CONTROL OF DC MOTORS USING PROPORTIONAL

INTEGRAL SLIDING MODE

Ali J. Koshkouei and Keith J. Burnham
Control Theory and Applications Centre, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK
Keywords: DC motors, sliding mode control, PID controllers,
PI sliding mode control
Abstract
This paper presents integral and proportional integral sliding
mode control (SMC) techniques for controlling the speed of
DC motors. The results show that integral and proportional
integral (PI) sliding mode controllers are the most suitable
controllers for speed/position control of a DC motor. In
particular, since SMC is robust in the presence of the matched
uncertainties, the desired speed or/and position is/are perfectly
tracked. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of
each method are studied. Since the main drawback of SMC is
a phenomenon, the so-called chattering, resulting from
discontinuous controllers, several methods are presented to
reduce chattering. The performance of the system with
integral and proportional integral SMCs is compared with the
responses of the system with PI/PID controllers.
1 Introduction
When there are disturbances and uncertainties in a system, an
appropriate control should be designed so that the system
stability and desired system responses are achieved. Sliding
mode control (SMC) is insensitive in the presence of external
uncertainties and disturbances, particularly, to the so-called
matched uncertainties. The robustness properties of SMC
have led this approach to be an intensive, popular and suitable
method for the control of wide classes of linear and nonlinear
systems. Various SMC approaches have been evolved during
the last three decades comprising of practical implementation
of SMC [1]-[6] and theory development of SMC [1, 2], [6]-
[10].
A SMC is designed so that the system trajectories move
onto a prespecified surface (sliding surface) in a finite time and
tends to an equilibrium point along this surface [9]. The
closed-loop dynamics are completely governed by sliding
surface equations as long as the system trajectories remain on
this surface. In fact, the system in the sliding mode has less
order than the original system except when a compensator is
designed for the sliding mode system. There are many
advantages for using SMC, including flexibility of design and
robustness [11, 12]. A robust stabilisation of uncertain systems
based on sliding surfaces and output feedback control schemes
have been studied through the development of a number of
algorithms [8].
PID controllers have a simple control structure,
inexpensive cost, many proposed systematic tuning methods,
and have been used for more than half a century. However,
when the system is nonlinear but known or where there are
bounded uncertainties in the system, PID controllers are not
perfectly able to stabilise the system, particularly, when the
nonlinearity is very high or the bound of uncertainty is large.
In many practical problems, almost perfect disturbance
rejection or control performance is required. SMCs may be
applied to the system to obtain these performances. Note that
a bang-bang control is a variable structure control (VSC), but
is not usually considered as an SMC. An SMC enforces the
system trajectories to move on a prespecified surface and
remain on it thereafter. On the other hand, a discontinuous
SMC may be approximated by a continuous control. In fact,
the trajectories tend to an equilibrium point within a
boundary of the sliding surface. When the trajectories move
on the sliding surface, the system is internally controlled by a
virtual control, the so-called equivalent control [9]. As
already stated, SMCs are insensitive in the presence of
uncertainties and unmodelled dynamics.
DC motors are extensively used in robotics, actuators and
electrical equipment. Therefore, the control of the position
or/and speed of a DC motor is an important issue and has been
studied since the early decades in the last century. Extensive
use of DC motors is arisen from the controllability of their
speed and their compatibility with the new
electronic/mechanical equipments such as digital system sets.
In this paper PID, classical SMC and proportional
integral sliding (PISMC) for control of DC motor are
considered and the system responses are compared when PID
controllers are applied to the system. In this study, PID/PI
controllers are selected because the cost of implementation is
inexpensive and they are widely used in industry. A PID/PI
controller also has a simple control law and its action can be
mathematically analysed, particularly robustness against small
plant perturbation. SMC methods yield nonlinear controllers
which are robust against unmodelled dynamics and, internal
and external perturbations.
A PISMC has many advantages in comparison with a
classical SMC including (i) an extra design parameter
allowing further freedom for designing a PISMC; (ii) the
tracking of the desired signals can also be improved using
these controllers. The design procedure of a PISMC is as
follows: First a PI sliding surface is selected and then a
controller is designed so that the system output tracks the
reference signal. The results obtained with PISMC are
compared with the traditional sliding mode and PID
controllers. The advantages and limitations of each method
are discussed. Moreover, the mathematical analysis of
PISMC is mostly straightforward.
2 SMC design
In this section, the design process of sliding mode controllers
for a linear system with matched uncertainties is described.
Consider the system
x Ax Bu f(t, x) = + + (1)
where
n
x R e is the state,
n n
A R

e ,
n m
B R

e and
1 m
u R

e is
the control input.
1
( , )
n
f t x R

e
is the disturbance input or
unmodelled dynamic term. It is assumed that there exists
1
( , )
m
g t x R

e such that ( , ) f(t, x) Bg t x = (matching condition),
n m > and B is full rank. Define the sliding function as
C x

= where
m n
C R

e and det( ) 0 C B

= . The
sliding mode control

( )
1
( ) sgn( )
l n
u u u C B C Ax K

= + = + (2)
where
( )
1 2
diag , , ,
m
K K K K

= with sufficiently large

positive elements and
1 2
sgn( ) sgn( ) sgn( ) sgn( )
T
m
=

enforces the movement of the system trajectories onto a

sliding surface in a finite time and guarantees the trajectories
remain on this surface thereafter.
The sliding mode reaching condition 0
T
< is fulfilled if
the gain matrix K is selected with a sufficiently large norm.
The ideal sliding mode occurs if 0 = and 0 = . Then
substituting (1) in 0 = yields the equivalent control
1
( ) u u C B C Ax
eq l

= =
The system in the sliding mode (the reduced-order system) is
obtained by substituting
eq
u
in (1)

( )
1
( ) x I B C B C Ax

= (3)
The m eigenvalues of
1
( ) I B C B C

are zero and

C
is
selected such that the n-m remaining eigenvalues lie in the left
half-plane. If the reduced order system (3) is stable then the
stability of the original system (1) is guaranteed. Therefore,
this selection is required for stability of the original system
(1).
The sliding mode control is insensitive to matched
uncertainties. In fact, the matched disturbances do not affect
the system in the sliding mode (3). A drawback of SMC is the
chattering resulting from discontinuous control. There are
many methods to reduce the chattering including continuous
approximations. One can consider the following continuous
approximation for the nonlinear term of the control

, 0 1, 1,
i
ni i
i i
u K i m

= < < =
+

(4)
where
ni
u indicates the i-th element of the vector control
input [2]. Another suitable continuous approximation is

1 if
( ) if | |
-1 if
i i
ni i i i i i
i i
u K



>

= s

<

(5)
where
i
is a small positive real number and ( )
i i
is a
continuous function crossing the origin and at points
( , 1)
i
[2, 9]. A simple and suitable choice is
( )
i
i i
i
s

=
.
The dynamic sliding mode control (DSMC) is an alternative
method for reducing the chattering [13, 14]. The integral of
controller (2) with the nonlinear term (4) or (5) as a new
control, yields the dynamic behaviour. The system may be
stabilised via DSMC with an appropriate sufficient condition
[14].
3 PID controllers
PID controllers are dominant and popular and, have been
widely used since the 1940s because one can obtain the
desired system responses and it can control a wide class of
systems. This may lead to the thought that the PID controllers
give solutions to all requirements, but unfortunately, this is
not always true [15]. Tuning PID controllers have been a
challenging problem since its appearance (Ziegler-Nichols,
1942) in control engineering. Alternative tuning methods
have been recently presented including disturbance rejection
magnitude optimum [16, 17], pole placement and
optimization methods [18, 19]. These methods provide
relatively fast and non-oscillatory disturbance rejection
responses. In particular, these methods do not require any
additional tuning parameters.
General valuation and a design method to find the optimal
parameter setting for a controller of given structure has been
studied in [19]. In fact, for various plants optimal PI and PID
controllers are designed by optimising low frequency
performance. The trade-off between performance, robustness
and control activity is regarded an important issue which one
can select tuning parameters.
A method has been presented to find an optimal controller
for a practical definition of optimality which enables
highlighting the effects of the gain margin, complementary
sensitivity bound, low frequency sensitivity and high
frequency sensor noise amplification [19]. In this method, the
two parameters of PI controllers satisfying the constraints
correspond to a given domain in a plane. The optimal
controller lies on the curve. The design plot enables
identification of the PI controller for desired robust
conditions, and in particular, gives the PI controller for lowest
sensitivity. By applying this method, trade-off among high-
frequency sensor noise, low frequency sensitivity, gain and
phase margin constraints are also directly available.
The transfer function of a PID controller is given by

1
( ) (1 )
P D
I
K s K T s
T s
= + + (6)
where
P
K ,
P
I
K
T
and
P D
K T

represent the proportional,
integral and derivative gains of the controller, respectively.
Define
1
n
I D
T T
=
and
1
2
I
D
T
T
=
as the controllers natural
frequency and the damping coefficient, respectively. Then the
PID transfer function (6) can be written as


2 2
2
( )
2
n n
p
n
s s
K s K
s

+ +
=
(7)
3 PISMC design
Proportional integral sliding mode control (PISMC) is
basically obtained by adding an integral term to the sliding
function which provides an extra dynamic to the system and
more flexibility for tuning and obtaining desired performance.
PISMC is more general than the classical SMC or
proportional SMC (PSMC). If PSMC design is only required,
the integral term is excluded. In many cases, a PSMC may
yield desired system responses. Sometimes for obtaining the
desired performance, an integral SMC (ISMC) may be
required. However, the combination of PSMC and ISMC
benefits from the advantages of both approaches and may give
the desired system responses.
The sliding function is defined as
Cx P xdt

= +

(8)
where
m n
P R

e . Consider the system (1) with ( , ) 0 f t x =
and define the sliding surface
0 Cx P xdt

= + =

(9)
The gain matrix C is selected such that det( ) 0 CB = . Then
the equivalent control is

( ) ( )
1
eq
u CB CA P x

= + (10)
Now consider the Lyapunov function

1
2
T
V = (11)
Then

( )
T T
V C Ax Bu P x

= = + +

(12)
V

is negative definite if
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
1 2
sgn( )
T
n
C Ax t Bu t P x k k k

+ + s + + +


where 0, 1, ,
i
k i n > = . So the following control guarantees
the system trajectories reaches the sliding surface (8) in finite
time

( ) ( )
1
sign( ) u CB CA P x K s

= + +

(13)
where
( )
1 2
diag , , ,
n
K k k k = . The design matrices C and
P

can be selected so that the stability of the system in the

sliding mode is achieved whilst a suitable selection of the gain
matrix K ensures the sliding mode stability. Figure 1
presents the block diagram of a DC motor with a PISMC
system.
Figure1: The block diagram a DC motor with SMC system.
4 Model of a DC motor
DC motors are widely used in industrial and domestic
equipment. The control of the speed of a motor with high
accuracy is required. The electric circuit of the armature and
the free body diagram of the rotor are shown in Figure 2.
The controls for motors are position or/and speed controls. A
desired speed may be tracked when a desired shaft position is
also required. In fact, a single controller may be required to
control both the position and the speed. The reference signal
determines the desired position and/or speed. The controller
is selected so that the error between the system output and
reference signal eventually tends to its minimum value,
ideally zero. There are various DC motor types. Depending on
type, a DC motor may be controlled by varying the input
voltage whilst another motor only by changing the current
input.
Figure 2: The structure of a DC motor.
In this paper a DC motor is controlled via the input
voltage. The control design and theory for controlling a DC
motor via current is nearly the same. For simplicity, a
constant value as a reference signal is injected to the system to
obtain a desired speed/position. However, the method works
successfully for any reference signal, particularly for any
stepwise time-continuous function. This signal may be a
periodic signal or any signal to get a desired shaft position, i.e.
a desired angle between 0 and 360 degrees from a virtual
horizontal line.
The dynamics of a DC motor may be expressed as

a
a a a a b
T a
b b
dI
E R I L E
dt
d
T J B
dt
T K I
E K

= + +
= +
=
=
(14)
with the following physical parameters:
a
E : The input terminal voltage (source), (v);
SMC system
Reference
signal
Sliding
function
SMC
DC
Motor
+
Output

E
b
DC
Motor
Inertia
load J
T
Torque
Load
E
a
L
a
Damping B
R
a
b
E : The back emf, (v);
a
R : The armature resistance, (ohm);
a
I : The armature current (Amp);
a
L : The armature inductance, (H);
J : The moment inertial of the motor rotor and load,
(kg.m
2
/s
2
);
T : The motor torque, (Nm)
: The speed of the shaft and the load (angular velocity),
(rad/s);
: The shaft position, (rad);
B : The damping ratio of the mechanical system, (Nms);
T
K : The torque factor constant, (Nm/Amp);
b
K : The motor constant (v-s/rad).
Assume that
T b
K K K = = . A state space representation of
(14) is

0
1
a
a
a a
a
a a
B K
J J
E
R K I I
L
L L







= +

(15)
Let
=
1
x ,
2 a
x I = ,
1
B
a
J
= ,
2
K
a
J
= ,
3
a
K
a
L
= ,
4
a
a
R
a
L
= ,
1
a
b
L
= ,
a
u E =
Then the system (15) can be written as

1 1 1 2 2
2 3 1 4 4
1
x a x a x
x a x a x bu
y x
= +
= + +
=

(16)
where y is the output of the system. To obtain a simple
sliding mode system (the so-called reduced-order system), the
system (16) is converted to a canonical form. Obviously, the
results may be represented in terms of the actual physical
states of (15). To this end assume that

1 1
1 2
z x
z z
=
=
(17)
Then the system can be converted to a the following canonical
form

1 2
2 1 1 2 2
1
z z
z a z a z bu
y z
=
= + +
=

(18)
where
1 2 3 1 4
a a a a a = ,
2 1 2
a a a = + and
2
b a b =

. Select the
sliding surface

( )
1 2
0 c r z z = + = (19)
where 0 c < . The sliding mode control is
sgn ) u K ( = (20)
where 0 K > is selected sufficiently large to enforce the
system trajectory to remain on the sliding surface.
The equivalent control (the control during the sliding
mode) is then given by

( )
1 1 2 2
eq
a z c a z
u
b
+ +
=

(21)
When 0 = , ( )
2 1
z c r z = . The system in the sliding mode
is
( )
1 1
d
r z z
dt
= (22)
From (19) and (22)
( ) ( )
1 1
d
r z c r z
dt
= (23)
which represents the reduced-order system, and because
0 < c then this system is asymptotically stable, i.e.
1
lim
t
z r

= . Since
1
z = then lim
t
r

= .
The simulation results of the system (15) with control (20)
are shown in Figures 3 and 4. Figure 3 shows that the
response of the DC motor with SMC whilst Figure 4 depicts
the speed of the DC motor using the SMC and PID
controllers. Applying a PID controller to the system when
there is no disturbance, the output completely tracks the
desired speed, but with the traditional SMC, the speed
achieved is slightly lower than the desired speed. However,
the settling time for SMC is shorter (0.2 sec) than for PID (0.7
sec). There is no overshoot when SMC control is applied
whilst using PID controller, the speed significantly increases
during 0.2 and 0.4 period of time. To remove this obstacle the
PISMC is applied to the system.
Figure 3: The responses of the DC motor system (18) using
the SMC (20) without disturbance.
Figure 4: The output regulation for the DC motor (15) without
disturbance using PID controller and SMC.
The simulation result of applying the PID controller which
its parameters has been tuned, using the optimisation method,
are shown in Figure 5. The PID parameters are
8 1 25
I
K , T . = = and 0.18
D
T = . The simulation results (see
Figure 5) show the PID has been tuned with the following
specifications: (i) there is no overshoot; (ii) the steady state
error tends to zero; (iii) the rise time is minimised.
Figure 5: The responses of the closed-loop DC motor system
using a PID controller tuned by an optimisation technique.
Figures 6-8 show the system responses using a PID
controller and the classical SMC with matched disturbance.
SMC is insensitive against the (matched) disturbance and the
desired speed is obtained even in the presence of disturbance.
A well-tuned PID controller may reduce the affect of the
disturbance on the system. However, by applying PID
controllers, it is normally impossible to reject the disturbance
completely.
Figure 6: The phase plane, the disturbance and the sliding
function for the system.
5 Control of a DC motor with
disturbance using PISMC
Let
| |
1 2
P P P

= . Then the sliding surface (9) is

( ) ( )
1 2 1 1 2 2
( ) 0 c r z z p r z p z dt = + + + =

Consider sliding mode control is

sign( ) u K =
where K is sufficiently large positive real number.
The simulation results for PISMC when there is a random
disturbance in the system are shown in Figure 9. The results
show the exact speed is obtained when PISMC is used, and
the disturbance does not affect the speed. But when a PID
controller is applied the system with disturbance, the speed of
motor is not steady and oscillates around the desired speed.
Appropriate PID tuning can reduce this oscillation but it is
impossible to reject the disturbance completely.
Figure 7: The PID and SMC control actions for the DC motor
system.
Figure 8: The response of the DC motor with disturbance
using PID and SMC
Figure 9: The responses of the DC motor system with
disturbance using PID and PI sliding mode controllers.
6 Conclusions
SMC, PISMC and PID controllers have been considered in
this paper for controlling the speed/position of a DC motor. A
comparison method has been studied to show the relative
advantages and limitations of each method. PID controllers
are suitable if there is no disturbance in the system. However,
the settling time is longer than when SMC is applied to the
system. Using a PISMC the desired speed is obtained, whilst
when the SMC is used, the desired speed is tracked only if
one considers an SMC with very high gain. Moreover,
disturbances do not affect the system in the sliding mode.
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