Digital Control systems

Tanagorn Jennawasin
Department of Electrical Engineering
 Introduction
Digital control systems
= “Digital signals”+”Control systems”
 Continuous-time vs. Discrete-time
• Continuous-time signals
- defined over a continuous range of time
• Discrete-time signals
- defined only at discrete instants of time
- can be considered as a sequence of discrete values

CT signal DT signal
 Analog vs. Digital
• Analog signals
- continuous in both time and values
• Digital signals
- discrete-time signals with quantized values or finite-
precision values

Analog signal Digital signal

 Control Systems (1)
reference error control input output
r (t ) e (t ) u (t ) y(t )
System (plant) to be
Controller
+ controlled
-

Objective:
1) Closed-loop stable
2) Small steady-state error
3) Good transient response
4) Disturbance rejection
 Control Systems (2)

• Mathematical modeling
- Transfer functions or state-space representations

• Controller structure
- e.g. PID controllers, 1-st order controllers

• Design methods
- Root locus, Nyquist or Bode plots, pole placement,
etc.
 Digital Control Systems (1)
reference error output
Digital
A/D controller
D/A Plant
+
-

A/D Converter: change analog signal to digital signal

D/A Converter: change digital signal to analog signal
Digital controller: implemented in digital computers, or in
microprocessors
 Digital Control Systems (2)
Simplified version of a digital control systems
ZOH
r (t ) e(t ) Sampler u (t ) y(t )
C( z) Plant
+ T
-

Sampler:

Zero-order hold:

C ( z ) : Discrete-time controller to be designed

 Why Digital Control?
• Easy to implement complicated control algorithms
• Easy to modify the controller
• Controller parameters unchanged with variations in
environment
• Low cost, low weight, and low power dissipation
• High noise tolerance
Applications
 Disadvantages
• Sampling and quantization process will degrade system
performance
• Software errors
• Need power supply