Automa c control - Wikipedia h=ps://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Automa c_control

Automa c control
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Automa c control in engineering and technology is a wide generic

term covering the applica on of mechanisms to the opera on and
regula on of processes without con nuous direct human
interven on. #

It covers the range of applica on from a household thermostat

controlling a boiler, to a large industrial control system with tens of
thousands of input measurements and output control signals. In
control complexity it can range from simple on-o control to mul -
variable high level algorithms. Minimum human interven on is
required to control many large
In the simplest type of an automa c control loop, a controller facili es such as this electrical
compares a measured value of a process with a desired set value, genera ng sta on.
and processes the resul ng error signal to change some input to the
process, in such a way that the process stays at its set point despite
disturbances. This closed-loop control is an applica on of nega ve feedback to a system. The
mathema cal basis of control theory was begun in the 18th century, and advanced rapidly in the 20th.

Contents
1 Open-loop and closed-loop (feedback) control
2 Control ac ons
3 Discrete control (on/o)
4 PID controller
5 Programmable logic controller
6 Examples
7 History of automa c control
7.1 Early history
7.2 Industrial Revolu on in Europe
7.3 First and Second World Wars
7.4 Space/computer age
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading

Open-loop and closed-loop (feedback) control

Fundamentally, there are two types of control loop; open loop control, and closed loop (feedback) control.

In open loop control, the control ac on from the controller is independent of the "process output" (or
"controlled process variable"). A good example of this is a central hea ng boiler controlled only by a mer,
so that heat is applied for a constant me, regardless of the temperature of the building. (The control
ac on is the switching on/o of the boiler. The process output is the building temperature).

In closed loop control, the control ac on from the controller is dependent on the process output. In the
case of the boiler analogy this would include a thermostat to monitor the building temperature, and

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thereby feed back a signal to ensure the controller maintains the building at the temperature set on the
thermostat. A closed loop controller therefore has a feedback loop which ensures the controller exerts a
control ac on to give a process output the same as the "Reference input" or "set point". For this reason,
closed loop controllers are also called feedback controllers.[1]

The deni on of a closed loop control system according to the Bri sh Standard Ins tu on is 'a control
system possessing monitoring feedback, the devia on signal formed as a result of this feedback being used
to control the ac on of a nal control element in such a way as to tend to reduce the devia on to zero.' "
[2]

Likewise; "A Feedback Control System is a system which tends to maintain a prescribed rela onship of one
system variable to another by comparing func ons of these variables and using the dierence as a means
of control.'"[3]

The advanced type of automa on that revolu onized manufacturing, aircraE, communica ons and other
industries, is feedback control, which is usually con nuous and involves taking measurements using a
sensor and making calculated adjustments to keep the measured variable within a set range.[4] The
theore cal basis of closed loop automa on is control theory.

Control ac ons
The control ac on is the form of the controller output ac on.

Discrete control (on/o)

One of the simplest types of control is on-o control. An example is the thermostat used on household
appliances which either opens or closes an electrical contact. (Thermostats were originally developed as
true feedback-control mechanisms rather than the on-o common household appliance thermostat.)

Sequence control, in which a programmed sequence of discrete opera ons is performed, oEen based on
system logic that involves system states. An elevator control system is an example of sequence control.

PID controller
A propor onalintegralderiva ve
controller (PID controller) is a control
loop feedback mechanism (controller)
widely used in industrial control
systems.

A PID controller con nuously calculates

an error value as the dierence
between a desired setpoint and a A block diagram of a PID controller in a feedback loop, r(t) is the
measured process variable and applies desired process value or "set point", and y(t) is the measured process
a correc on based on propor onal, value.
integral, and deriva ve terms,
respec vely (some mes denoted P, I,
and D) which give their name to the controller type.

The theore cal understanding and applica on dates from the 1920s, and they are implemented in nearly
all analogue control systems; originally in mechanical controllers, and then using discrete electronics and
la=erly in industrial process computers.

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Programmable logic controller

PLCs can range from small "building brick" devices with tens of I/O
in a housing integral with the processor, to large rack-mounted
modular devices with a count of thousands of I/O, and which are
oEen networked to other PLC and SCADA systems.

They can be designed for mul ple arrangements of digital and

analog inputs and outputs (I/O), extended temperature ranges,
immunity to electrical noise, and resistance to vibra on and Example of 4-20 mA current loops as
impact. Programs to control machine opera on are typically stored used in industrial control schemes.
in ba=ery-backed-up or non-vola le memory.

It was from the automo ve industry in the USA that the PLC was
born. Before the PLC, control, sequencing, and safety interlock logic
for manufacturing automobiles was mainly composed of relays,
cam mers, drum sequencers, and dedicated closed-loop
controllers. Since these could number in the hundreds or even
thousands, the process for upda ng such facili es for the yearly
model change-over was very me consuming and expensive, as
electricians needed to individually rewire the relays to change their
opera onal characteris cs.

When digital computers became available, being general-purpose

programmable devices, they were soon applied to control
sequen al and combinatorial logic in industrial processes. However
these early computers required specialist programmers and
stringent opera ng environmental control for temperature,
cleanliness, and power quality. To meet these challenges this the
PLC was developed with several key a=ributes. It would tolerate the
shop-oor environment, it would support discrete (bit-form) input
and output in an easily extensible manner, it would not require Siemens Sima c S7-400 system in a
years of training to use, and it would permit its opera on to be rack, leE-to-right: power supply unit
monitored. Since many industrial processes have mescales easily (PSU), CPU, interface module (IM) and
addressed by millisecond response mes, modern (fast, small, communica on processor (CP).
reliable) electronics greatly facilitate building reliable controllers,
and performance could be traded o for reliability.[5]

Examples
Automa c control can self-regulate a technical plant (such as a machine or an industrial process) opera ng
condi on or parameters by the controller with minimal human interven on. A regulator such as a
thermostat is an example of a feedback controller. Another possible example of Automa c Control are the
ABS of a car.

History of automa c control

Early history

It was a preoccupa on of the Greeks and Arabs (in the period between about 300 BC and about 1200 AD)
to keep accurate track of me. In Ptolemaic Egypt, about 270 BC, Ctesibius described a oat regulator for a
water clock, a device not unlike the ball and cock in a modern ush toilet. The appearance of the

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mechanical clock in the 14th century made the water clock and its
feedback control system obsolete.

The Persian Ban Ms brothers, in their Book of Ingenious Devices (850

AD), described a number of automa c controls.[6] Two-step level controls
for uids, a form of discon nuous variable structure controls, was
developed by the Banu Musa brothers.[7] They also described a feedback
controller.[8][9]

Industrial Revolu on in Europe

Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine in 1713, and this date
marks the accepted beginning of the Industrial Revolu on; however, its
roots can be traced back into the 17th century. The introduc on of prime
movers, or self-driven machines advanced grain mills, furnaces, boilers,
and the steam engine created a new requirement for automa c control
systems including temperature regulators (invented in 1624 (see Cornelius Ctesibius's clepsydra (3rd
Drebbel)), pressure regulators (1681), oat regulators (1700) and speed century BC).
control devices. The design of feedback control systems up through the
Industrial Revolu on was by trial-and-error, together with a great deal of
engineering intui on. Thus, it was more of an art than a science. In the mid-19th century mathema cs was
rst used to analyze the stability of feedback control systems. Since mathema cs is the formal language of
automa c control theory, we could call the period before this me the prehistory of control theory.

First and Second World Wars

The First and Second World Wars saw major advancements in the eld of mass communica on and signal
processing. Other key advances in automa c controls include dieren al equa ons, stability theory and
system theory (1938), frequency domain analysis (1940), ship control (1950), and stochas c analysis (1941).

Space/computer age

With the advent of the space age in 1957, controls design, par cularly in the United States, turned away
from the frequency-domain techniques of classical control theory and backed into the dieren al
equa on techniques of the late 19th century, which were couched in the me domain. The modern era
saw me-domain design for nonlinear systems (1961), naviga on (1960), op mal control and es ma on
theory (1962), nonlinear control theory (1969), digital control and ltering theory (1974), and the personal
computer (1983).

See also
Control theory
Process control
Controller (control theory)
Control engineering
PID loop
VisSim
EICASLAB
Feedback
Feedforward Control

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References
1. "Feedback and control systems" - JJ Di Steano, AR Stubberud, IJ Williams. Schaums outline series,
McGraw-Hill 1967
2. Mayr, O=o (1970). The Origins of Feedback Control. Clinton, MA USA: The Colonial Press, Inc.
3. Mayr, O=o (1969). The Origins of Feedback Control. Clinton, MA USA: The Colonial Press, Inc.
4. Benne=, Stuart (1992). A history of control engineering, 1930-1955. IET. p. p. 48. ISBN
978-0-86341-299-8.
5. E. A. Parr, Industrial Control Handbook, Industrial Press Inc., 1999 ISBN 0-8311-3085-7
6. Ahmad Y Hassan, Transfer Of Islamic Technology To The West, Part II: Transmission Of Islamic
Engineering (h=p://www.history-science-technology.com/Ar cles/ar cles%2071.htm) Archived
(h=ps://web.archive.org/web/20080218171021/h=p://www.history-science-technology.com/Ar cles
/ar cles%2071.htm) 2008-02-18 at the Wayback Machine.
7. J. Adamy & A. Flemming (November 2004), "SoE variable-structure controls: a survey", Automa ca,
Elsevier, 40 (11): 18211844, doi:10.1016/j.automa ca.2004.05.017 (h=ps://doi.org
/10.1016%2Fj.automa ca.2004.05.017)
8. O=o Mayr (1970). The Origins of Feedback Control, MIT Press.
9. Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scien c American,
May 1991, p. 64-69.

Further reading
V. Gurevich "Electronic Devices on Discrete Components for Industrial and Power Engineering", CRC
Press, New York, 2008, 418 p.
Tang Bingxin "Fundamentals of Control Engineering", 37 p.
h=ps://web.archive.org/web/20100420113249/h=p://www.tpub.com/content/doe/h1013v2
/css/h1013v2_112.htm

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