J for both the parallel and series type structure and
identify the structure with the smaller J.
4. Assessment of control performance
In this section, we present guidelines on the evaluation of control performance against user specications,
from the same information available from the on-line
identication experiment.
4.1. Common control tuning criteria
The design objectives or the way the controller is
expected to function naturally depends on the application in point. The general dilemma faced in controller
tuning is the compromise between the desire for speed
versus the desire for stability. Fast control is usually
accompanied by poor stability and oscillations. A step
change in the set point may well result in a severe overshoot. On the other hand, very stable control without
overshoot is usually achieved at the expense of a more
sluggish response to set point changes and load disturbances. The solution to this compromise may also

Typically, the stability of the closed-loop system will

satisfy the specication if 41.
A suitable measure of speed is:
h   

i
arg G yr j!u
26
arg Gyr j!u =:
Note that, typically, the speed requirement is met if
50.
We will use these guidelines in the on-line assessment
of PID controllers in the following sections.
5. On-line PID tuning rules
In this section, two simple and eective tuning methods are proposed for PID controllers, whichever structure it takes. The rst is a direct tuning method based
on desired frequency response prototype, G yr . The second is an indirect method which rst yields a process
model from the on-line relay experiment. Many methods are available to subsequently tune PID controllers
based on the explicit process model.
5.1. Direct method
5.1.1. Parallel type
If the system settles in a steady-state limit cycle oscillation at frequency !u , then Gyr j!u can be obtained
from amplitude and phase response considerations in

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

the usual manner. It then follows that one point of the

frequency response of Gp j! may be obtained at !
!u as
Gp j!u

Gyr j!u


Gc j!u 1 Gyr j!u

27

Let the frequency response prototype at the frequency

!u be denoted by G yr j!u . The desired frequency
response of the controller at this frequency to achieve
this specication is thus given by
G c j!u

G yr j!u


Gp j!u 1 G yr j!u

28

The new gains Kcp , Tip and Tpd of the controller Gc s

may thus be chosen so that Gc j! G c j! for ! !u .
Note that we have one more unknown (3) than the
number of real equations (2). Thus, we may, in addition, choose Tip and Tdp subject to the heuristic rule
Tdp 0:25 Tip as suggested in [3].
The desired controller frequency response G c j!u
may then be derived from Gyr j!u and G yr j!u as


G yr j!u 1 Gyr j!u Gc0 j!u



Gc j!u
Gyr j!u 1 G yr j!u

29

Using the PID controller with Tdp 0:25 Tip , Gc j!

may be written as
Gc j!u

Kcp 0:5Tip j!u 1

Tip j!u

2

Matching Gc j!u and G c j!u we will obtain



 c j!u
=2

arg
G
2
Tip
tan
2
!u

30

31

and
Kcp





Tip !u G c j!u 
0:25T2ip !2u 1

32

5.1.2. Series type

The parameters of the series type may be obtained
following the similar procedures as the parallel type.
Choosing Tds 0:25 Tis , the result is

489

q
2 argG c j!u 
6:25!2u 4!2u tan2
2
Tis
2 argG
 c j!u 
2
!u tan
2

2:5!u

33

and




Tis !u G c j!u 
Kcs qq :
T2is !2u 1 0:0625T2is !2u 1

34

5.2. Indirect method

In the indirect method, the process is rst tted to a
transfer function model using parameter estimation
approaches on the relay-induced oscillation signals. In
process control, the following transfer function has been
known to work well in many cases of applications [2
7,9]:
G~ p s

kp
e
1 s

sL

35

Based on this model, the controller may be designed.

There are an abundance of PID controller tuning algorithms developed based on this model, including the
pole-placement method [18], the frequency response
shaping method [19,20], and more recently, an optimal
design method based on a generalised predictive control
approach [8]. With reference to Fig. 3, if u2 and y are
measurable, the parameters of G~ p s may be directly
computed (5). If only r and y are measurable, the following formulas may be used instead. The formulas for
the parallel type of PID have been reported in [11]. They
are included here for completeness sake.
5.2.1. Parallel type
From (29) and (30),


arg Gc j!u Gp j!u


Gc j!u Gp j!u 

;

36

1
:
ku 1

37

With Gca as in (4), it may be directly shown that

Kcp kp 1 sTip s2 Tip Tdp
~
Gc sGp s
e sL :
38
sTip 1 s
Matching Gc j!G~ p j! to Gc j!Gp j! at the frequency ! !u , we obtain
1
!u
!u
 arctan arctan
2
1
2

arctan !u r

!u L 0;
39

490

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

s
!2u  2 1



:
ku 1Kcp kp !u Ti
2
!u 21 !2u 22

where 1 , 2

Tip 

2
Tip 4Tip Tdp

2Tip Tdp

40

6.1. Example 1: PID structure unknown; PID

parameters known

Thus  and L may be obtained as

q




Kcp kp ku 1 !2u 21 !2u 22

;
!2u Tip
L

1
2

arctan !1u arctan !2u

Consider the process:

41

arctan !u 

!u

42

The process steady state gain kp is assumed to be

known, or it can be obtained from a separate step
experiment or a static Fourier analysis on the process
input and output signals as
tTu

kp ttTu
t

ytdt
rtdt

43

5.2.2. Series type

For the series type structure of (3), (38) can be rewritten as
Kcs kp 1 sTi 1 sTds
e
Gc sG~ p s
sTis 1 s

sL

44

Matching Gc j!G~ p j! to Gc j!Gp j! at the frequency ! !u , we obtain

1
2  arctan !u Tis arctan !u Tds

arctan !u 

!u L 0
45

s
!2u  2 1




ku 1Kcs kp !u Tis
!2u T2is 1 !2u T2ds 1

46

Thus,  and L may be obtained as

 Kcs kp ku 1Tds
1

L2

demonstrated, using various kinds of processes. The

eects of noise and disturbance will also be discussed in
this section.

 arctan !u Tis arctan !u Tds

!u

47
arctan !u 
48

6. Simulation
In this section, the practical appeal and other useful
characteristics of the identication method will be

G p s

1
e
s 1 2

49

Assume also the following parallel type PID controller has already been commissioned and is in force:


1
0:9167s :
50
Gc s 1:2 1
2:4s
Assume further the PID parameters are known, but
the structure of this controller is to be determined.
From the on-line relay experiment, the input and output
signals of the controller are obtained and shown in Fig.
4. If the parallel type is assumed, (9)(12) yield the PID
parameters as Kcp 1:2151, Tip 2:4273 and
Tdp 0:9056. If the series type is assumed, (15)(17)
yield Kcs 1:67, Tis 3:33 and Tds 0:649. Thus, the
parallel structure is correctly identied.
6.2. Example 2: identication under noisy measurements
Consider the same process:
G p s

1
e
s 1 2

51

under closed-loop control using the following series type

PID controller:


1
1 0:7s:
52
Gc s 1:2 1
2:1s
The signals obtained from on-line relay experiment
are shown in Fig. 5. White noise with power density of
0.1 is added to the process measurements to simulate the
eects of noisy measurements. Assuming the PID
structure is of the parallel type, we obtain from (9)(12),
Kcp 1:56, Tip 3:00 and Tdp 0:492. Assuming the
series conguration instead, we obtain from (15)(17),
Kcs 1:238, Tis 2:38 and Tds 0:62. Comparing with
the known values, the series conguration is thus correctly identied despite the noisy measurements.
6.3. Example 3: both PID structure and parameters are
unknown
Consider the process:

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

Gp s

1:2e 10s
;
5s 12:5s 1

53

and assume the following parallel type PID controller

has been commissioned and in force


1
4:077s ;
54
Gc s 0:771 1
16:31s

491

Both PID structure and parameters are assumed

unknown in this example. The rst phase of the experiment is carried out with the D part of the controller
turned o. The PI controller is identied according to
(22),(23) as

Gc s 0:771 1


1
;
15:45s

Fig. 4. On-line identication experiment: unknown structure only.

Fig. 5. On-line identication experiment: unknown structure only and noisy measurements.

55

492

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

The signals concerned are shown in Fig. 6.

In the second phase, we reconnect the D part and
repeat the experiment. The signals are shown in Fig. 7.
From (22), we obtain Td 3:9. With all three parameters, we construct the PID controller in both parallel
and series form, and compute the corresponding performance index J. For the parallel structure, J 0:0101
and for the series structure, J 0:1330. The parallel
structure is correctly identied.

6.4. Example 4: PID assessment and direct autotuning

In this example, we will demonstrate how to assess
and tune (direct method) the controller within one single on-line experiment when only r and y are accessible.
Consider the following process:
G p s

1
e s:
s 1 2

Fig. 6. On-line identication experiment unknown PID structure and parameters; Td disabled.

Fig. 7. On-line identication experiment unknown PID structure and parameters; Td enabled.

56

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

The parallel type PID controller used is



1
0:55s :
Gc s 2 1
3:559s

57

From the rst closed-loop step response, we can see

this controller is not well tuned. The stablity performance is poor; it takes several oscillations for system to

493

reach the steady state. The on-line relay experiment

begins at t 40s, the assessment factors are now calculated from the limit cycles as  2:5 and 0:1
(G j! 0:12 0j). The controller is retuned and the
parameters calculated from (37) and (38) as


1
Gc s 0:62 1
0:275s ;
58
1:1s

Fig. 8. PID controller assessment and auto-tuning (direct method).

Fig. 9. PID controller assessment and auto-tuning (indirect method)

494

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

The more stable subsequent performance is shown in

Fig. 8. We calculate the new assessment factors as  1
and 0.
6.5. Example 5: PID assessment and indirect autotuning
Consider the same process and original controller as
previous example, the control tuning method is applied
which yields the process model as
G~ p s

1
e
1 1:778s

1:5007s

59

The optimal PI tuning method via a GPC approach

[8] is applied based on this model.With the controller
accordingly commissioned, a setpoint change occurs at
t 80s. The good subsequent control performance is
shown in Fig. 9. We calculate the new assessment factor
as  0:067 and 0:32.
7. Real-time experiment I
The proposed PID auto-tuning method is applied in a
real-time experiment to KI-100 Dual Process Simulator
from Kent Ridge Instruments. This is an analog process
simulator which can be congured to simulate a wide
range of industrial processes with dierent kinds of
dynamics and at dierent levels of noise. The simulator

is connected to a PC via an integrated ADDA and DSP

control board dSPACE DS1102. Simulink and RTW
Toolbox from Mathworks is the control development
platform. The sampling period used in the software is
0.001 s. The process used for real time experiment is
congured to:
Gp s

1
e
2s 12

1:00s

60

From the rst closed-loop step response, we can see

this controller is not well tuned. The stablity performance is poor; it takes several oscillations for system to
reach the steady state. The on-line relay experiment
begins at t=160 s, the assessment factors are now calculated from the limit cycles as  2:5 and 0:1
(G j! 0:2 0j). Following the same procedure as
in Example 3, the structure and parameters of the PID
controller are correctly identied as follows:


1
Gc s 1:536 1
0:52s :
61
2:06s
The controller is retuned and the more optimal set of
control parameters calculated from (37) and (38) as,

Gc s 0:768 1

Fig. 10. Real-time experiment.


1
0:519s :
2:074s

62

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

495

The improved subsequent performance is shown in

Fig. 10.
8. Real-time experiment II

Fig. 11. Coupled-tanks system.

The proposed PID auto-tuning method is also applied

to a coupled-tanks system (Fig. 11). Water from a
reservoir ows into the second tank via the rst through
a proportional valve and subsequently back to the
reservoir through a drainage pipe. The control objective
is to control the water level in the second tank to a prespecied level. The coupled-tanks system is connected to
a PC via an A/D and D/A board. DSPACE is the control development platform used. The sampling period
used in the software is 0.001 s.
In the initial part of the experiment from t 0 to
t 70, the proposed relay tuning method is conducted

Fig. 12. Real-time experiment results.

496

K.K. Tan et al. / Journal of Process Control 11 (2001) 483496

which yields stable limit cycle oscillations as shown in

Fig. 12. The PID controller is identied correctly as:
1
Gc s 1 0:25s:
s
The direct control tuning method based on multiple
points is adopted to tune the controller. The tuned PID
controller is given by:


1
Gc s 2:36 1
1:05s :
4:2s
A setpoint change occurs at t 130. The good tracking performance of the control system is given in Fig. 12.
9. Conclusion
We have developed a relay-based method for on-line
identication of PID control structure, assessment of
PID performance and autotuning of the PID parameters, all within a single experiment carried out in the
closed-loop without detaching the controller from the
process at all time. Several simulation examples and a
real-time experiment are conducted to highlight the
principles of the approach and to illustrate the practical
appeal of the proposed method.
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